The Spatial Dimension of Risk by Detlef Muller-Mahn

Author:Detlef Muller-Mahn [Muller-Mahn, Detlef]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138900943
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2015-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

Why Places and Environments Matter: Constructed Spaces of Risk, Resilience and Adherence

How do these latest constructs relate to our conceptualisation of danger space and risk space above? To recall: we argue that the building of social resilience occurs in the domain of ‘risk’ as opposed to the sphere of ‘danger’. Both the social-ecological constructs of ‘robustness/regulation in times of interferences’ or ‘buffering of unexpected disturbances’ and the psychological concept of ‘proactive thriving despite adversities’ are part of a translation process from contingencies to probabilities and reliabilities. Adaptation and creativity (and, as such, appropriation) take place within the domains of perception, communication and interpretation of dangers, and of the institutionalisation of (successful) handling. Again, we call these domains ‘risk space’ because it is here where complex social interaction related to danger and risk occurs. It is this complex dimension of the social that is ‘space’ (see Massey 2005). And it is here where resilience is negotiated and produced.

Here, then, lies the added value of including resilience concepts in their various dimensions when it comes to assessing and explaining crises brought about by factors such as HIV. Risk space and resilience space can be seen with the patient in the centre (after all, it is the individual who is most directly affected by the threat and burden of a potentially lethal infection) as well as being produced and construed, fostered and hampered by actors beyond the individual, i.e. social groups, the community, society. These notions of risk and resilience allow for an investigation into that individual’s social setting, handling, acting and agency, and into patterns of communication, interpretation, negotiations, etc. of key actors and social groupings, under given internal and external conditions and foundations and their reshaping. The complexity of avoiding, or adapting to, individual infection plus intersubjective, societal (or, if we like, ‘cultural’) dealings with the pandemic constitute an institutionalised form of resilience (however loose or rigid, temporal or sustainable, subordinate, authoritative or powerful these institutions might be) which is embedded in the risk space.

In addition to this comprehensive concept of risk space we must acknowledge that there are concrete and measurable spaces, places and locations associated with the production of risk and resilience. Reverting to our example of HIV/AIDS and therapy adherence, one such place (on a national level) is Botswana. If we talk of institutionalised negotiations and handling practices, we mean social communities, groups or households and families in their roles as both institutional systems as well as societal spaces. If we talk of risk-taking versus risk-averse practices, these take place (sic) in locations: the HI virus is transmitted through social (bodily) interaction which is spatially positioned in certain locations, ARV drugs are (not) taken in certain locations (for instance the workplace in our example above), medical counselling occurs in specific spatial settings (e.g. the clinic or hospital), or the adequacy of measures to avoid virus transmission or promote adherence is discussed in certain socio-spatial environments (which might be anything from a living-room, a classroom, a television studio or parliament to an expert workshop or a church).

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