Comentary by Ricardo Garcia (Jornalista at Público)

Framework

From studies and reflections spanning different countries and different regimes of risk regulation in the book  "Os Lugares (Im)possíveis da Cidadania; Estado e Risco num Mundo Globalizado"  [“Places of (Im)possible Citizenship; State and Risk in a Globalized World”] seeks to analyze the political work, from a local level  to a transnational level, carried out in order  to normalize extreme events or permanent hazardous situations. This is a political issue that relates to the problem of the relationship between States, private and public interests and democracy-building.

The growing global risks and the central role of transnational regulatory agencies, and the resulting decoupling of nation and state, diverts attention from the material and symbolic mechanisms that operate in the field of domestic politics of States and the political struggle that emerges as a result of the occurrence of extreme events and permanent hazardous situations.

Extreme events and permanent hazardous situations show the incessant political work to put disposable groups and individuals outside the social networks and the imagined national communities.

The alternative is to delineate the participation of social technologies that lead to the construction of civic epistemologies that allow the presence of informed and critical citizens in the public space. These civic epistemologies define how democratic societies acquire a common knowledge for purposes of collective action, the former being shaped by different political cultures and national contexts.