The cultural nature of risk: Can there be an anthropology of uncertainty?

In risk research, culture has been used mainly as a 'black box' of unknowns into which 'irregularities' of risk perceptions that could not be otherwise accounted for can be referred. In social anthropology it has been taken for granted that what is to be considered a 'risk' depends entirely on cultural settings and assumptions; risks are culturally defined and selected. This article takes a critical stance towards any such simplistic ideas about risk and culture. Culture is approached from a perspective of cognitive theory and is hence understood as shared schemata that define categories, relationships and contexts, making it possible to process meanings and order information. It is argued that if we are to succeed in investigating risk contextually, without ending up in a relativistic muddle which merely acknowledges myriads of diverse risk perceptions, it is necessary to problematize the assumed simplistic cultural nature of risk.

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