Gabe Mythen

Employment, Individualization and Insecurity: Rethinking the Risk Society Perspective:

German sociologist Ulrich Beck maintains that economic, technological and environmental transitions have radically reshaped employment relations in Western Europe. Whilst theories of employment transformation are historically ubiquitous, Becks contribution is rather unique. Utilising risk as a lens through which subterranean shifts in employment, the economy and society can be visualised, Becks work has been heralded as a significant theoretical landmark. The risk society perspective emphasizes the diffusion of two interlinked macro-social processes. Firstly, Beck identifies a sweeping process of individualization which recursively generates personal insecurity and reflexive decision-making. Secondly, changes in the relationship between capital and labour are said to have facilitated an underlying shift in the pattern of social distribution. This paper scrutinises Becks understanding of these two processes, as a means of developing a broader critique of the risk society perspective. Theoretically, it will be argued that Beck deploys unsophisticated and artificial categories, amalgamates disparate forms of risk and compacts together diverse employment experiences. Empirically, the paper demonstrates that – far from being directed by a universal axis of risk – labour market inequalities follow the grooves etched by traditional forms of stratification.

Reframing risk? Citizen journalism and the transformation of news

Western media outlets are increasingly drawing upon public footage and citizen accounts of risk incidents. Contemporaneously, technological advances have enabled members of the public to create and disseminate independent media products. The growth in ‘citizen journalism’ has been facilitated by technological convergence and the development of an interactive media environment in which citizens are not simply sources of information and/or audiences, but also recorders and creators of news. Despite fundamental changes in news production, the impact of citizen journalism on the reporting of risk remains an undeveloped area. This article maps out the range of effects that citizen journalism has on the production and presentation of risk information. From a constructive angle, we consider the extent to which citizen journalism adds to the plurality of risk discourses, democratises news flows and sets alternate news values. This positive account is counterbalanced by an analysis of the limits of citizen journalism, including the problem of distortion, issues of unequal access and the embedding of populist forms of news presentation. In the light of this analysis, the article concludes by illuminating salient research gaps and identifying areas ripe for empirical investigation.

‘Why Should We Have to Prove We’re Alright?’: Counter-terrorism, Risk and Partial Securities:

Under the auspices of the ‘war against terrorism’, New Labour’s period of political governance in the UK was characterized by an activist, pre-emptive approach to (inter)national security. This approach was domestically embedded in specific counter-terrorism measures such as extensions to detention without charge, the expansion of stop and search measures and the deployment of control orders. Situated in this context, this article analyses the reflections of a group of young British Pakistani Muslims living in the north-west of England. First, we detail the process of risk subjectification through which institutional labelling narrowly defines Muslims as threatening and dangerous. Second, we consider the consolidation of practices of self-surveillance through which young Muslims seek to protect themselves and deflect stigmatization. In conclusion, we suggest that counter-terrorism policies have succeeded in reproducing a state of partial securities in and through which certain groups are protected and ‘others’ exposed to scrutiny and hostility.

From 'Goods' to 'Bads'? Revisiting the Political Economy of Risk

German social theorist Ulrich Beck has consistently maintained that the logic of social distribution in western cultures has been reconfigured over the last three decades. Beck believes that, in the first industrial modernity, political and economic energies were directed toward the dissemination of ‘social goods’, such as healthcare, employment and wealth. By contrast, in the second modernity - or risk society - the positive logic of goods distribution is displaced by a negative logic of ‘social bads’, exemplified by environmental despoliation, terrorism and nuclear accidents. Critically, whilst the logic of goods is sectoral - some win and some lose, some are protected, some exposed - social bads follow a universalising logic which threatens rich and poor alike. This article interrogates and challenges these core claims by fusing together and developing empirical and theoretical criticisms of the theory of distributional logic. Empirically, it is demonstrated that Beck draws upon a narrow range of examples, is insensitive to continuities in social reproduction and glosses over the intensification of traditional inequalities. Theoretically, the paper asserts that the risk society perspective constructs an unsustainable divide between interconnected modes of distribution, neglects the way in which political discourses can be used to reinforce hegemonic interests and overlooks uneven patterns of risk distribution.

