Critical Risk Research Practices, Politics and Ethics

by Lane, Stuart; Klauser, Francisco; Kearnes, Matthew B.

• ISBN13: 9780470974872
• ISBN10: 0470974877
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-04-23
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Risk Research: Practices, Politics and Ethics offers a collection of essays, written by a wide variety of international researchers in risk research, about what it means to do risk research, and about how - and with what effects - risk research is practiced, articulated and exploited. This approach is based upon the core assumption that: to make a difference in the study of risk, we must move beyond what we usually do, challenging the core assumptions, scientific, economic and social, about how we study, frame, exploit and govern risk. Hence, through a series of essays, the book aims to challenge the current ways in which risk-problems are approached and presented, both conceptually by academics and through the framings that are encoded in the technologies and socio-political and institutional practices used to manage risk. In addressing these questions, the book does not attempt to offer a model of how risk research should be done. Rather, the book provides, through illustration, a challenge to the ways in which risk research is framed as problem-solving. The books ultimate objective aims to increase critical debate between different disciplines, approaches, concepts and problems.

Author Biography

Dr Matthew B Kearnes, Institute of Hazard and Risk Research, Durham University, Department of Geography, Durham, UK.

Dr. Francisco R. Klauser, Assistant Professor, Institute of Geography, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Professor Stuart Lane, Faculte des geosciences et l'environmnent, Institut de Geographie, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Table of Contents

Contributors, vii

Preface, xi

1 Introduction: Risk Research after Fukushima, 1
Matthew B. Kearnes, Francisco R. Klauser & Stuart N. Lane

Part 1 Practices in Risk Research, 21

2 Practices of Doing Interdisciplinary Risk-Research: Communication, Framing and Reframing, 23
Louise J. Bracken

3 Religion and Disaster in Anthropological Research, 43
Claudia Merli

4 'Risk' in Field Research, 59
Sarah R. Davies, Brian R. Cook & Katie J. Oven

Part 2 Politics in Risk Research, 77

5 Finding the Right Balance: Interacting Security and Business Concerns at Geneva International Airport, 79
Francisco R. Klauser & Jean Ruegg

6 Governing Risky Technologies, 99
Phil Macnaghten & Jason Chilvers

7 Technologies of Risk and Responsibility: Attesting to the Truth of Novel Things, 125
Matthew B. Kearnes

Part 3 Ethics in Risk Research, 149

8 Ethical Risk Management, but Without Risk Communication?, 151
Stuart N. Lane

9 In the Wake of the Tsunami: Researching Across Disciplines and Developmental Spaces in Southern Thailand, 173
Jonathan Rigg, Lisa Law, May Tan-Mullins, Carl Grundy-Warr & Benjamin Horton

10 Social Work in Times of Disaster: Practising Across Borders, 197
Lena Dominelli

11 Conclusion: Reflections on 'Critical' Risk Research, 219
Stuart N. Lane, Francisco R. Klauser & Matthew B. Kearnes

Index, 237