The Social Construction of Public Perceptions of Air Pollution Risk. K. J. Bickerstaff, University of East Anglia
This paper reflects on some of the key findings and insights offered by recent work on public understandings of urban air pollution risk. This area of public perception research has received surprisingly little academic attention (when compared to the high level of interest around issues such as climate change and plant biotechnology), with the bulk of work carried out over three decades ago and reflecting strongly realist empirical, methodological and conceptual pre-occupations. The 1990’s did however see a renewed interest, prompted in part by the re-emergence of urban air pollution on the policy agenda. The ensuing small flurry of studies were radically different to what had gone before – with researchers adopting more constructivist approaches to the exploration of public understandings of risk and employing qualitative methodologies.
This discussion draws upon a study of public perceptions of urban air pollution in Birmingham, UK. The fieldwork was conducted in 1996 and involved in-depth interviews with members of the public from three diverse residential districts. I use the findings of this work to explore the socio-cultural basis of several key dimensions to public perceptions of risk including sources of awareness, spatial patterns and health impacts. In particular I consider a number of the ‘environmental justice’ implications of this research – focusing on the social distribution of perceived risk and vulnerability. The paper goes on to argue that a social constructivist interpretation, in revealing ‘complexity’, raises serious questions about the meaning of and political response to air pollution; questions which could in turn offer the potential to progress our understanding and management of the social and cultural production of air pollution risks.
Work supported by the Leverhulme Trust and Staffordshire University.
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