‘Experts in risk? … do they exist?’

Abstract

Important changes are occurring in the nature of expertise: from the traditional authoritative work of professionals to auditable forms of practice, and the rise of ‘alternative’ forms of expertise rooted in the experience and interests of patients, activists and business. The character of risk issues challenges the authority of both old and new forms of expertise and renders them problematic. The huge expansion of electronic communications drives some of these changes in expertise, and brings opportunities and threats for activities like technology decision-making.

Keywords:

• risk
• contingency
• experts
• expertise
• lay knowledge
• mediated knowledge
• technology decision-making

Acknowledgements

The title of this editorial is a verbatim fragment from a conversation at an arts centre in Cardiff, overheard en passant, in the Autumn of 2003. The paper is based on an invited contribution to a Health and Discourse Seminar on ‘Understanding Risk, Understanding Expertise’, convened by the Health Communication Research Centre at Cardiff University in December 2003. I am grateful to Chris Candlin and Srikant Sarangi for involving me this most interesting and enjoyable event. I am indebted to Andy Alaszewski, Katie Begg, Jerry Ravetz and Colin Young for helpful comments and conversations, and to the referees for their incisive observations which served to improve the coherence and clarity of the text. The work was supported in part by the Leverhulme Trust via the Understanding Risk programme.

Notes

An insightful observation made by Jerry Ravetz, which I recall as being uttered at a workshop held at the European Commission Joint Research Centre establishment at Ispra, in Italy in 1992 (see also Ravetz 2003).