Applying theories from Society and Technology Studies and cultural approaches to risk can open-up the knowledge production of risk and ground that process in social reality (Latour 2004). While non-cultural theories of risk, such as those in economics, psychology, and hazards planning, largely treat risk as a taken for granted objective reality (Lupton 1999; Fox 1999; Wisner et al. 2014), cultural theories of risk differ in that
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they assume an active rather than a passive perceiver of risk (Rayner 1992). This could be an individual or institution driven by their own cultural imperatives to select risks for management attention, or to suppress them from view (Douglas and Wildavsky1983). Institutional structure becomes the ultimate cause of risk perception, and risk
management becomes the stimulus for risk rather than the outcome of risk (Rayner 1992). Risks, therefore, are determined by the process of how an individual or institution comes to define, measure, understand, and construct knowledge about associated dangers in relation to what they care about (Douglas and Wildavsky 1983; Fox 1999). In this way, even hazards—or measured physical impacts associated with the changing
environment—are determined in relation to what an institution values and how the institution constructs and validates knowledge (Fox 1999).
In this framing, knowledge refers to claims made by actors—either individuals or institutions—that either serve to tell us something factual about the world (with varying degrees of certainty) or are taken by actors to tell us something factual about the world (Miller et al. 2010). It is an idea or judgement that someone takes to be true, or at least relatively truer than other kinds of statements (Miller et al. 2010) and are often shaped by tacit skills and values (Collins 1974), problem framings (Miller 2000), and styles of reasoning (Hacking 2002).
Knowledge about risks are co-produced in the planning process by individuals and institutions, where those involved in adaptation planning shape knowledge about risks, and that risk knowledge shapes the social and material world (Jasanoff 2004). The way risks are understood is ultimately linked to the design, planning, and implementation of proposed solutions (Sarawitz et al. 2000). To build an analysis around risks, the focus,
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is therefore on “the forms of knowledge, dominant discourse, and expert techniques and institutions that serve to render risk calculable and knowable, bringing it into being” (Lupton 1999, 7). Risks that matter are those seen as a threat to community—or institutional— order (Douglas and Wildavsky 1983), and, because of the uneven distribution of risks, the process of determining risk definitions and knowledge, and adopting those into formalized governance processes is inherently political (Beck 1992). Ultimately, knowledge practices around risk determine what institutions know and what they do not know, what kinds of questions get asked, the methods used to gather
information, and the standards by which to evaluate evidence (Lupton 1999).
Gross’s (2010) classification of ignorance offers a particularly useful approach to understanding how knowledge is constructed in sea level rise adaptation planning in Miami-Dade County, Florida (Figure 5.1). Sea level rise adaptation planning is
predicated on multiple forms of knowledge produced at different spatial, temporal, and administrative scales, with variegated actors involved in different contexts (addressed in Chapter 8 on knowledge politics of scale). Scientific knowledge is the primary means by which global and regional sea level rise rates and impacts are understood, and the
emphasis of scientific uncertainty often becomes the focus of where to produce new knowledge. Gross offers another way of thinking about this process using the concept of ignorance which points to the limits of knowing, including the intentional and
unintentional bracketing out of information (Gross 2010). He points to two forms of ignorance: nonknowledge and negative knowledge.
The first type of ignorance is called nonknowledge, which encompasses
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certain problem, however, they know the point of reference of that uncertainty. Within sea level rise, future conditions can never be fully knowable and actors from different institutions work toward identifying knowledge about those uncertainties. For example, sea level rise is understood as a process that is affected by currents, thermal expansion of water, tectonic activity, glacial ice melt, and other factors (Hine et al. 2016). While scientists recognize glacial ice melt as a crucial factor, they lack complete certainty and confidence as to how fast glaciers will melt with climate change (Hansen 2007).
