ABSTRACT This article questions environmental values in the context of contemporary social transformations, through a sociological approach based on [Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity (M. Ritter, Trans.). SAGE Publications. (Original work published 1986)] framework of the Risk Society, [Moscovici, S. (1961). La Psychanalyse, Son Image et Son Public. Presses Universitaires de France] sociology of social representations, and [Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1980)] concept of symbolic capital. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with a random sample of citizens, the article analyzes individuals’ social representations of the environment and the extent to which environmental values are reflected in their behavior. The results reveal a clear cognitive gap between environmental discourse and practice, explained by disparities in, to use Bourdieu’s phrase, cultural capital, the plurality of representations, and weak trust in institutions. The study concludes that environmental values are not only based on knowledge, but also on individuals’ social and living contexts that give meaning to action. Finally, it proposes the need to shift from awareness-raising approaches to building an environmental culture grounded in symbolic and social justice.

Production is increasingly shifting into village territories as a result of rural industrialization, leading to an uneven distribution of socio-ecological risks. This article examines how such manufactured risks arise and how women enact reflexivity in Bakung Village, South Sumatra. Using a qualitative descriptive design embedded in participatory action research, we combined in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation, and community social mapping to diagnose exposure pathways and responses. Findings reveal hamlet-specific configurations: domestic water contamination linked to tapioca effluent in Dusun 1; persistent dust and noise from a coal haul corridor disrupting livelihoods in Dusun 2; and cross-boundary particulates from a wood processing plant affecting Dusun 3. Women lead proactive contention—demonstrations, petitions, monitoring, and visual documentation—while developing adaptive micro-infrastructures such as household filtration, interior dust barriers, and intensified hygiene. Institutional responses were largely compensatory and reactive, reducing immediate burdens without addressing structural drivers. The research offers a gendered, community-driven viewpoint to discussions on risk society, illustrating how delocalized threats are made apparent through participatory mapping and how adaptation expenses are individualized at the household level. Enforced setbacks, cumulative impact assessment, independent monitoring with public dashboards, and stakeholder forums involving affected villages are among the implications of industrialization.

ABSTRACT The question of how states make operational decisions in cyber conflict is under-theorised. Much of existing scholarship has answered it within general frameworks of materialist and rationalist theory. Yet, states with similar cyber capabilities and operating in the same environment often display markedly different operational styles. This article argues that accounting for operational variation among states requires greater attention to how risk and threat perception shape operational preferences under uncertainty, particularly when multiple feasible options exist. To this end, the article develops a conceptual framework that distinguishes between a risk society, which tends towards operational restraint and caution rooted in a cultural preoccupation with the reduction of uncertain and diffused security risks, and a threat society, which exhibits operational brazenness owing to a fixation on a perceived existential threat. The article illustrates the framework within two case studies, the United States and Russia.

ABSTRACT This contribution examines the French cult controversy in the late twentieth century through the theoretical framework of the ‘risk society’. While the sociological concept of ‘risk’ has often been applied to issues such as nuclear energy and environmental degradation, it also offers a relevant framework for analysing the concept of religion. In the context of the ‘second modernity’, characterised by increased uncertainty, religion may be simultaneously reinterpreted as an axiological resource and an ontological risk. The case of the French cult controversy, culminating in 2001 with the About-Picard Law that strengthened the legal regulation of so-called ‘sectes’, reveals how fears surrounding ‘religious risk’ gained traction in public discourse. By tracing the processes through which this fear expanded, I argue that such risk-conscious interpretations of religion have contributed to a transformation of French secularism (laïcité), shifting it from a liberal to a more authoritarian model. At the same time, the co-making processes of religion (as risk) and secularism (as control) illustrate the paradox inherent in risk management: efforts to control one form of risk (‘cults’) may generate new risks, such as the erosion of religious freedom, a core value of the secular state.