Beyond risk theory: Experiential knowledge and ‘knowing otherwise’

The central purpose of this article is to trace the conflicting co-existence of three narratives in relation to the ‘risk society’ and the practices that it engenders. The first of these narratives is theoretical: the problems and possibilities of the risk society thesis. The second is practical: how the concept of risk has been translated into policy and practice in the form of risk assessment tools for both ‘at risk’ offenders and ‘at risk’ victims. The focus in this narrative will be on criminal justice responses to violence in general with particular emphasis on responses to partner violence. The third narrative focuses on ‘real lives’: the experiential. Here attention will be paid to what is it that is, or is not, captured by the first two narratives. The concern will be to illustrate the extent to which the discordance that can be found between these three narratives reveals much about the risks of politics and the politics of risk.

Witnessing Wootton Bassett: An Exploration in Cultural Victimology

The media reporting and visual witnessing of repatriations at Wootton Bassett have become an increasingly frequent occurrence since the first spontaneous saluting of what was then a lonely procession, by Royal British Legion members in 2007. UK military deaths from the war in Afghanistan have now reached over 300 and media sources have begun speculating as to which entry point is likely to replace Wootton Bassett when RAF Lyneham closes in August 2011. Our purpose in this paper is to explore the ‘public performance’ and ‘witnessing’ of these events through two ‘lenses’: the literal via photography and the theoretical by way of victimology. Our intention is to situate ourselves as visual, critical, and certainly not neutral, witnesses. In so doing, we wish to use pictures taken by the photographer Stuart Griffiths to propose three cultural trends that our witnessing of his pictures of Wootton Bassett suggests. In so doing we present three themes that we think are identifiable within these photographs: the compression of private and public grief; gothicism and the emergence of ‘dark tourism’; and displays of resistance. By way of conclusion we discuss the implications of this analysis for victimology.

‘No one speaks for us’: security policy, suspected communities and the problem of voice

This article examines some of the detrimental consequences of post-9/11 counterterrorism and security policies on Muslim minority groups in the United Kingdom. Drawing on empirical data from a qualitative study conducted in the north-west of England involving young British Pakistanis, it is argued that both political discourses and specific security policies have unjustly targeted Muslims and fuelled a wider public climate of suspicion and hostility. Three focal issues raised by participants in the study are prioritised. First, we discuss the process of collective attribution through which Muslims are generically treated as a suspect community. Second, a series of experiential ‘safety gaps’ – resulting in part from the pre-emptive turn in counterterrorism regulation – are considered. Third, critical ‘speech gaps’, which have important ramifications for future policy-making, are elucidated.

Soft Modelling in Risk Communication and Management: examples in handling food risk

Our aim in this paper is to explore the use of soft modelling in an integrated risk communication and management process for managing uncertainties and ‘scares’ in the public domain, particularly in the area of food risk and safety. Much has been written in the past 20 years on the issues relating to the management and communication of food risks and safety issues to the public. Most of this research has been based upon post hoc studies of what went wrong—or, occasionally, right. Here we survey those findings briefly, and draw these into a general framework for risk management and communication. By integrating these into a coherent common framework, we believe that public authorities, food producers and industry may develop more effective strategies for managing and communicating risks which, in turn, will enable the public to make more informed decisions on their diet.

Decentralizing risk: The role of the voluntary and community sector in the management of offenders:

This paper considers the rise of third sector agencies as key criminal justice providers within the context of the marketization of probation and other crime management responses. We posit that the ‘rehabilitation revolution’ has significant implications for the voluntary and community sector in particular and criminal justice provision in general. Pointing towards incremental colonization of the third sector by criminal justice concerns, we trace the creeping discourse of economic risk, exemplified by the commodification of provision, increased contractualization of services and the application of cost–benefit measures. We argue that government policy is being driven by a behavioural economics of risk that attempts to ‘nudge’ the sector in discrete directions through the use of incentivization, market competition and steers toward entrepreneurship. In such a context, the position of marginal groups with high needs but potentially poorer outcomes may be perilous, consigning high risk and ‘at-risk’ groups to further exclusion.

A sociological analysis of military resilience: Opening up the debate

The term ‘resilience’ has grown in its usage across a range of disciplines and practices. The US military and the British armed forces have typified this increasing use of ‘resilience’ in recent years within such initiatives as Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) and throughout British Army Doctrine. However by unpacking what being ‘resilient’ for soldiers might mean we explore the interaction between their personal ‘masculine’ characteristics, the structural environment within which they operate, and the civilian life they return to. In doing so this paper offers a critical sociological analysis combining the agency of the soldiers’ body with the structure of the military as a [total institution] to problematize issues of masculinity, stigma and resilience within the military setting. As such, we question if the fostering of ‘resilience’ in military personnel is something that may be productive during service, but counter-productive thereafter when service personnel return to civilian life as veterans.