Border Crossings: Narratives of Movement, ‘Home’ and Risk

Despite the extensive sociological literature commenting on the ‘risk society’, surprisingly little empirical research has explored the ways in which notions, narratives and knowledges concerning risks are developed, understood and embedded in personal risk biographies. In particular, this is true of some of the most vulnerable people in the risk society: those who have migrated for reasons of personal, religious, economic, material or ideological persecution. This article addresses risk perceptions of immigrants to Australia, using data from a larger project on Australians’ perceptions and negotiation of risk. The emphasis of the research is on dimensions of risk biography that highlight matters of multiple identity and subjectivities. Drawing on three such risk biographies, we pose and begin to answer a number of specific questions: How have people come to construct their knowledges on risks? Which risks do people find most threatening or important? Whom do people see as causing or having responsibility over risk? How do people posit solutions for dealing with risk? In doing so we critique Beck's notion of the ‘cataclysmic’ and ‘democratised’ notion of risk within ‘risk modernity’.