Modern societies are increasingly concerned with risk, often emphasizing individualistic conceptions of risk. However, the construction of risk is social and consequential. Risk orders theory interrogates consequences of risk discourse, as we struggle to live with our profound desire to avoid threats. This article theorizes the construction of three types of risks, collectively termed risk orders. First-order risks, those typically studied by risk scholars, are constructed claims about concrete threats to a physical body. However, constructions of first-order risks prompt additional, abstract risks for individuals and collectives. Therefore, we propose that second-order and third-order risks arise in the shadow of first-order risks. Second-order risks exist when we perceive an individual as insufficiently avoiding first-order risks. These include threats to our sense of goodness and character, termed moral risks, as well as threats to our relationships, termed social risks. Third-order risks are threats to collectives' agency and imagination. Human communication produces and reproduces a multitude of risks, not simply concrete first-order risks. The risks we construct actualize consequential social worlds that deeply affect our identity, social relations, and cultural imagination. This article posits risk orders theory and applies it to infant feeding discourse.
In this article, I illustrate reflexive embodied ethnography with applied sensibilities as an approach for performing, interpreting, and applying qualitative research. I argue that we enter the field as embodied beings hoping to find significant insights with the potential to connect with other persons’ lived experiences, which in my work involves searching for answers to health conditions. Reflexive embodied ethnography: a) recognizes that each field experience potentially changes how we come to perceive, understand, and act in the world; b) receptively approaches our own and others’ responses to experiences that transcend language; and c) enhances our awareness that we also re-constitute worlds with our words. Applied ethnographic sensibilities include: a) reconstructing our social world through storied reflections grounded in our bodies; and b) revealing meanings that move us towards social action through examining discourse and ‘extra’ discourse-in-use.
Discourses about health risks can have major implications for individuals and cultures. In this article, we use risk orders theory to examine nurses' perceptions of patient safety risk in Obstetrics departments of US hospitals. According to risk orders theory, risk discourses can create social worlds that have the capacity to threaten individuals' social bonds, identity and moral character, and the imaginative potential of entire cultures. Risk orders theory proposes three orders of risk. First-order risks are constructed from claims about tangible dangers that individuals believe result from their actions or inactions. Second-order risks are threats experienced by individuals because of communication about first-order risk, including threats to social relationships or social risks, and threats to the sense of moral character or moral risk. Third-order risks are threats to collective agency and imagination underpinning shared culture. In this article, we draw on data from a survey of obstetric nurses who attended the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses conference in 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. We use a qualitative thematic analysis of 131 obstetrics nurses' narrative responses on a critical incident survey to refine theoretical constructs of risk orders theory. We identified a third type of second-order risk, identity risks, or threats to the sense of self. We also identified three types of third-order risks: agencyconstraining risks threaten members of a culture's ability to act freely; agentconstraining risks threaten cultural members' ability to define themselves freely; double-binding risks threaten their ability to make choices freely. We found that second-order and third-order risks did threaten some obstetrics nurses' social bonds, identity as a nurse, moral character and imaginative potential.
We advance a new theoretical approach for interpreting health communication from an embodied, intersubjective perspective. We propose individuals experience the world as bodied beings and must make sense of their embodied experiences by managing meanings of who they are in the world (being), the actions they perform (doing), and who they want to become (directed becoming). We call this theory managing meanings of embodied experiences (MMEE). Guided by the philosophies of phenomenology, pragmatism, and feminism, we provide a three-fold framework for exploring individuals' management of health meanings during interactions with others in society. The first layer-being-demonstrates a mutually constituting, intersubjective presence with others, whereby we attend to our own and another's embodied expressions accomplished communicatively. The second layer-doing-appreciates experiences directed by personal and social values both perceived and conceived during the unfolding of coordinated communicative events. The third layer-directed becoming-highlights our ability to mindfully direct changes to our identity and actions through critical reflection; it is the transformative potential of our reflective synthesis of being and doing.
Our study aims at understanding multigenerational communication among grandmothers, mothers, and daughters experiencing reproductive health transitions from menarche to menopause. Thirty women, 10 triads of grandmothers, mothers, and daughters, participated in narrative interviews to recount their menarche and menopause experiences. Analysis was read using a multilayered approach to interpret discourse positioned from self, reflexive others, and those stories informed by societal meanings. Four dialectical themes informed by generational discursive shifts in talk included (1) covert versus overt talk, (2) recollection of versus indifference to menarche, (3) bound to versus freedom from menstruation, and (4) controlling versus managing bodily changes. The theoretical significance of this piece indicates a slight, transformative change in how messages about menarche and menstruation are communicated or passed down from one generation to the next.
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