Conventional interpretations of risk are predicated on a Euclidean understanding of space. Often there is an implied or assumed boundary between risky/safe or impure/pure spaces; something that sits just outside this boundary would be considered “at risk” whereas something far away would be considered relatively “safe”. Contrary to this position, Bickerstaff and Simmons (2009)
51 argue that proximity to a risk cannot be explained in terms of distance in Euclidean space;
instead, they propose that proximity is the result of “spatialised risk subjectivities... which fold together different times and spaces to bring risk close or keep it distant” (Bickerstaff & Simmons, 2009, p. 866). This position is also evident in Hinchliffe et al.’s (2013) approach to the study of biosecurity, who explain that:
This is not a world of flat surfaces, with well-defined proximities to sources of infection marked accordingly, but rather a topological landscape of embeddings and disembeddings, where disease registers its presence through the density of its intra-actions. (p. 538) Hinchliffe et al. (2013) argue that the risk of a disease manifesting itself is always present within
the very space that is being “protected” from the spread of disease. Under certain conditions there is an intense “folding” of space such that there is an increase in the number and intensity of the connections within that space: this results in the registered presence of a disease. Spatial categories that relate to boundaries - such as “near” and “far”, or “inside” and “outside” - do not determine the spread of disease. Instead, Hinchliffe et al. use the concept of the “borderlands” of disease to articulate an alternative “topological landscape” that does not correspond to physical territory.
Elsewhere in the literature, research examines how spatial categories are themselves generated by risks. Valerie November has been involved in a number of studies on topics such as fire risks, floods, pandemics, and road safety (see November, 2008). She has used these case studies to develop a position on the dual relationship between space and risk: that is, “how risks transform spaces and how spaces subsequently lead to changes in the nature of risks themselves”
(November, 2008, p.1523). This relationship is also explored in a number of studies by John Law on the UK foot and mouth epidemic in 2001 (Law, 2006; Law & Singleton, 2006; Law & Mol, 2008). Law and Mol (2008) examine the activities involved in controlling foot and mouth disease: specifically, the requirement to boil pigswill. This measure is ostensibly a risk management strategy used to control the spread of disease, but in practice it also performs a spatial
segregation between rich and poor countries in the EU. The practices that enact disease status have a similar effect: a country must be not only disease free but also vaccination free if it is to be able to export animals and meat without restrictions, and only rich countries are able to
implement the measures that are necessary to achieve this status (Law, 2006; Law & Singleton, 2006). Thus, the spatial flows of trade are transformed according to the risk posed by foot and mouth; the nature of this “risk” is similarly changed from a concern about the spread of disease to the maintenance of disease-free status.
52 The dual transformation of risks and spaces leads to new challenges in risk management. Law (2006) argues that the focus on maintaining British farms as a disease-free space has served to create an agricultural system that is so tightly coupled that it has lost all resilience. Thus, by striving to create a boundary between impure and pure spaces, new risks have been created, echoing Beck’s risk society thesis. Elsewhere, Law argues that we cannot create a completely risk- free environment because “there are always matters out of control. Diversity. Diverse and incomplete centres. Unstable relations. This is the chronic state of being: system space is never secure” (Law, 2000b, p. 10). Hinchliffe and Bingham (2008) echo these sentiments by referring to the practices of “biosecuring” rather than biosecurity because “it highlights the unfinished business of making safe” (p. 1542). This indicates that the goal of risk management practices should not be to remove all risks from a given system. This is not only impossible but also builds systems that are susceptible to “normal accidents that are waiting to happen” (Law, 2006, p. 238).
This emerging body of literature on the spatialities of risk indicates that there is a need for research that considers risks in more-than-Euclidean terms. We need to look beyond the movement and barriers we can “see” in the world around us to consider the “intra-actions” (Hinchliffe et al., 2013) that are present within “secure” spaces. The ANT literature can be used to inform such work, but to do so requires an approach that moves beyond Hilgartner’s (1992) networks of risk. More recent scholarship that provides alternative interpretations of object- space relations (as discussed in section 3.2.4 above) could be used to examine risk, because it asks us to attend to not only presences, but also absences and Otherness, and ask how all of these are involved in the enactment of risk.