Socio-environmental conflicts and social perception of risk studies

Abstract

This article describes several theoretical approaches on social perceptions of risk, remarking their main theoretical and methodological frameworks and their limits. The main aim of these approaches is to know why sometimes people seem to cope with risks in an irrational way, frequently promoting social conflicts. The evolution of the academic debate allows it to overcome the classical objective risk / subjective risk oposition, in order to go to more complex and holistic theoretical frames, which establish that social conflicts of risk have something to do with the stock of different risk conceptions competing in the political and social debate.