John Adams contended more than two decades ago that "the starting point of any theory of risk must be that everyone willingly takes risks". Since he noted that most risk researchers ignore the role of risk-taking, a growing body of qualitative research tries to understand people’s risk-taking in everyday life.
The presentation summarises key insights from this research and introduces a number of sensitising concepts to systematise this growing body of knowledge. It focuses on the variety of forces which shape people’s engagement with risk in everyday life. This includes the different social layers which shape people’s experiences of risk and uncertainty as well as people’s responses and attempts to lead a meaningful life.
Evidence and hope, trust and intuition, emotions and cold reasoning, socio-cultural norms and individual interests combine in what has been called bricolage, risk work and assemblage. Such an approach is valuable to the degree that people expose themselves to risk or take risks purposefully rather than accidentally and involuntarily as a result of lacking knowledge.
Jens O Zinn is an associate professor at the University of Melbourne and guest professor at the Risk and Crisis Research centre at Mid-Sweden University. He currently researches the discourse-semantic shift towards risk in the UK and Germany at the Corpus Approaches to Social Science (CASS) research centre at Lancaster University.
In 2015 the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation awarded him the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award for his scientific achievements. Jens has founded the international risk networks within ESA (2005) and ISA (2006). He is known for his conceptual work in particular on risk in everyday life.