Therefore, under Gross’s classifications of ignorance, rates of ice melt acceleration are characterized as “nonknowledge” and scientists work to better understand those
processes. This practice makes up knowledge claims that are recognized and debated in the institutional and planning structure. The development of new or extended knowledge, results from further assessments, planning, tinkering, or acting in the face on
nonknowledge. New knowledge connects back to ignorance, by addressing some of the initial ignorance and uncertainties and also creating new forms of ignorance and
uncertainties (Gross 2010). To address issues of scientific uncertainty in sea level rise adaptation planning, scientists and planners continue to explore known uncertainties born out of climate modeling, ecological and geological science, and other knowledges that are used in decision-making (Hine et al. 2016). The uncertainties are known and identified, and new knowledge seeks to address those uncertainties.
The second type of ignorance is negative knowledge which is the active
consideration that to think further in a certain direction will be unimportant. This occurs as some consequences of an activity might be anticipated but are deemed unimportant or unlikely to be severe. This is also related to Tannert, Elvers, and Jandrig’s (2007) idea of
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the Galileo effect which refers to Bertolt Brecht’s play during which a cardinal refuses to look through a telescope to avoid having to accept the knowledge that the planets revolve around the sun. Negative knowledge can lead to what Hess (2007) calls “undone science” where knowledge could be produced based on clearly defined ignorance, but it is not pursued further (e.g. science is driven towards results that are patentable, and away from other pursuits). Hess goes so far to argue that there is a “systematic nonexistence of selected fields of research” (Hess 2007, p. 2). Frickel (2008) applies this thinking to the term knowledge gaps to situate organizational outcomes of undone science in his work on the social determinants and effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. Such undone science may result in social movement organizations lacking potentially helpful research results because they are undone, a consequence of lack of funding based out of
knowledge avoidance practices by funders and planners who would have the capacity to support this research (Hess 2007; Frickel 2008).
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Complementary to Gross’s work on ignorance, the concept of institutional positionality can be used to explain these two forms of ignorance. Applied to risk, institutional positionality determines what institutions place as the substantive focus of risk, how institutions interpret information about the system, and how institutions bound a system regarding climate risks (Brugnach et al. 2008; van den Hoek 2014). Risk constructions stem from different ontological perspectives from which institutions align themselves and what values they prioritize on the landscape (Hilgartner 1992; Short and Clark 1992; Rayner 1992; Wisner et al. 2014). Different institutions come to understand, validate, and interpret risks and those epistemological differences can create conflict around what knowledge is considered valid (Bocking 2004). For example, there are
Figure 5.1 Two types of ignorance: nonknowledge and negative knowledge. Nonknowledge results in the production of new knowledge to try and reduce the ignorance. However, negative knowledge is ignored by the system and no new knowledge is created to address this form of ignorance. (Figure adapted from Gross (2010) Ignorance and Surprise)
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different scientific representations of risk, such as those used by climate scientists, hydrologists, versus geomorphologists. These representations are often considered credible sources because of their knowledge production system integrates testable and defensible biophysical laws (Latour and Woolgar 1986; Gieryn 2006). At the same time, however, these “facts” may be contested based on the epistemic choices made during their production (Ozawa 1996). Finally, risk knowledge encounters different system boundaries which can shape which knowledge is used and integrated in a planning system, and which knowledge is ignored or discarded (van den Hoek 2014). Institutions may bound the system differently in terms of both spatial and temporal scales and these differences may not only emerge in different constructions of risk, but also impact the planning process and knowledge integration (Adger 2005). Each of these risk knowledge construction processes related to institutional positionality can determine which form of ignorance is produced in the planning system.
Communities facing risks from climate change, such as Miami-Dade County, address those risks by first creating knowledge about them. In Miami-Dade County, this knowledge process primarily follows a format of a combination of the physical hazard, the vulnerability and adaptive capacity. The following three sections discuss the
knowledge practices and contestations within the way risk has been understood in Miami- Dade County with a discussion of how sea level rise rates were adopted locally (physical hazard), how this interacts with conditions on the landscape emphasizing knowledge that supports economic growth (vulnerability), and how this is understood in a vulnerability and adaptive capacity context.
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5.3 Scientific Reticence, Political Uncertainty, and Confronting Denialism—