IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v14y2009i4p8-18.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘Their Risks Are My Risks’: On Shared Risk Epistemologies, Including Altruistic Fear for Companion Animals[1]

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin Walby
  • Aaron Doyle

Abstract

This paper builds in two ways on previous sociological studies concerning how people experience risk. Firstly, we discuss how risk is experienced in shared or altruistic ways as concern for others, and thus how emotions regarding risks produce solidarity. Secondly, we consider in particular how the others for whom one becomes concerned are not always people, and are sometimes instead companion animals such as cats and dogs, thus expanding the analysis beyond anthropocentrism and towards ‘animal-human symmetry’. Previous studies that have examined the shared or altruistic elements of fear (eg Warr, 1992) focus narrowly on crime. Those that broaden out to consider other risks besides crime (Lupton and Tulloch, 2002) do not include companion animals as subjects about whom people have concern. The article draws examples from open-ended interviews conducted in Ottawa, Canada, demonstrating how these themes arise as people narrate their experiences of risk, and pointing to the need for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Walby & Aaron Doyle, 2009. "‘Their Risks Are My Risks’: On Shared Risk Epistemologies, Including Altruistic Fear for Companion Animals[1]," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 14(4), pages 8-18, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:14:y:2009:i:4:p:8-18
    DOI: 10.5153/sro.1975
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.1975
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5153/sro.1975?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Jackson, 2006. "Introducing Fear of Crime to Risk Research," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(1), pages 253-264, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ruben Flores, 2013. "When Charity Does Not Begin at Home: Exploring the British Socioemotional Economy of Compassion," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 18(1), pages 50-60, February.
    2. Kien Nguyen-Trung, 2022. "Risk Epistemologies and Aesthetic Reflexivity of a Disaster-Affected Community: Findings from Vietnam," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 27(4), pages 932-946, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kuen, Kiseong & Weisburd, David & White, Clair & Hinkle, Joshua C., 2022. "Examining impacts of street characteristics on residents' fear of crime: Evidence from a longitudinal study of crime hot spots," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Zhou, Li & Turvey, Calum & Hu, Wuyang & Ying, Ruiyao, 2015. "Fear and Trust: How Risk Perceptions of Avian Influenza Affect the Demand for Chicken," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 202077, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Peter Kitchen & Allison Williams, 2010. "Quality of Life and Perceptions of Crime in Saskatoon, Canada," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 33-61, January.
    4. Persson Monika, 2013. "The Relative Importance of Institutional Trust in Countering Feelings of Unsafety in Disadvantaged Neigyhbourhoods," European Spatial Research and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 20(1), pages 73-95, June.
    5. Robert Gant & Philip Terry, 2017. "Narrative of the night-out: Student engagement in the night-time economy of Kingston upon Thames," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 32(5), pages 467-481, August.
    6. Huhn, Sebastian, 2009. "The Culture of Fear and Control in Costa Rica (II): The Talk of Crime and Social Changes," GIGA Working Papers 108, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    7. John E. Grable & Michael J. Roszkowski, 2008. "The influence of mood on the willingness to take financial risks," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(7), pages 905-923, October.
    8. Agénor Lahatte & Marie‐Clémence Le Pape, 2008. "Is the Way Young People Drive a Reflection of the Way Their Parents Drive? An Econometric Study of the Relation Between Parental Risk and Their Children's Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(3), pages 627-634, June.
    9. Vanja Erčulj, 2022. "The ‘young and the fearless’: revisiting the conceptualisation of fear of crime," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1177-1192, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:14:y:2009:i:4:p:8-18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.