Based on an empirical analysis of data from the “Panel Survey of Chinese University Students,” this paper examines the current convergence and differentiation of employment choices among university students, and explains the convergence factors and differentiation factors of employment choices among university students from a theoretical perspective of meritocracy, risk society, labor market segmentation and education rational action theory. This paper found that there is a convergence in four aspects of the employment choices among university students, namely, delaying employment and choosing to continue with further study, an ongoing increase in employment aspiration in the public sector, the continued development of a trend of “escaping from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen,” and an increasing acceptance of slow employment. These reflect the corresponding strategies adopted by university students in the face of intensifying labor market competition, their adoption of continuous and extended human capital investment, and the psychological characteristics of risk-aversion and seeking a sense of security. At the same time, the specific employment decision-making actions behind the individual, rational choices of university students are also deeply constrained by their personal and family socioeconomic status. A family’s cultural capital, economic capital, public-sector capital and urbanization capital all have a significant influence on a university student’s employment choices, demonstrating the social differentiation characteristics of a university student’s employment choices. The findings in this study indicate that the current employment choices of university students are deeply and jointly influenced by convergence factors and differentiation factors, leading to the coexistence of convergence and differentiation in the employment choices of university students.

This article reconceptualizes student status as a form of institutional and existential suspension in post-transitional societies. Drawing on critical analyses by Ivan Illich, Pierre Bourdieu, and Michel Foucault, it argues that universities do more than produce cultural capital: they generate a subjectivity structured by deferred responsibility and prolonged anticipation. In contexts of structural uncertainty, especially in post-socialist Balkan societies, student suspension emerges as a rational strategy rather than a moral failure. Engaging with Ulrich Beck’s risk society and debates on youth precarity, the article shifts the analysis of student disengagement from moral critique to structural explanation. The Balkan case illustrates how institutional frameworks extend “waithood,” legitimizing a liminal period between dependence and full societal integration. This framework highlights the university not only as a site of knowledge production but also as an architect of social time, where postponement and anticipation are normalized. The study thus provides a lens to understand how late-modern higher education institutionalizes suspension and shapes student subjectivity.

Internationally, educationally disadvantaged young men navigate adulthood amid fragmented recognition, precarious labour, and social risk. This study examines how this group in Hong Kong negotiates school-to-work transitions through recognition theory and risk society perspectives. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 12 participants, the study analyses how misrecognition across school, family, workplace, and peer contexts shapes identities, aspirations, and coping strategies. Five themes were identified: fragmented recognition, risk-embedded pathways, recognition-seeking strategies, managing misrecognition and risk, and re-imagining futures within structural constraints. Findings show that drifting, precarious employment, and high-risk opportunities are adaptive responses to recognition deficits and limited pathways, rather than individual failure. Participants sought recognition through skilled manual identities, peer validation, and small achievements, demonstrating resilience. The study advances recognition-based understandings of youth transitions and underscores the need for coordinated support systems that strengthen recognition of young men’s capabilities and legitimate non-academic pathways while reducing structural precarity.

Obstetric demise or resilience? The moral panic surrounding obstetric malpractice litigation in South Africa and the vilification of midwife-led births.

This article examines the proliferation of violence within Britain's service economy, focusing on delivery drivers. The discussion and analysis will examine three recent acts of violence against delivery drivers and framed as part of a wider continuum of violence against service economy workers. Although the presented cases occurred as direct acts of violence, it is the responses of the delivery drivers who faced these attacks that is centre ground to our inquiry. We argue the responses of the delivery drivers, to safeguard their courier goods is symptomatic of a risk society, discussed by Ulrich Beck fuelled by Anthony Gidden's idea of perpetual ontological insecurity. The conceptual marriage here between Beck and Giddens enables us to present the conditions of the service economy. As labour market security becomes uncertain, workers experience hyper-competition and precarity that ostensibly produces an insecurity, thus provoking these workers to engage in risk-taking behaviours to maintain economic and social security. This article concludes that violence in the service economy may be enabled by structural processes and has become culturally legitimated, rather than exceptional.

