Add to ORKGabstract: In the last decade of the 20th century, Ulrich Beck’s groundbreaking Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity created a ripple effect within academia, generat-ing an upsurge of interest in the concept of risk. In the 1990s, the term ‘risk soci-ety ’ became lingua franca across a range of disciplines including sociology, politics, criminology and cultural studies. Nevertheless, despite being recognized as a ver-satile common currency, in recent years a series of biting criticisms have under-mined the credibility of the risk society perspective. Thus, uncertainty presently exists within the social sciences about the utility of Beck’s work for understanding emergent practices, processes and trends. As a consequence, there has been some-...