45209 - Sociology of Risk

Learning outcomes

The course intends to transmit the lexicon, concepts and interpretative models which emerged on the theme of "risk" to such an extent that today we can speak of a specific "sub-discipline". The course also intends to foster knowledge of the major processes which affect the definition and perception of risks, and of the ways to prevent them, within a post-industrial society. Knowledge and expected abilities are many. First, that the student learns the lexicon and specific terminology of this peculiar new discipline. Second, that the student knows the most important approaches and models through which the most significant characterics of the concept of risk have been explained. Third, that the student becomes able to identify and analyse the advancement, diffusion and scope of the different approaches, also relating the latters to the ways in which some social processes affect the definition, perception and prevention of specific risks.

Course contents

In the last decades, particularly in recent years, a sense of insecurity diffused in Western societies, which often becomes an important item in political agendas and programs. A contribution to such a sense of insecurity seems also to come from those “experts” who always warn of the many risks stemming from life-styles, models of development, etc.
The course intends to analyse the many interpretative hypotheses of the feelings of insecurity diffusing among the diverse social groups in Western societies. Among such hypotheses, there is one for which the success of the concept of risk is linked to the deep changes due to the passage from modern society to another type of society which can be defined as post-modern, post-industrial or late-modern. Such a society seems to stem from the erosion or break-up of social, economic and political structures and institutions tipically linked with modernity (no longer apt to grant to all security and reference, everywhere and in all seasons of life). And such a society seems to be intrinsically characterized by a sense of diffused uncertainty due to individualization and de-collectivization, to cultural fragmentation, to growing complexity, to the institutionalization of flexibility, to the progressive weakening of the “insurance” mechanisms developped throughout modernity, the most typical being welfare systems.

In such a perspective, a sociological approach to the concept of risk is needed. An approach intended not only to understand the mechanisms of definition, selection, perception, representation and prevention of risk, but also to relate them to the major processes of transformation which society expreriences or recently experienced.

The course hence proposes an in-depht itinerary as follows:

1)      an historical skecth of the changes undergone by the concept of risk in the passages from the pre-modern world to the modern one, and later to the post- or late-modern world;

2)      the presentation of the main interpretative hypotheses elaborated by sociology to explain social changes in most recent decades, on the part of different authors who have considered the emergence of an individualized and de-collectivized society and of the already recalled processes of erosion of modern social, economic and political structures and institutions;

3)      the presentation, analysis and discussion of the main approaches to risk:
- the techno-scientific perspective;
- the cognitive approach;
- the structural-functional approach (Mary Douglas);
- the structuralistic critical approach (Beck, Giddens);
- the post-structuralist perspective (Foucault);
- other approaches, such as the phenomenological and psychoanalytic ones (Kristeva, Grosz);

4)      individuation of the areas and themes of major sensibility of late-modern societies to risks; and discussion of possible policies to manage and control risks, with special attention to:
- environmental risks
- risks connected to life-styles
- health care risks
- relational risks
- economic risks
- risks connected to crime.

Readings/Bibliography

D. Lupton, Il rischio. Percezioni, simboli, culture , il Mulino, Bologna, 2003.

R. Castel, L'insicurezza sociale. Che cosa significa essere protetti? , Einaudi, Torino, 2004.

T. Pitch, “Sono possibili politiche democratiche per la sicurezza?”, Rassegna italiana di sociologia , a. XLII, n. 1, 2001.

I. Diamanti, F. Bordignon, “Sicurezza e opinione pubblica in Italia”, Rassegna italiana di sociologia , a. XLII, n. 1, 2001.

Teaching methods

The course will pay attention to definitions and concepts of sociology of risk so as to favour the attainment of both the disciplinary perspective and the code which it uses in organizing its contents. During the lesson, multimedial instruments are to be used, along with statistic-descriptive materials (also in Internet) so that students learn to relate to data and empirical-documental materials

Assessment methods

The exam will be oral. During the course the participation ot the student to teaching activities will be favoured through researches and papers on the themes of the course, especially concerning empirical researches and statistical data, and also the analysis of communicative strategies concerning the risks to which Western social groups pay more attention.

Teaching tools

Projector, overhead projector, PC

Office hours

See the website of Paolo Zurla