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MANAGEMENT OF RISK IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Almost every decision a person makes involves some weighing up of the odds of success or failure and risk has become a popular area of sociological debate. Laurie Taylor talks to some delegates at the British Sociology Association's conference in York to find out what aspects of risk they've been discussing.
Dr Iain Wilkinson, Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent is concerned about people's experience and response to their knowledge of risk, crisis and disaster.
His current research can be referred to as a sociology of suffering; it explores how individuals and societies cope under the effort to make the lived reality of human suffering productive for thought and action and the ways in which the problem of suffering amounts to a force of cultural innovation and social change.
The orthodox view that marriage acts as a protection against risk has significantly changed since the post-war era. Both men and women now expect the woman in a marriage to do some paid work. This challenges the traditional model of marriage where the man is the sole breadwinner and some economists believe that it also makes women more likely to exit form marriage and make people more likely to behave in an individualistic and selfish way.
In her book The End of Marriage: Individualism and Intimate Relations Professor Jane Lewis, from the London School of Economics, questioned the idea that individualism is necessarily selfish and destructive. Her current research suggests that financial independence is what allows women to take the risk of entering a relationship.
Laurie Taylor talks to Professor Jane Lewis about her study which found that there was no perception that either cohabitation or marriage was an inherently riskier enterprise than the other.
The media are most interested in grabbing a mundane idea and substantiating it with scientific authority. Scientific evidence lends authority to an idea even though disagreements within the scientific community on the validity of the evidence are never highlighted by the media.
David Denney is professor of Social and Public Policy at Royal Holloway, University of London and the author of a forthcoming book called Risk and Society. Laurie Taylor is joined by Professor Denney to discuss how perception of risk erodes the public's trust in professionals such as doctors and what it means to live in a risk society.
Additional information:
Dr Iain Wilkinson
Lecturer in Sociology, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent
and Convenor of British Sociological Association Risk & Society Study Group
Risk, Vulnerability and Everyday Life
Publisher: London: Routledge
(2006 forthcoming)
Suffering: A Sociological Introduction
Publisher: Polity Press
ISBN: 0745631975
Anxiety in a Risk Society
Publisher: Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Lt
ISBN: 0415226805
Paper:
The Problem of Social Suffering: The Challenge to Social Science
Health Sociology Review
Vol. 13(2): 1-15
Book Chapters:
Entries on 'Ulrich Beck', 'Risk' and 'Reflexivity'
in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Social Theory
A. Harrington, B. Marshall and H. P. Muller (eds)
Routledge (2005 forthcoming)
The Psychology of Risk
in Beyond the Risk Society: Critical Reflections on Risk and Human Security
G. Mythen, and S. Walklate
Open University press/Mcgraw Hill
(2005 forthcoming)
Professor Jane Lewis
Professor of Social Policy, Social Policy Department, London School of Economics and Political Science
The End of Marriage?: Individualism and Intimate Relations
Publisher: Edward Elgar
ISBN: 1843761734
Professor David Denney
Professor of Social and Public Policy at Royal Holloway, University of London
Risk and Society
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
ISBN: 076194740X
(August 2005)
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