The Social and Cultural Construction of Risk: Essays on Risk Selection and Perception (Risk, Governance and Society Book 3)

The Social and Cultural Construction of Risk: Issues, Methods, and Case Studies Vincent T. Covello and Branden B. Johnson Risks to health, safety, and the environment abound in the world and people cope as best they can. But before action can be taken to control, reduce, or eliminate these risks, decisions must be made about which risks are important and which risks can safely be ignored. The challenge for decision makers is that consensus on these matters is often lacking. Risks believed by some individuals and groups to be tolerable or accept­ able - such as the risks of nuclear power or industrial pollutants - are intolerable and unacceptable to others. This book addresses this issue by exploring how particular technological risks come to be selected for societal attention and action. Each section of the volume examines, from a different perspective, how individuals, groups, communities, and societies decide what is risky, how risky it is, and what should be done. The writing of this book was inspired by another book: Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technoloqical and Environmental Dangers. Published in 1982 and written by two distinguished scholars - Mary Douglas, a British social anthropologist, and Aaron Wildavsky, an American political scientist - the book received wide critical attention and offered several provocative ideas on the nature of risk selection, perception, and acceptance. Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Risk and Relativism in Science for Policy....Pages 5-23 Front Matter....Pages 25-25 Risk Perception in Community Context: A Case Study....Pages 31-54 Chemicals and Community at Love Canal....Pages 55-78 Front Matter....Pages 79-79 Challenging Official Risk Assessments via Protest Mobilization: The TMI Case....Pages 85-101 Protest Movements and the Construction of Risk....Pages 103-145 The Environmentalist Movement and Grid/Group Analysis: A Modest Critique....Pages 147-175 Front Matter....Pages 177-177 Macro-Risks, Micro-Risks, and the Media: The EDB Case....Pages 183-197 The Political Symbolism of Occupational Health Risks....Pages 199-226 Front Matter....Pages 227-227 The Environmental Movement Comes to Town: A Case Study of an Urban Hazardous Waste Controversy....Pages 233-250 Communicating Information about Workplace Hazards: Effects on Worker Attitudes Toward Risks....Pages 251-274 Defining Risk within a Business Context: Thomas A. Edison, Elihu Thomson, and the a.c—d.c. Controversy, 1885–1900....Pages 275-293 Front Matter....Pages 295-295 Risk and the American Engineering Profession: The ASME Boiler Code and American Industrial Safety Standards....Pages 301-316 Environmental Risk in Historical Perspective....Pages 317-344 OSHA’s Carcinogens Standard: Round One on Risk Assessment Models and Assumptions....Pages 345-358 Cultural Aspects of Risk Assessment in Britain and the United States....Pages 359-397 Back Matter....Pages 399-403