Tarp rizikos ir saugumo : požiūriai į atominę jėgainę ir bedarbystės grėsmę Visagine

Abstract

This article focuses on the analysis of the attitudes of the people of the town of Visaginas towards the Ignalina nuclear power plant and social insecurity and unemployment. Due to the requirements of the European Union, which Lithuania is willing to join, the Lithuanian government is planning to close down the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in the near future. The plant is the main source of employment for most of the town citizens, and these plans make the future of the town and its people insecure. At first glance, people working at the Ignalina NPP or/and living in the nearby settlement of plant workers and their families Visaginas, probably could be seen as facing two sets of risks – ‘risk of unemployment and increase of socio-economic problems’ and ‘risk of damage to one’s health due to work at the nuclear power plant or living near it, risk of ecological catastrophe’. Can we describe this situation as ‘double risk’? This term was used by Leonardas Rinkevičius to refer to Lithuanian society and meaning – “first, the complex uncertainty related to the transition to the market economy and democratic governance; second, the increasing social anxiety about high-consequence risks, such as those associated with nuclear power, and the inability of modern institutions to cope with such risks" (Rinkevicius 2000: 279; see also Gineitienė, Jörgensen, Klintman, Rinkevicius 1999; Rinkevičius 2002). The author is interested in finding answers to the following questions: what do informants, Visaginas citizens, define as risky and why? What do they define as not risky or not so risky and why? How do they interpret, experience and resist this risk?[...]