The metamorphosis of the world is about the hidden emancipatory side effect of global risk. This article argues that the talk about bads produces ‘common goods’. As such, the argument goes beyond ...what has been at the heart of the world risk society theory so far: it is not about the negative side effects of goods but the positive side effects of bads. They are producing normative horizons of common goods. This is what the author defines as ‘emancipatory catastrophism’. Emancipatory catastrophism can be seen and analysed by using three conceptual lenses: first, the anticipation of global catastrophe violates sacred (unwritten) norms of human existence and civilization; second, thereby it causes an anthropological shock, and, third, a social catharsis.
Since the World Health Organization's (WHO) declared the Coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic, the virus has invaded lives around the globe. The ongoing health, social and economic crisis that ...followed forced urban life, business, culture, community etc. into idle mode for weeks resulting from mandated immobility. What was once taken for granted as the essence of urban experience such as cultural activities, meeting friends, relatives and colleagues in public space or in professional encounters, disappeared overnight. Free movement became significantly restricted all over the world. It seemed that immobility, social and physical distancing, and isolation were the only antidote to the fast-moving virus. For many people, working from home while also schooling their children and providing social care at a distance, peak activity at maximum physical immobility became the "new normal." A culture emerged where rules and norms of mobilities previously taken for granted were re-negotiated and re-defined. Before the crisis and despite the negative ecological side effects, mobility has been positively connotated as a signifier for progress and success. Under the Corona regime mobility turned into a life-threatening risk. The theory of reflexive modernization, risk society and the mobilities paradigm are used to discuss these contemporary shifts and transformations.
In a world risk society, we must distinguish between ecological and financial dangers, which can be conceptualized as side effects, and the threat from terrorist networks as intentional catastrophes; ...the principle of deliberately exploiting the vulnerability of modern civil society replaces the principle of chance and accident.
At the end of March 2020, international media present Swedish management of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as soft and irresponsible. Thus, Sweden, which is usually regarded as exceptionally risk ...averse and cautious, has chosen an unexpected risk management approach. The aim of this article is to reflect on how the Swedish government has managed the Covid-19 pandemic until early April 2020 from two theoretical perspectives, the risk society thesis and governmentality theory. We make a brief review of how previous pandemics have been managed compared to Covid-19 and try to understand the consequences of the Swedish handling of present pandemic with a particular focus on the governance of the pandemic and the exercise of power rather than definite risk management strategies during the pandemic.
The concept of the national is often perceived, both in public and academic discourse as the central obstacle for the realization of cosmopolitan orientations. Consequently, debates about the nation ...tend to revolve around its persistence or its demise. We depart from this either-or perspective by investigating the formation of the ‘cosmopolitan nation’ as a facet of world risk society. Modern collectivities are increasingly preoccupied with debating, preventing and managing risks. However, unlike earlier manifestations of risk characterized by daring actions or predictability models, global risks can no longer be calculated or forecast. Accordingly, more influence accrues to the perception of risk, largely constructed by media representations. Cosmopolitanized risk collectivities are engendered through the anticipation of endangered futures which are, for the most part, communicated through an increasingly global media scape. While global media events produce shared exposure, risk conceptions retain distinctive political-cultural features as their respective meanings are prefigured by path-dependent pasts. Nevertheless, the promulgation of risk societies, we argue, results in a reimagination of nationhood which takes place in the context of: global norms (e.g. human rights); globalized markets; transnational migrations; global generations and their embeddedness in civil society movements; and the local interpenetration of world religions to name but a few of the global backdrops shaping new associational intersections. We develop our argument in four interrelated steps. Contrary to essentialized notions of nationalism or universal versions of cosmopolitanism, we address the cosmopolitan reconfiguration of nationhood by differentiating between presumptions of thick belonging and the actual proliferation of cosmopolitan affiliations. In a second step we overcome the territorial fixation of the social sciences by shifting our attention to temporal dimensions, with a particular focus on competing conceptions of the future. In a third step we demonstrate how these cosmopolitan transformations of nationhood are taking place in the context of a world risk society regime that marshals a set of cosmopolitan imperatives situating the global other in our midst. In a fourth step we illustrate these developments by exploring how the mediatization of risk, and concomitant notions of the future, contribute to the reimagination of cosmopolitan risk collectivities.
This article aims to contextualize Ulrich Beck's thoughts, "Risk Society," regarding precarious digital work in Purwokerto, Central Java, Indonesia. Data was obtained through mixed methods involving ...forty data sources that carry out digital work of a precarious nature in the online transportation and freelance sectors. The finding of this article is that "Risk Society" can be contextualized through the modernization of the world of work through the gig economy and digital work. Furthermore, modernity also creates three traps in the form of deskilling in the reality of digital work, creating alienation on platforms and dependence on algorithms. Lastly, modernity also creates a reduction in the role of the state when a reflective nature does not accompany it.
In terms of the evolution of sociological theory, it is difficult to overstate the impact of Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Aside from achieving voluminous sales and mass citations, the book ...is one of few academic monographs that can lay claim to transforming the ways in which people understand the world and their own experiences within it. The major hypothesis of author Ulrich Beck is that a fundamental shift has occurred in capitalist economies from a focus on the material production of goods to avoidance of “bads.” Crucially, while social science thinkers had previously sought to understand the foundational dynamics of society with recourse to established categories—such as class, gender, economy, and power—Beck postulated that the key contours of the modern age were best understood through the prism of risk. Despite revolving around the concept of risk, Beck's work has not influenced the field of risk research as heavily as one might expect. In line with the ambitions of this special issue, this article contextualizes and situates the contribution made by Beck and connects his thesis to the broader evolution of risk theory over the last four decades. In documenting both catalytic effects and elisions, an appeal is made for reconsideration of the utility of the risk society perspective for future work in risk studies.
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