Living in a risk society: a review of the special issue of the Journal of risk research on Ulrich Beck's intellectual legacy

Dolgov A.Yu.

Abstract

The review considers articles from a special issue of the Journal of risk research (2018, Vol. 21, N 1) devoted to the intellectual legacy of the German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1944–2015). The authors of the reviewed articles focus not only on the well-known theory of risk society, but also analyze in detail other ideas and concepts of Beck, such as «individualization», «cosmopolitanism», «risk-class», «methodological nationalism» and others. The articles show that Beck's work can be used to study both macrostructural transformations and micro-level processes, including topics on natural and man-made disasters, climate change, terrorism, food security, and transformations of families, communities and solidarity.

Keywords

Ulrich Beck; risk society; modernity; uncertainty; individualization; cosmopolitanism; catastrophes; solidarity.

DOI: 10.31249/rsoc/2022.04.03

Download text