La polysémie temporelle du risque

Abstract

The concept of risk no longer evokes an occasional threat, but rather a permanent state in which society deals with the present by referring to the future and to rational probability theory. In a risk society the past loses its détérmining power, the future takes its place. In its wider application, this temporal perspective opens up a series of questions concerning the concept of risk as applied to traditional societies, whose ties to the past are often strong. The region of Naples provides an example through which we can examine the cultural dynamics between the concept of danger, transmitted both by oral and written traditions, and the concept of risk, used by scientists. The current notion of « living with risk » has influenced the way Neapolitan culture perceives its own past, one of recurring volcanic éruptions. Nevertheless the fact that the inhabitants formulate their experience through this new global interpretative category, has not eliminated the relationship they maintain with « their risk » in their daily lives.

Keywords

• memory
• risk
• Vesuvius
• vulcanology
• destructive temporality
• crisis of presence