Journal Facts

Journal
Auto/Biography
ISSN
0967-5507
Volume
14
Issue
2

Article Facts

Title
Narratives of Risk and Collective Identity
DOI
10.1191/0967550706ab039oa
Author
Laura Potts (York St John College, UK, l.potts at yorksj.ac.uk)
Pages
116-133

Article Links

Narratives of Risk and Collective Identity

Laura Potts (York St John College, UK, l.potts at yorksj.ac.uk)

DOI: 10.1191/0967550706ab039oa

Abstract

Breast cancer risk tends to focus on the individual woman, and to ascribe responsibility accordingly. There is, however, a significant if marginalized body of scientific research that considers environmental hazards in relation to the disease. In a recent ESRC Science in Society funded project, we used a Geographical Information Systems for Participation (GIS-P) tool to map women's narratives of local hazards that might be associated with breast cancer risk. The maps and stories — of workplaces and playgrounds, homes and schools, factories and mines, of dust and the river — that evolved from this research process, reveal the participants' understanding of a shared community of risk. Thus risk becomes part of a collective identity, in relation to a shared and common danger, which shifts the locus of responsibility from the woman to the locale, and eventually to the agencies with authority of governance of those risks. This process contributes to the legitimization of `lay' narratives of aetiology, both as an ideological, political exercise, and as a pragmatic programme to open up deliberative democratic processes, and accord value and authority to citizens and non-professionals.

References

  1. Adam, B., Beck, U., van Loon, J. 2000.
  2. Barbour, R.S., Kitzinger, J. 1999. Developing focus group research: politics, theory and practice. Sage.
  3. Barron, D. 2003.
  4. Beck, U. 1992. Risk society: towards a new modernity. Sage.
  5. Adam, B., Beck, U., van Loon, J. Beck-Gernsheim 2000: Health and responsibility: from social change to technological change and vice versa pp. 122-35. Sage.
  6. Blaxter, M. 1990. Health and lifestyles. London.
  7. ——— Radley, A. 1993. Why do victims blame themselves pp. 124-42. Routledge.
  8. Breast Cancer Action 1993: Newsletter no. 19 — August 1993. Retrieved 14 February 2006 from <http://www.bcaction.org/Pages/SearchablePages/1993Newsletters/ Newsletter019D.html>
  9. Brown, P. 1992. Popular epidemiology and toxic waste contamination: lay and professional ways of knowing. Journal of Health and Social Behaviour vol. 33 pp. 267-81.
  10. Brown, P., Mikkelsen, E.J. 1990. No safe place: toxic waste, leukaemia and community action. University of California Press.
  11. Brown, P., Zavestoski, S.M., McCormick, S., Mandelbaum, J., Luebke, T. 2001. Print media coverage of environmental causation of breast cancer. Sociology of Health and Illness vol. 23 pp. 747-75.
  12. Bury, M. 1982. Chronic illness as biographical disruption. Sociology of Health and Illness vol. 4 pp. 167-82.
  13. Cancer Research UK 2003: Retrieved 14 February 2006 from http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/news/pressreleases/47964
  14. Cinderby, S., Forrester, J. 2005. Facilitating the local governance of air pollution using GIS for Participation. Applied Geography vol. 25 pp. 143-58.
  15. Davis, D. 2003. When smoke ran like water: tales of environmental deception and the battle against pollution. Perseus Press.
  16. Evans, N. 2003. State of the evidence: what is the connection between chemicals and cancer. Breast Cancer Fund and Breast Cancer Action.
  17. Fischer, F. 1993. Citizen participation and the democratization of policy expertise: from theoretical inquiry to practical cases. Policy Sciences vol. 26 pp. 165-87.
  18. Fischer, F. 2000. Citizens, experts and the environment: the politics of local knowledge. Duke University Press.
  19. Giddens, A. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Polity Press.
  20. <http://www.breastcancerwatch.org/main.html> Retrieved 14 February 2006.
  21. International Summit on Breast Cancer and the Environment: Research Needs. May 2002. Santa Cruz, California. Retrieved 14 February 2006 from <http://issocrates. berkeley.edu/~jmm716/BC/Environment/Summit/Final/Report.pdf>
  22. Barbour, R., Kitzinger, J. Kitzinger, J., Farquhar, C. 1999. The analytical potential of `sensitive moments' in focus group discussions pp. 156-72. Sage.
  23. Krieger, N. 1994. Epidemiology and the web of causation: has anyone seen the spider. Social Science and Medicine vol. 39 pp. 887-903.
  24. Morgan, D.L. Krueger, R.A. 1993. Quality control in focus group research pp. 65-85. Sage.
  25. Krueger, R.A. 1994. Focus groups — a practical guide for applied research. Sage.
  26. Adam, B., Beck, U., van Loon, J. Lash, S. 2000. Risk culture pp. 47-62. Sage.
  27. Cornwall, A., Welbourn, A. Lynn, H., Ward, D. 2002. Putting breast cancer on the map in Britain pp. 48-59. Zed Books.
  28. McCormick, S., Brody, J., Brown, P., Polk, R. 2004. Public involvement in breast cancer research: and analysis and model for future research. International Journal of Health Services vol. 34 pp. 625-46.
  29. Mayer, I. 1997. Debating technologies: a methodological contribution to design and evaluation. Tilburg University Press.
  30. Morgan, D. 1998. Focus groups as qualitative research. Sage.
  31. Naidoo, J., Wills, J. 1994. Health promotion, foundations for practice. Ballierre. Tindall.
  32. Nation, N.I. 2003. Breast Cancer Research Center launched Marin Independent Journal.
  33. O'Neill, O. 2002. Autonomy and trust in bioethics. Cambridge University Press.
  34. Parker, A., Tritter, J. 2004. Focus group method and methodology: reflections on current practice and recent debate.
  35. Popay, J., Williams, G. 1996. Public health research and lay knowledge. Social Science and Medicine vol. 42 pp. 759-68.
  36. Potts, L. 2004. An epidemiology of women's lives: environmental risk of breast cancer. Critical Public Health vol. 14 pp. 133-47.
  37. ——— 2004. Mapping citizen expertise about environmental risk of breast cancer. Critical Social Policy vol. 24 pp. 550-74.
  38. ——— Hallowell, N., Lawton, J., Susan Gregory, S. 2004. In debt in West Yorkshire pp. 62-64. Open University Press.
  39. Rose, H. 1994. Love, power and knowledge. Polity Press.
  40. ——— Adam, B., Beck, U., van Loon, J. 2000. Risk, trust and scepticism in the age of the new genetics pp. 63-77. Sage.
  41. Sasco, A. 2001. Epidemiology of breast cancer: an environmental disease. APMIS vol. 101 pp. 321-32.
  42. Potts, L.K. Saywell, C., Beattie, L., Henderson, L. 2000. Sexualised illness: the newsworthy body in representations of breast cancer pp. 37-42. Macmillan.
  43. Sherman, J.D. 2000. Life's delicate balance: causes and prevention of breast cancer. Taylor & Francis.
  44. Watterson, A. 2003. Public health in practice. Palgrave.
  45. Women's Environmental Network 1997. Putting breast cancer on the map — information pack. WEN.

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.