ABSTRACT
Risks are mental ‘constructions’ (OECD, 2003, p67). They are not real phenomena but originate in the human mind. Actors, however, creatively arrange and reassemble signals that they get from the ‘real world’, providing structure and guidance to an ongoing process of reality enactment. 1 Thus risks represent what people observe in reality and what they experience. The link between risk as a mental concept and reality is forged through the experience of actual harm (the consequence of risk) in the sense that human lives are lost, health impacts can be observed, the environment is damaged or buildings collapse. The invention of risk as a mental construct is contingent on the belief that human action can prevent harm in advance. Humans have the ability to design different futures; in other words they construct scenarios that serve as tools for the human mind to anticipate consequences in advance and change, within the constraints of nature and culture, the course of actions accordingly.
