“风险社会”视角下的社会问题

Social Problems in Risk Society

“风险”已经成为理解和解释当今世界的一个关键观念。作为社会问题的当代话语形式的风险理论,特别是“风险社会”理论,不仅为把握当代社会问题的形成机制和特征提供了全新的观察视角,而且必将重塑社会学中的社会问题传统。当代社会问题的全球化和个体化趋势,既对局限于民族国家框架内的社会学想象力提出了挑战,也迫使我们调整思路以理解个体与社会之间新的直接性;而知识政治重要性的突显,要求我们重新审视当代社会问题建构过程中的复杂性。

The concept of risk turns to be a key notion widely used in the understanding and explanation of contemporary world community. The theory of risk society, as a current discourse of social problem studies, provides not only abrand new perspective to understand present social problems and their becoming, but also a way to reform sociological tradition in dealing with social problems. With their worldwide spreading and diversifying tendencies, social problems not only challenge sociological imagination in the framework of nation-state, but also urge us to redirect our inquiry for a better understanding of the conflict between the individual and the social. To emphasize the importance of politics of knowledge, we are required to reexamine the heterogeneity in the construction of contemporary social issues.