Cycling injuries and the re-modernisation of mundane risks: from injury prevention to a population health and environmental problem

Abstract

Commentators drawing on the concept of the Risk Society have argued that the proliferation of large-scale risks generates critical reflection on the modernistic logic and drives current societal changes. Critics have argued that this thesis neglects the centrality of mundane risks in shaping contemporary identities. However, such critics have not considered the dynamics of mundane risks and the possibility that these dynamics follow the predictions made by Risk Society theorists. In this article, I examine this issue using the recent history of cycling risk, focussing on expert knowledge in the Global North between 1970 and 2014. I draw on Actor–Network Theory to operationalise Risk Society, conceptualising accounts of cycling risk as the products of a dynamic network. I examine this network using scientometric analyses of scientific papers, analyses of influential texts and in-depth interviews with experts and activists. I argue that the dynamics of this network follow the predictions of Risk Society: bicycle helmets emerged as a technological fix for a specific risk, but are now described as the source of new risks to health and safety, due to their potential interactions with human psychologies and social behaviours. This encourages reflexivity on the conditions producing such risks, namely, the modernistic logic. Thus, mundane risks are both re-modernised and remain central to shaping identities and concerns. More specifically, the interaction between mundane risks and holistic conceptualisations of health is shown to contribute to the shift from first to second modernity.

Keywords:

• Risk society
• re-modernization
• bicycle helmets
• cycling
• actor-network theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Société et la Culture [FQRSC SE-164195, Alberto Cambrosio P.I.].