ABSTRACT
This chapter explores risk and risk-taking in extreme sports in order to explicate the relationship between risk and the extreme sport participation more closely. Theoretical perspectives that focus on linking extreme sports to risk-taking have focused on psychological and psycho-social explanations. The main psychosocial theory that has been put forward to explain participation is Edgeworks. The key psychological theories include type 'T', and sensation seeking. Sensation-seeking theory suggests that there is an inherent need in some individuals to continually search for risky, complex or novel experiences. Extreme sports participants regularly point to experiences other than risk when trying to define their extreme sport involvement. A phenomenological perspective focuses specifically on the experiences of participants in an activity, often drawing upon the indigenous terms that arise from that experience and shape the way that it is experienced and articulated. The focus on certain activities being risk oriented may reflect a modern morbid aversion to risk or obsessive desire for safety-seeking.
