Synopses & Reviews
Form nuclear power to food safety, scientific experts and members of the general public differ sharply on the assessment of risk. Is there any way to bridge the divide between these competing epistemologies? During recent years social theorists have begun to turn their attention to this perplexing issue and to examine what risk controversies might be able to tell us about the current phase of modernity. This volume consists of contributions by leading environmental sociologists who explore how sociological insights can help to inform environmental decision-making.
Synopsis
From a June-July 1997 workshop at Oxford, England, environmental sociologists look at the processes by which official experts and the general population come up with very different decisions about risk in such areas as nuclear power, genetic testing, food safety, and biodiversity. They explore the role of increasing individualization, emerging new social movements, and the declining public trust in public institutions. They hope to demonstrate the practical value of both the empirical American and theoretical European schools of the new discipline.
Synopsis
Assembles an eminent group of environmental sociologists to examine the changing role of science and rationality in mediating environmental conflicts.
About the Author
Maurie J. Cohen is Research Fellow in Environmental Risk at the Oxford Center for the Environment, Ethics and Society, Mansfield College.
Table of Contents
Part I: Introduction * Sociology, Social Theory, and Risk: An Introductory Discussion--Maurie J. Cohen *
Part II: Critiques of Risk and Rationality * The Rational Action Paradigm in Risk Theories: Analysis and Critique--Ortwin Renn, Carlo Jaeger, Eugene A. Rosa, & Thomas Webler * Menus of Choice: The Social Embeddedness of Decisions--Kristen Purcell, Lee Clarke, & Linda Renzulli *
Part III: Theoretical Extensions of the Risk Society * Dealing with Environmental Risks in Reflexive Modernity--Joris Hogenboom, Arthur P.J. Mol, & Gert Spaargaren * The Risk Society Reconsidered: Recreancy, The Division of Labor, and Risks to the Social Fabric--William R. Freudenburg *
Part IV: Empirical Assessments of Reflective Modernization * Outsiders Just Don't Understand: The Need for Contextual Inquiry about Life in the Contaminated World--Michael Edelstein * The
Exxon Valdez Disaster as Localized Environmental Catastrophe: Dis(similarities) to the Risk Society--J. Steven Picou & Duane Gill *
Part V: Risk and Environmental Decision-Making * Discovering and Inventing Extreme Environments: Sociological Knowledge and Publics at Risk--Stephen R. Couch, Steve Kroll-Smith, & Jeffrey Kindler * Scientific Evidence or Lay People's Experience? On Risk and Trust with Regard to Modern Environmental Threats--Rolf Lidskog * Taming Risks Through Dialogue: The Social Function of Discursive Institutions in Late Modernity--Klaus Eder *
Part VI: Conclusion * A Historical Perspective on Risk--David Lowenthal