Skip to main content

Health, Risk and Uncertainty in the Life Course: A Typology of Biographical Certainty Constructions

Zinn, Jens O. (2004) Health, Risk and Uncertainty in the Life Course: A Typology of Biographical Certainty Constructions. Social Theory and Health, 2 (3). pp. 199-221. (doi:10.1057/palgrave.sth.8700033) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:356)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.sth.8700033

Abstract

As a result of continuous social change, it seems more and more difficult today to produce biographical certainty in the sense of clear expectations and the shaping of one's own life course. What was previously taken for granted is being transformed into (real or apparent) decisions by means of social individualization processes and individual processes of building up one's own biography (Beck, 1992). Life courses are no longer simply given, but (allegedly) dependent on decisions, and if this premise is accepted, the pressure on individuals rises to make the right decisions. Against this background, the essay aims to determine the different action and interpretation patterns with which biographical certainty is created under the conditions of a systematically uncertain world. A typology of biographical certainty developed on the basis of qualitative interviews will be presented. At the end of the essay, results will be integrated in the discourse on a fundamental change or structural rupture within modernity. Finally, the results are examined regarding their significance for health research and practice. What can be considered as the central result is the fact that apparently obsolete certainty strategies, no less than apparently new ones, are effective means of creating biographical certainty and action potential today. Therefore, at a methodological level, the error of equating what is attributed to epochs with specific individual action patterns must be avoided. Rather, when interpreting and classifying results, it must be made explicit where one stands as a scientific observer and what normative implications are involved for the interpretation and classification of results.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1057/palgrave.sth.8700033
Uncontrolled keywords: risk, biographical uncertainty, life course, theory, reflexive modernity, modernization, biography
Subjects: H Social Sciences
H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Depositing User: Samantha Osborne
Date Deposited: 19 Dec 2007 18:11 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 09:39 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/356 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Zinn, Jens O..

Creator's ORCID:
CReDIT Contributor Roles:
  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.