Reducing aids risk: A case of mistaken identity?

Abstract

O the last three decades there has been an increasing interest in the subject of risk. Social scientists have contributed to this by looking at 'risk behaviours' and 'perceptions of risk'. The arrival of the HIV epidemic in the early 1980s generated a renewed interest into social aspects of risk: after all if we can understand the way people comprehend and deal with danger, then it will be possible to reduce harm. The recent period has seen this thinking applied to an increasing variety of individual behaviours such as smoking, diet, and alcohol consumption. Research that may help reduce the harm that individuals do to themselves would appear to be a good thing. Yet is risk behaviour this simple? People's willingness and capacity to avoid harm is subtly bound up with their identities. Many risk-reduction strategies start from an idealised model of human identity that often fails to take account of people's social circumstances or own understandings of danger. Here I will argue that use of the idea 'risk' often presupposes naive models of human identity. Attempts at risk modification then become counterproductive. At best, they fail to reduce harm by not engaging with people's own cultural understandings of danger; at worst, they may injure groups and individuals by promoting a naive understanding of human identity.