Risk, Stigma, Place: Technological Hazards and Spoiled Identities. Peter Simmons and Brian Wynne, Centre for the Study of Environmental Change, Bowland Tower East, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YN, UK, telephone +44 1524 592658, fax +44 1524 846339, e-mail P.Simmons@lancaster.ac.uk; Gordon Walker, Staffordshire University; and Alan Irwin, Brunel University
Much of the recent discussion of technological stigma and its consequences for public perceptions of risk has framed stigma in terms of negative economic impacts. To a great extent the economic framing reflects policy priorities and concerns. This framing can be seen as characteristic of a widespread tendency within the public policy domain to apply economic criteria when addressing environmental and risk issues. However, framing the issue in economic terms also obscures the nature of technological stigma and its social consequences. The consequences for a community of having a hazardous installation sited in the vicinity are not simply economic. Our paper demonstrates the limitations of the economic model which informs much of this recent writing on the subject and proposes an alternative, richer account which better captures the human and social consequences of technological stigma.
In the paper we return to Goffman's classic study of stigma as our starting point. Taking our cue from Goffman's conceptualisation of stigma in terms of spoiled identities, we examine the ways in which the presence of hazardous industrial installations can affect the identity of a place and the everyday social impact that this can have on the local community. By drawing on recent empirical research around hazardous sites in Britain and setting these processes in specific contexts, we outline a socio-cultural account of technological stigma. Among other things, this perspective draws our attention to the consequences for local senses of place, as well as highlighting the ways in which technological stigma interacts with other forms of local stigma.
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