The social and cultural construction of radiological risk: a case study

Man, society or culture, considered as objects, cannot be measured in the same way as one would measure gravity or a hyperbola. In these conditions, how can one isolate the socio-anthropological aspects from the overall perception of radiological risks, thus the nuclear question? This paper deals with an empirical study derived from some fundamental research conducted in order to explain how different social actors conceive the nuclear question by means of different social construction of reality. It fits into the sociological scheme of knowledge posing a set of methodological and theoretical questions that have as the object the study of the social determinants of knowledge related to the nuclear question. The present survey, carried out in Belgian agricultural workers, makes clear how such determinants interact to form one social construction of the radiological risk. It allows us to presume that the perception of the radiological risks cannot be reduced to some laypeople's measurable psychic (mis)perceptions. (author)