Supermarkets increasingly dominate food systems. They are the primary influence on food supply chains that are failing to enable sustainable outcomes or deliver affordable food during acute or prolonged crises. In Australia, the dominant food retail model neither fully accounts for risk, thereby contributing to rising food insecurity, nor ensures socially or ecologically sustainable farming systems. The limitations of food systems dominated by modern supermarkets reflect the broader reality that humanity is entering a new era of socio-ecological risk. Recognition of the emerging risk society raises questions about how supermarkets can evolve to guide sustainable outcomes for the food system. Our interdisciplinary review suggests that to mitigate risk, supermarkets must strengthen key structural elements of food systems to support food security and secure food by prioritizing sovereign food security, supporting local farmers, addressing concerns across the supply chain, and reinforcing sustainable agroecosystems. Alternative supermarket systems offer components of potential solutions, suggesting that a reflexive system of community action, regulation, and financial incentives could help supermarkets adopt new approaches that regenerate the social, ecological, and economic elements of food systems for strong sustainability and to account for future risks.

This study analyzes Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air through the lens of literary and gender theory, focusing on how the constructs of heroism and masculinity are both upheld and dismantled in the context of high-risk mountaineering. Drawing on R.W. Connell’s theory of “hegemonic masculinity,” the study reveals how Everest becomes a performative space where climbers enact dominant ideals of male strength, stoicism, and control. Simultaneously, Krakauer’s narrative exposes the fragility of these ideals when confronted with extreme conditions, mortality, and ethical dilemmas. Judith Butler’s concept of “gender performativity” further supports the analysis of how masculinity is not innate but constantly reiterated through action, especially under duress. Additionally, the study incorporates Ulrich Beck’s “risk society theory” to contextualize how modern adventure tourism commodifies risk, turning personal conquest into a public spectacle. Krakauer’s use of first-person narration is examined through Gérard Genette’s narratological theory, revealing how the interplay of subjectivity and retrospection shapes the reader’s perception of heroism and failure. Ultimately, this paper argues that Into Thin Air functions as both a personal memoir and a broader critique of masculine identity in extreme environments. It contributes to the fields of adventure literature, gender studies, and cultural criticism by interrogating the ethical and psychological implications of high-risk masculinity in the age of commercialized adventure.

Climate change is enhancing hydrological extremes like floods and droughts, but their effects are also influenced by the physical processes but also social, economic and institutional circumstances. This review redefines hydrological extremes as socio-environmental processes, with primary focus on the fact that they are socially constructed processes that take place in the interaction of hazards and human systems. The paper is based on the interdisciplinary notions of social vulnerability, political ecology, and the risk society and explores how inequality, governance, and adaptive capacity affect the destruction of disasters. The review underlines unequal impacts of hydrological extremes on the society, be it in economic, health, infrastructure aspect with less privileged groups bearing the brunt of these effects, especially in the Global South. It also considers how digital response systems and social sensing, including social media and artificial intelligence, can facilitate real-time disaster communication and decision-making and also considers the issue of data bias, misinformation, and digital inequality. Critical synthesis indicates dissolution between hydrological science of research and social science to restrict all-encompassing knowledge. The paper will suggest a unified socio-hydrological model, which includes social theory and digital innovation. In general, it speaks in Favor of the transformation into more inclusive, equity-based approaches to successful disaster risk mitigation and climate adaptation.

ABSTRACT The study offers significant insights into the generational changes in funeral customs within urban Ghana, particularly highlighting the perspectives of the elderly on youth performativity and public health concerns. The study was underpinned by the symbolic interactionism and risk society theories. Guided by the ethnographic design, we employed the criterion sampling technique to interview 17 older persons, 15 youth and 3 public health officials at three funeral sites. We gathered data through semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The thematic data analysis revealed that Ghanaian funeral practices have undergone changing generational values, digital mourning and the rise of online memorials, infectious diseases and spiritual sickness regarding youth performativity and its associated public health risks. The study found a notable cultural, generational, and technological transformation in Ghanaian funeral customs, highlighting the ways in which the younger generation is transforming funerals into venues for self-expression, identity representation, and digital presence. These findings underscore the critical need for the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with Regional and District Public Health Education Directorates and the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, to intensify health education on youth conduct at funerals and establish hygienic standards for corpse handling.

