Sociology for sustainability and analysis of global processes

The course addresses risk and uncertainty with the aim to deepen knowledges and competencies to analyse and critically interpret the social and cultural construction of risks. The first part of the course presents the main sociological approaches to global risk, focusing on the connections between risks and sustainability: 1) risk perceptions 2) social relations of power in risk definition and management 3) responsibility for the consequences of risks and human actions to contain them; 4) emancipatory perspectives. The main part of the course focusses on the application of the theoretical an conceptual frame to concrete cases/events. Environmental and health risks are among possible areas of analysis for the current academic year.

No prerequisites. However, a good knowledge of contemporary sociological theories is extremely useful

PARTICIPANTS IN THE WORKSHOP MUST BASE THEIR WORK ON AT LEAST THREE OF THE REFERENCE READINGS LISTED BELOW: RISK AND SUSTAINABILITY Eizenberg, Efrat, and Yosef Jabareen. 2017. ‘Social Sustainability: A New Conceptual Framework’. Sustainability 9(1):68. doi: 10.3390/su9010068. RISK CONCEPTS AND THEORIES *Beck U. (2008). Conditio humana. Il rischio nell’età globale. Bari: Laterza. *Douglas, Mary (1996) Rischio e colpa, Bologna Il Mulino. *Luhmann Niklas, 1996, Sociologia del rischio, tr. It. Bari, Laterza *Lupton, Deborah, 2003, Il rischio. Percezione, simboli, culture, Bologna, Il mulino. Battistelli, Fabrizio, and Maria Grazia Galantino. 2019. ‘Dangers, Risks and Threats: An Alternative Conceptualization to the Catch-All Concept of Risk’. Current Sociology 67(1):64–78. doi: 10.1177/0011392118793675. Beck, Ulrich. 2009. ‘World Risk Society and Manufactured Uncertainties’. Iris: European journal of Philosophy and Public Debate : 1, 2, 2009, 291-299 Hilgartner, Stephen (1992) The social construction of risk objects: Or, how to pry open networks of risk. In: Short JF and Clarke L (eds) Organizations, Uncertainties, and Risk. New York: Westview, 39–53. Kasperson, Roger E., Ortwin Renn, Paul Slovic, Halina S. Brown, Jacque Emel, Robert Goble, Jeanne X. Kasperson, and Samuel Ratick. 1988. ‘The Social Amplification of Risk: A Conceptual Framework’. Risk Analysis 8(2):177–87. doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1988.tb01168.x. Renn, Ortwin. 2008. ‘Concepts of Risk: An Interdisciplinary Review Part 1: Disciplinary Risk Concepts’. GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society 17(1):50–66. doi: 10.14512/gaia.17.1.13. RISK, INEQUALITIES, POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY Beck, Ulrich. 2013. ‘Why “Class” Is Too Soft a Category to Capture the Explosiveness of Social Inequality at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century. The British Journal of Sociology 64(1):63–74. doi: 10.1111/1468-4446.12005. Curran, Dean. 2018. ‘Beck’s Creative Challenge to Class Analysis: From the Rejection of Class to the Discovery of Risk-Class’. Journal of Risk Research 21(1):29–40. doi: 10.1080/13669877.2017.1351464. Olofsson, Anna, Jens O. Zinn, Gabriele Griffin, Katarina Giritli Nygren, Andreas Cebulla, and Kelly Hannah-Moffat. 2014. ‘The Mutual Constitution of Risk and Inequalities: Intersectional Risk Theory’. Health, Risk & Society 16(5):417–30. doi: 10.1080/13698575.2014.942258. Galantino, Maria Grazia. 2022. ‘Organised Irresponsibility in the Post-Truth Era: Beck’s Legacy in Today’s World at Risk’. Italian Sociological Review 971 Paginazione DOING RISK RESEARCH: METHODOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS Henwood, Karen, Nick Pidgeon, Sophie Sarre, Peter Simmons, and Noel Smith. 2008. ‘Risk, Framing and Everyday Life: Epistemological and Methodological Reflections from Three Socio-Cultural Projects’. Health, Risk & Society 10(5):421–38. doi: 10.1080/13698570802381451. Olofsson, Anna, and Jens O. Zinn, eds. 2019. Researching Risk and Uncertainty: Methodologies, Methods and Research Strategies. Cham: Springer International Publishing (selected chapters). RISK AND EMANCIPATIONS: VISIONS OF A (SUSTAINABLE) FUTURE Adloff, Frank, and Sighard Neckel. 2021. ‘Futures of Sustainability: Trajectories and Conflicts’. Social Science Information 60(2):159–67. doi: 10.1177/0539018421996266. *Beck, Ulrich, 2016 La metamorfosi del mondo, Bari Laterza. Beck, Ulrich. 2015. ‘Emancipatory Catastrophism: What Does It Mean to Climate Change and Risk Society?’ Current Sociology 63(1):75–88. doi: 10.1177/0011392114559951. Levy, Daniel. 2018. ‘Risk and the Cosmopolitanization of Solidarities’. Journal of Risk Research 21(1):56–67. doi: 10.1080/13669877.2017.1359202. Other useful readings to contextualise the specific case study selected by students may be identified based on specific needs and/or interests. FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT PARTICIPATE IN THE WORKSHOP, THE ORAL EXAM WILL FOCUS ON ONE OF THE TEXTS MARKED WITH AN ASTERISK AND AN ARTICLE OF YOUR CHOICE.