Extraordinary Risks, Ordinary Lives
Logics of Precariousness in Everyday Contexts
Published on 29. March 2022
Book
Hardback
XVII, 336 pages
978-3-030-83961-1 (ISBN)
Description
This book untangles the relationship between expert categorisations of risk and the on-the-ground experiences of untrained 'ordinary' people who may be routinely subjected to significant danger in a variety of extraordinary contexts. It considers political, ethical and moral dimensions of risk and calls for more targeted ethnographic research, designed to reveal how grass-roots risk dispositions and practice intersect with official discourses, individual agency and community resilience.
Reviews / Votes
"This collection of essays provides a wonderful insight into the very ordinary way that us, human beings engage with risk in everyday life. Often overlooked, this important book, captures a key dimension of the lived experience of living with risk." (Frank Furedi, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Kent, UK)
"Through detailed ethnographic investigations, the contributors to this intriguing volume reveal what life is like for people and communities who regularly face extreme threats. This book is highly recommended for anyone who wants to know more about what it is like to regularly face ordeals such as violence, conflict and occupational hazards or deliberately seek out danger as part of leisure pursuits." (Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Centre for Social Research in Health and the Social Policy Research Centre, University of NSW, Australia)"This timely collection seeks to transcend the usual binaries between expert and lay, rationaland irrational that permeate much research on risk. It reveals not only the complexities inherent in the subject but also the situated knowledge that comes from qualitative approaches. A wide range of stimulating case studies and cross-disciplinary commentary deftly demonstrates people's agency in negotiating the management of fear and the retention of hope in high risk, yet ordinary contexts." (Pat Caplan, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK)
More details
Series
Edition
2021 ed.
Language
English
Place of publication
Cham
Switzerland
Publishing group
Springer International Publishing
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
2 s/w Abbildungen, 16 farbige Abbildungen
XVII, 336 p. 18 illus., 16 illus. in color.
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
573 gr
ISBN-13
978-3-030-83961-1 (9783030839611)
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-83962-8
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Beata Switek | Allen Abramson | Hannah Swee
Extraordinary Risks, Ordinary Lives
Logics of Precariousness in Everyday Contexts
Book
03/2023
Palgrave Macmillan
€160.49
Shipment within 7-9 days
Beata Switek | Allen Abramson | Hannah Swee
Extraordinary Risks, Ordinary Lives
Logics of Precariousness in Everyday Contexts
E-Book
03/2022
1st Edition
Palgrave Macmillan
€149.79
Available for download
Persons
Beata Switek
is Assistant Professor at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Allen Abramson is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at University College London, UK.
Hannah Swee is a climate and capacity building specialist for the United Nations.
Allen Abramson is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at University College London, UK.
Hannah Swee is a climate and capacity building specialist for the United Nations.
Content
Chapter 1. Introduction: Ordinary life, extraordinary risk: On the normalisation of significant risk-taking in precarious contexts.- Part I. Self-Constitution: Defiance, endurance and choice.- Chapter 2. 'Knowing how to walk': Risk, violence and practices of endurance in urban Brazil.- Chapter 3. Risk negotiations in the mines of Potosí: Implications for rethinking current Health and Safety approaches.- Chapter 4. Regenerative medicine, unproven therapies and the framing of clinical risk.- Chapter 5. Commentary: Clear and present danger: Dodging and dealing with risk and uncertainty in everyday life.- Part II. Shifting dangers: Macro and micro politics of risk.- Chapter 6. 'Keeping the conversation going': Understanding risk in a context of escalating conflict in Syria.- Chapter 7. The Edgeworker's Habitus: Climbing and Ordinary Risks.- Chapter 8. Commentary: Action, edgework, and the situated logics of risk.- Part III. Environmental threat and cultural possibility: Risk and the contemporary city.- Chapter 9. 'Asılmak tehlikeli ve yasaktır': Unintelligible mobility and uncertain manhood in Istanbul's Old City.- Chapter 10. Ordinary life in the shadow of Vesuvius: Surviving the announced catastrophe.- Chapter 11. Keeping disasters under control: Anticipation, cyclones and responses to uncertainty.- Chapter 12. Commentary: Interpretive risk ethnography as a means of understanding risk problems: Encounters with the ordinary-extraordinary and what comes after?