Risk-reproduction cycles and risk positions in the social and geographical space

Kalliopi Sapountzaki

Journal of Risk Research, 2010, vol. 13, issue 4, 411-427

Abstract: The risk literature led by its protagonists Beck, Giddens, Luhmann and others has expanded its range of influence in social sciences. In present days, it is widely acknowledged that society and economy grow and develop by creating successive generations of risks. However, while the risk literature has been mostly preoccupied with the negative aspects of risk, the truth is that risks involve human intentions as well as positive expectations. This positive aspect of risk in the capitalist society has been acknowledged by liberal economics as early as the 1920s. The present work has a focused interest on the patterns and mechanisms of risk reproduction and diffusion in the context of the contemporary risk society and geographical space, in particular. It is also preoccupied with risk classes (or positions) and determinant factors. The author, by using the conceptual split between risks, dangers and uncertainties, identifies the standard successive stages of a risk-reproduction cycle, the social actors who govern and control risk processing, and those unprivileged who carry dangers and uncertainties. In addition, she weighs up the pros and cons of the various risk positions and comments on the likely 'risk- and danger-scapes' in social and geographical terms. The author shows risk-knowledge manufacturing as the principal mechanism of risk distribution and redistribution. The paper presents, in the end, an example of an urban area in Athens functioning as a magnet and incubator of the negative aspects of risks, that is dangers and threatening uncertainties, and explains how such places stand as victims of the adverse universal trend towards danger externalization.

Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1080/13669871003629838

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