This study explores the potential for integrating Urban Living Labs (ULLs) and citizen science (CS) as an alternative governance framework for addressing urban problems in a risk society characterized by climate crises and cascading disasters. Specifically, it conceptually proposes a citizen-centered urban innovation governance model, the Urban Living Lab and Citizen Science Integrated Model (ULL-CS). To this end, the study first examines major cities in African developing countries as illustrative cases and provides an exploratory analysis of how urban living labs actually function in urban problem-solving processes and participation structures. Building on these cases, it then identifies key conditions for effectively linking urban living labs and citizen science by mapping the proposed ULL-CS onto four analytical dimensions: citizen roles, knowledge, institutions, and technology. Finally, the study highlights the need for AI-based civic education as an implementation strategy to fulfill these conditions and, in connection with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and discusses policy implications for building sustainable, participatory, and citizen-centered innovation governance in a risk society.

We cannot overemphasize the value and importance of liability insurance in the Risk Society. However, it is difficult to expect liability insurance to be concluded as much as social needs in the state of nature, so the legal system is seeking ways to promote the conclusion of liability insurance from a policy point of view. There may be two ways to promote the conclusion of liability insurance: first, there may be an indirect method of acknowledging exceptions to the principle of negligence liability, such as no-fault liability, and second, a direct method in which the law mandates the subscription of liability insurance. In the actual laws, there can be two ways: (i) the indirect method not being adopted, the law mandates it directly, (ii) the law codifies both of the methods. These methods can again be organized into several types according to legislative techniques. The following three types of legislation are found in laws of Korea in which the intentions of legislators inferred through legislative data stipulate both direct and indirect methods. The first type is stipulated as “○○ is responsible for compensating for the damage even if there is no negligence. He/She must take out liability insurance to fulfill his liability for damages”, and the Act on the Indemnification for Fire-caused Loss and the Purchase of Insurance Policies corresponds to this. The second type is stipulated as “○○ must subscribe to liability insurance that is responsible for paying the amount even if there is no negligence,” and the Special Act on the Safety Control of Publicly Used Establishments corresponds to this. The third type is stipulated as “○○ must take out liability insurance to compensate for damage”, and the Framework Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety corresponds to this. In all three types of legislation, I think that legislators intended not only to force them to take out liability insurance to ensure no-fault liability, but also to make them liable for no-fault liability. However, the Supreme Court of Korea does not view the second and third types as stipulating no-fault liability. And the Court further states that in the case of the third type, no-fault liability is not included in the scope of liability covered by the liability insurance. At first glance, this situation seems to cause a legal philosophical problem of the situation in which the legislator's intention and the court's judgment differ from each other. However, I agree with the view that courts are not bound by legislators' intentions in theory, and above all, the second and third types of laws in question are some kind of failed legislation that did not properly reflect the legislators' intentions in the process of codifying them into objective phrases. Therefore, the Court's attitude toward the type of laws in question is right, and these laws should be revised after sufficient discussion.

Background and objective: Food safety has emerged as one of the most pressing public concerns in contemporary Vietnam, where the proliferation of food scandals has eroded public trust in the food system. In this context, "clean food" has evolved beyond a technical category to become a cultural symbol associated with purity, modernity, moral responsibility, and social distinction. This study aims to examine how clean food is constructed, contested, and practiced within everyday life, and how it reflects broader transformations in morality, risk perception, and social relations in post-Đổi Mới Vietnam.Methods: This research employed a qualitative design combining discourse analysis, document review, field observations, and 15 in-depth interviews with urban consumers, farmers, food retailers, and clean-food entrepreneurs in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke), grounded in theoretical frameworks of discourse (Foucault), purity and pollution (Douglas), risk society (Beck), and ethical consumption (Faltmann).Results: Findings reveal that clean food functions as a multilayered cultural symbol shaped by overlapping discourses of safety, purity, modern lifestyle, and moral legitimacy. While clean food represents aspirations for health and modernity, it also exposes social tensions rooted in unequal access, urban-rural distrust, fragmented regulatory systems, and competing moral expectations among consumers, producers, and state actors. Interview data highlight how risk anxiety drives consumers to develop individualized strategies, such as buying from trusted networks, joining collective purchasing groups, or home-growing food, thereby privatizing risk and intensifying emotional and moral labor, particularly among women.Conclusion: Clean food in Vietnam encapsulates broader socio-cultural transformations, including the reconstruction of moral norms, the reconfiguration of trust, and the negotiation of responsibilities among individuals, markets, and state institutions. Understanding clean food as a cultural and moral phenomenon offers critical insights into the dynamics of risk, inequality, and ethical consumption in rapidly modernizing societies.

