Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Current Sociology
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Wilkinson, I.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Social Theories of Risk Perception: At Once Indispensable and Insufficient

Iain Wilkinson

This article provides a critical comparative review of Ulrich Beck's and Mary Douglas's social theories of risk. The author is particularly concerned to highlight the partiality of their favoured renditions of the social reality of risk perception in relation to the accumulated evidence of empirical research. Their contrasting (and opposing) conceptions of the social processes through which people may negotiate the meaning of `hazard' in terms of `risk' are presented as ideal-types which are both indispensable and insufficient for explaining the cultural complexity of this phenomenon. Moreover, insofar as the lived experience of complexity may be made the object of sociological concern, it is suggested that we might be in a better position to evaluate the cultural significance of risk as a product of this experience.

Key Words: Beck • complexity • Douglas • risk perception • social theory

Current Sociology, Vol. 49, No. 1, 1-22 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/0011392101049001002
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Current SociologyHome page
M. Jensen and A. Blok
Pesticides in the Risk Society: The View from Everyday Life
Current Sociology, September 1, 2008; 56(5): 757 - 778.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Current SociologyHome page
G. Mythen
Reappraising the Risk Society Thesis: Telescopic Sight or Myopic Vision?
Current Sociology, November 1, 2007; 55(6): 793 - 813.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Br J CriminolHome page
D. Chadee, L. Austen, and J. Ditton
The Relationship Between Likelihood and Fear of Criminal Victimization: Evaluating Risk Sensitivity as a Mediating Concept
Br. J. Criminol., January 1, 2007; 47(1): 133 - 153.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]