Risk, Responsibility, and Blame: An Analysis of Vocabularies of Motive in Air-Pollution(ing) Discourses
- 1 December 2002
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space
- Vol. 34 (12), 2175-2192
- https://doi.org/10.1068/a3521
Abstract
In this paper we analyse the reasonings that people deploy in explaining and rationalising their behaviour in relation to the collective environmental and health-risk problem of urban air quality. We draw on an empirical study of public perceptions of air pollution to identify a range of ‘vocabularies of motive’ or discourses that serve to move responsibility to act away from the individual and onto other groups. We consider how far each of these ‘vocabularies' can be interpreted as a mode of blaming, and draw conclusions linking our analysis to wider relational and moral tensions. Our analysis suggests that blame, although conceptually powerful, falters under empirical scrutiny. On this basis we argue for a more sensitive reading of responsibility discourses in academic debate and enquiry. Conclusions and policy implications are developed, linking our interpretation to the (confrontation of) wider relational and moral tensions, which characterise collective-risk situations.Keywords
This publication has 38 references indexed in Scilit:
- Public Participation and Local Environmental Planning: The collective action problem and the potential of social capitalLocal Environment, 2000
- Think globally, act locally'? Climate change and public participation in Manchester and FrankfurtLocal Environment, 1999
- Clearing the smog? Public responses to air‐quality informationLocal Environment, 1999
- Overcoming the ‘value‐action gap’ in environmental policy: Tensions between national policy and local experienceLocal Environment, 1999
- Cultural theory and risk: A reviewHealth, Risk & Society, 1999
- Toxic contamination, community health, and the attribution of blame: The Dunsmuir metam sodium spillSociety & Natural Resources, 1998
- Risk perception and social anthropology: Critique of cultural theory*Ethnos, 1996
- Individual Environmental Responsibility and its Role in Public EnvironmentalismEnvironment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 1993
- Risk and Recreancy: Weber, the Division of Labor, and the Rationality of Risk PerceptionsSocial Forces, 1993
- On causality, responsibility, and self-blame: A theoretical note.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986