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STUDY UNIT 1THE RISK SOCIETY
CRITICAL THINKING
Do we really live riskier lives today than in previous generations?
Think about the following:
• Smoking in public – You could smoke in aeroplanes, trains and hospitals. The
risk of smoking wasn’t seen as a risk
• Childhood obesity – significant rate of obesity especially in US
• Environmental issues – Eating vegan, carbon footprint and pollution.
How does risk relate to Criminology?
Hunger crisis and poverty can cause people to steal and commit crimes to get
money and food to feed their families.
GLOBAL CRISES
• Global warming
• Financial crashes
• Pollution
• Terrorism
GLOBAL CRISES IN 2021
- COVID-19
- Nigeria: conflict & famine risk
- South Sudan: recovery from civil war at risk
- Displacement crisis in Burkina Faso
- Conflict in Ethiopia
- Hunger crisis – DRC
- Decade of conflict in Syria
- Afghanistan – stalled peace process under threat
- Unrelenting conflict in Yemen & famine threat
HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND THESE CRISES?
Modernisation is replacing the industrial society & a risk society is emerging
Rachel Tapson
, TIMELINE
➢ Primitive society
• refers to a term we use to describe the earlier societies and simpler
technologies
• E.g. Primitive tribes in Africa, village communities and kingdoms of Zulus
and Swazi’s
➢ Slave society
• Lower, Middle and Upper class. Division of labour. Slaves were there for
dominant producing class and the owners of that product or commodity is
being controlled by the masters.
• 5 societies we can refer to in history
1. Greece
2. Rome
3. South of US
4. Caribbean
5. Brazil
• High proportional number of slaves
• Reliance of elite class of slave labour and slavery permeated culture
output
➢ Feudalism
• Dominant social system in medieval Europe
• Nobility had land from the monarchy, and they owned that land in
exchange for military service
• Peasants were obliged to live on their lords land and give them labour and
a share of their produce
• Sounds similar to slavery but change was slow
➢ Industrial society
• Came from Industrial Revolution and society was driven by use of
technology and machinery
• Enabled mass production and support of larger populations and higher
capacity for division of labour
• Developed in Western world
• Industrial societies are sort of mass societies and what came about was
that there would be an information society after industrial society.
• Industrial societies are contrasted with traditional societies because they
use external energy sources such as fossil fuels to increase rate and scale
of production, the production of food has moved to large commercial farms
rather than smaller farm lands, make use of fertilisers, decreased use of
human labour but increase production.
• Industrial space made urbanisation possible which according to Beck
increased our daily risk
➢ RISK SOCIETY
INTRODUCTION
Rachel Tapson
,• Book written by Ulrich Beck (1944-2015)
• “Risk society” = “a developmental phase of modern society in which social,
political, economic and individual risks increasingly tend to escape the institutions
for monitoring and protection in society” (1994:5).
• Two key terms:
o Risk Society
o Reflexive Modernisation
WHAT IS RISK?
Recognition and judgement that we as human experience when we are faced with
uncertainty as to a particular course of action and what to do
REFLECT in order to JUDGE and MAKE DECISIONS as to what to do next.
There is a relationship between recognition and judgement
TWO LEVELS on which we reflect and judge:
1. Society
• Uncertainty/anxiety affects the structure of events and situations
2. Individual
• Faced with choices, knowledge & courses of action which lack support
(norms, values, conditions, rules)
• Deviance is when we go against societies norms and values (criminal
perspective)
RISK AND REFLEXIVITY
• Interconnected because anxiety about new risk added to the failure of institutions
& experts = critical questioning of current policies and practices
• REFLECTION:
- Is risk real or imagined? Is it a legitimate risk?
- Is risk concrete or only a perception? Hunger crisis in DRC is concrete risk in
the DRC but not yet a risk for South Africa so it is a perception
- How do people perceive risk differently? People perceive different shades of
red so everyone sees things differently. Perceived risk of crime differently so
some will be more scared than others
- Why are some risk aversive & others risk tolerant? How we perceive risk as
individuals. Industrialisation was seen as good but now it has caused a global
crisis, pollution, and fewer jobs.
MAIN ARGUMENTS of Ulrich Beck
Increase wealth production and need for money is naturally going to produce certain
risks and increase risks
Creation of new risks is an unintended by-product of modernisation.
Rachel Tapson
, Risks are created
What does this mean?
New problems require new solutions
- Pollution wasn’t an issue back then so they didn’t need a solution
Industrial solutions linked to the increased production, redistribution & increased
social protection
Increased production, redistribution isn’t going to help our global crisis so social
protection has taken a different meaning
How do we address the paradigm of modernisation?
• Rethinking, reprogramming & policy change
REFLEXIVE MODERNISATION
• Refers to modernisation of modern society
• Modernisation radicalises itself
• Reduces modern structures to create a new modernity
Reflexive Modernisation - Reflecting and making judgement calls where reflection
was not previously necessary
CLASSIC VS REFLEXIVE MODERNITY
Classic:
• Skepticism about religion & the monarchy
• Trust in science and facts
• World demystified through science
Reflexive
• Skepticism extended to the realm of science
• Science has caused hazards
• Demystification of science & modernity because of the disasters caused by them
➢ About re-structuring, re-conceptualising what we know and therefor leads us to a
space of radicalisation.
AXES OF CONFLICT
Ecological conflicts
Global financial crises
Rachel Tapson
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