The selected local context was that of the Sines region, involving the two parishes that constitute the municipality of Sines and three of which are part of the municipality of Santiago do Cacém, due to the history of this region as a place of installation of one of the most ambitious industrial complexes of the Portuguese territory.
Notwithstanding the progress achieved in terms of current legislation on pollution and access to information or the progressive awareness and assumption of corporate social and environmental responsibility, the history of industrial progress in Sines was marked by numerous incidents, accidents, misunderstandings and controversies.
While main objectives that guided this work we can advance two:
first of all the quest to understand how a population that has lived together for many years with an industrial complex perceives this coexistence and the potential risks that can particularly the possible health impacts;
second, to explore the multi-dimensionality of the concept of risk through the search for understand that variables can influence the perception of risk, such as the nature of the relationship with “producers of risks”, trust or access to information.
In this project, to think about the concept of risk is to think of a multidimensional concept, where the most technical perspective of trying to quantify the risks, although not totally neglected, represents a small part and, undoubtedly, one of the least relevant. We start from a definition of risk where subjectivity and objectivity combine to try to understand the perception of risk in the Sines region.
Essentially, we tried to combine two main theoretical currents and understand how they are expressed in the arguments presented by the participants in this research (interviewed and interviewed) and can help us to analyze the perception of risk in the Sines region. On the one hand, the risk society that has as its main mentor Ulrich Beck, and which is based on a very critical perspective on how risks are produced and managed in today’s society. According to this current, risks are not only a reflection, or a side effect of an objective of greater magnitude, but clear examples of the delegitimization of current rationality, whether in the economic, scientific or political dimensions. On the other hand, ecological modernization, understood as the dominant theoretical current in the way of interpreting risks in the present. This theoretical current relies heavily on science, technology, and an approach where risks are standardized ‘as part of the system, or as an incentive for the continued development of science, technology, economics, and politics. The first represents a rupture with the current rationality in Modernity, the second represents, to a certain extent, continuity.
It is from these two theoretical contextualizations that one will try to analyze how the populations of the region of Sines perceive the risks in their daily life. Although the risks most easily and immediately perceived in this region can be categorized as traditional risks in their detection (we are talking about air pollution, water pollution or even industrial accident risk), because they are relatively easy to identify from the human sensory system (sight, smell), these have characteristics that are less visible and that allow them to classify in characteristics, currently considered as associated with new risks.
Associated Publications:
