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Abstract
This paper explores the relationship between risk-taking and risk management by examining meanings attached to risk by a group of lifestyle sport participants. Drawing from in-depth interviews with male and female rock-climbers in the UK, it outlines the ways in which climbers' construction of risk and risk management were intimately related to broader discourses of risk and self-reflexivity in contemporary western society.Footnote 1 Analysing the data through reference to Douglas' work on risk and identityFootnote2 shows how climbers' discursive practices surrounding risk management are intrinsically related to their assumed identity as a competent, experienced and good climber. Consequently, this group of climbers established their credentials not by daring or risk-taking actions on the rock face but instead by demonstrating their competence in the way they managed and controlled risk.
Notes
1 CitationGiddens, Modernity and Self-identity.
2 CitationDouglas, Risk and Blame.
3 CitationTomlinson et al., ‘Lifestyle Sports’.
4 CitationRinehart, ‘Emerging Arriving sport’.
5 CitationOlivier, ‘Moral Dilemmas’.
6 CitationBeal, ‘Alternative Masculinity’.
7 CitationWheaton, Understanding Lifestyle Sports, 4.
8 CitationFinch and Cassell, ‘Public Health Impact’.
9 Wheaton, Understanding Lifestyle Sports, 11–12.
10 See for example, CitationFeher, Meyers and Skelly, ‘Psychological Profile’; CitationFreixanet, ‘Personality Profile’; CitationRobinson, ‘Stress Seeking’.
11 CitationShoham, Rose and Kahle, ‘Practitioners of Risky Sports’.
12 CitationCreyer, Ross and Evers, ‘Risky Eecreation’.
13 CitationSlanger and Rudestam, ‘Motivation and Disinhibition’.
14 Wheaton, Understanding Lifestyle Sports.
15 CitationStranger, ‘Aesthetics of Risk’.
16 CitationStranger, ‘Aesthetics of Risk’, 267.
17 CitationLewis, ‘Climbing body’.
18 CitationRobinson, ‘Taking Risks’, 120.
19 CitationHeywood, ‘Urgent Dreams’, 187.
20 CitationHeywood, ‘Climbing Monsters’, 456.
21 Olivier, ‘Moral Dilemmas’, 98.
22 Olivier, ‘Moral Dilemmas’, 98.
23 See for example, CitationBeck, Risk Society; Giddens, Modernity and Self-identity.
24 Douglas, Risk and Blame.
25 CitationMitchell et al., ‘Situating Young People's Experiences’, 220.
26 Giddens, Modernity and Self-identity, 132.
27 See, for example, CitationLash, ‘Reflexive Modernization’; CitationPowell and Edwards, ‘Risk and Youth’.
28 See, for example, CitationAdkins, ‘Risk Culture and Self-reflexivity’; CitationHier, ‘Risk and Panic’; CitationUngar, ‘Moral Panic’.
29 See, for example, CitationChan and Rigakos, ‘Risk, Crime and Gender’; CitationDingwall, ‘Risk Society’; CitationStrong, ‘Epidemic Psychology’.
30 CitationLupton, Risk.
31 Lash, ‘Reflexive Modernization’.
32 CitationDonnelly, ‘Sport and Risk Culture’.
33 Douglas, Risk and Blame.
34 See, for example, Mitchell et al., ‘Situating Young People's Experiences’; CitationMitchell, Bunton and Green, Young People, Risk and Leisure.
35 Mitchell et al., ‘Situating Young People's Experiences’, 230.
36 Lash, ‘Reflexive Modernization’.
37 CitationDonnelly and Young, ‘Rock Climbers and Rugby Players’.
38 Citationde Leseleuc, Gleyse and Marcellini, ‘Practice of Sport’.
39 Mintel, ‘Sport Participation – UK’, May 2000, http://reports.mintel.com.
40 CitationBryman, Social Research Methods.
41 CitationBritish Mountaineering Council ‘Equity Survey Report’.
42 CitationMcDermott, ’Toward a Feminist Understanding’.
43 CitationGreen, ‘Women Doing Friendship’.
44 See CitationOakley, ‘Interviewing women’.
45 CitationDenzin, Interpretive Interactionism.
46 See, for example, Robinson, ’Taking Risks’.
47 See, for example, CitationWheaton's experiences in ‘Babes on the beach’.
48 See, for example, CitationDenzin and Lincoln, Landscape of Qualitative Research; CitationPatton, Qualitative Evaluation; CitationSilverman, Doing Qualitative Research.
49 CitationCorbin and Strauss, Basics of Qualitative Research.
50 Lewis, ‘Climbing Body’.
51 Heywood, ‘Urgent Dreams’.
52 Giddens, Modernity and Self-identity.
53 CitationLaurendeau, ‘He Didn't Go’.
54 See for example, Creyer, Ross and Evers, ‘Risky Recreation’; Lewis, ‘ Climbing Body’; Olivier, ‘Moral Dilemmas’. Stranger, ‘Aesthetics of Risk’.
55 CitationLois, ‘Gender and Emotion Management’.
56 CitationLois ‘Peaks and Valleys’.
57 Giddens, Modernity and Self-identity, 70.
58 Donnelly, ‘Sport and Risk Culture’.
59 See for example, CitationLe Breton, ‘Playing Symbolically with Death’; Lewis, ‘Climbing body’; Stranger, ‘Aesthetics of risk’.
60 CitationPorro, ’Response’.
61 Robinson, ‘Taking Risks’.
62 Douglas, Risk and Blame.
63 Laurendeau, ‘He Didn't Go’.
64 CitationAlbert, ‘Dealing with Danger’.
65 CitationKay and Laberge, ’Mandatory Equipment’.
66 Mitchell, Bunton and Green, Young People, Risk and Leisure.
67 Douglas, Risk and Blame; Giddens, Modernity and Self-identity; Lash,‘Reflexive Modernization’.
68 Heywood, ‘Urgent Dreams’.
69 CitationLyng, ‘Edgework’.