Whilst there is a lot of academic discussion concerning how ‘Risk’ and ‘Resilience’ should be defined and/or understood, how non-academics actually talk and think about these is relatively under-studied. These could include: people at risk in a crisis situation (especially different kinds of disadvantaged people), first responders as well as planners and policy actors. Such wider conceptions are of huge importance in terms of:
- Being able to address people’s concerns regarding risk and resilience
- Understanding which stories/memes etc. about risk- and resilience-related events (and their mitigation) spread and why
- Understanding better the context for any official “expert/politician → public” communication
Thus, far from being a secondary concern – something usually only thought about when it comes to broadcasting official messages (if at all) – common understandings and stories will frame the response of most people to any crisis. This makes the issue central to risk and resilience concerns, for planning but more basically as a way into what the widespread concerns of people are and how they think of them. Methodologically, advancing the understanding of how people understand these ideas is challenging. Given that it is hard to collect data about how people think, the bulk of this workshop will focus on example communications and their analysis, but could include any approaches that are relevant to their understanding.