ABSTRACT
Contemporary experts and popular cultures tend to represent risk as negative, something to be avoided. So too, much of the academic literature on risk represents people in late modernity as living in fear, constantly dogged by feelings of anxiety, vulnerability and uncertainty in relation to the risks of which they are constantly made aware. Against these dominant discourses on risk, however, there also exists a counter discourse, in which risk-taking is represented far more positively. This chapter examines this counter discourse on risk, beginning with a discussion of escape attempts and edgework, moving on to an analysis of the gendered nature of risk-taking as performative practices, and finishing with a discussion of desire and transgression.