Floods impact many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and aspects of sanitation and water supply. They are especially detrimental to those in lower socio-economic strata. The 2018 Kerala floods disrupted the lives of 5.4 million people, resulting in funds and attention being diverted from SDGs priorities and toward rebuilding and rehabilitation efforts. Such ravages of nature often result from the over-exploitation of local natural resources and the mismanagement of infrastructure. Colonialism was a watershed in such ecological destruction. The Great Flood of 1924, which devastated parts of present-day Kerala, is an example of a colonial-era-induced natural disaster. A century later, revisiting this disaster in the light of Kerala’s 2018 floods offers instructive pointers for achieving disaster resilience today – in a region known for its rich biodiversity and population density. This study also highlights how historical forces like colonialism contributed to transforming this once peripheral region into a “risk society.”

This study focuses on Scientific Technological Citizenship (STC) as one of the key educational goals in a risk society shaped by rapid scientific and technological development. To explore how STC can be cultivated in school contexts, a Board Game-Based Climate Change Education (CCE) Program was developed. This program aimed to move beyond conventional, standardized teaching methods and instead promote a learner-centered approach to CCE. The program was implemented as a special course at a high school in Seoul, South Korea, and the cultivation of STC among the participating students was explored. Using qualitative case study methodology, the analysis was conducted based on three subcomponents of STC defined in this study: (1) Awareness of the interaction between science-technology and society, (2) Value judgment and decision-making ability, and (3) Social and individual participation, practice, and efficacy. This study was conducted with the understanding that Climate Change Education for All must be realized. It is expected that this attempt will serve as a new stepping stone for the wider dissemination of CCE, a pressing task of our time. By highlighting STC as a core competence for citizens confronting the climate crisis brought about by scientific and technological advancement, this study provides insights into the direction science education and CCE should take in cultivating climate-responsible citizens.

This article examines how digital infrastructures mediate the production and circulation of gendered harm through the cultural prominence of Andrew Tate, a controversial online figure associated with misogynistic rhetoric. Drawing on Ulrich Beck’s theory of the risk society, Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity and feminist critiques of platform governance, the study introduces the concept of the platformed risk society to theorise how digital systems amplify symbolic and epistemic threats to women. Based on qualitative survey data from 110 self-identifying women, the analysis identifies three interrelated themes: symbolic threat, epistemic injustice and feminist resistance. Participants describe Tate as a figure of moral contamination whose visibility destabilises gender norms and undermines women’s credibility in both online and offline discourse. Their responses reveal that misogyny is not only a cultural discourse but a platformed phenomenon: amplified, monetised and at times normalised through algorithmic infrastructures that reward provocation and suppress dissent.

This study examines the impact of globalization on divorce rates using panel data from 120 countries between 1970 and 2017. Drawing on Ulrich Beck’s risk society framework, it explores how globalization promotes individual autonomy and adaptive life choices while amplifying social and emotional uncertainties, destabilizing traditional family structures. Using a one‑way fixed‑effects model with country‑clustered standard errors, supplemented by robustness checks, the analysis considers economic, social, and political dimensions of globalization. The results show that social globalization has the strongest association with rising divorce rates, as cultural diffusion enhances individual autonomy, gender equality, and freedom of choice. Economic globalization also contributes by altering labor structures and household interdependence, while political globalization—through expanded personal rights—reinforces these effects more modestly. Globalization’s impact is greater in developed and Western societies, where greater financial independence and individualistic values facilitate marital dissolution. The implications, limitations, and future research directions are also discussed.