ABSTRACT
An issue in risk perception studies is whether and how individuals can perceive low probability events.1 It is a peculiar issue which only ar ises because such events are recognized to be on our horizon right now-so evidently some people can perceive them. Those who do the perceiving rely on an extraordinarily advanced and arcane technology of assessment. So the question is how individuals who are not competent in that technology may come to accept warnings about such dangers and endow the warnings with credibility. The answer will be to expand the sociological context of perception. Humans are social animals and we use social as well as spatial, temporal, and bodily reference schemes. The approach I am using focuses on how physical disasters get systematically used in the micro-politics of social institutions. The processes of blame and exoneration are central to the problem.
