The purpose of this article is to respond to Ulrich Beck’s (2014) two crucial concepts –metamorphosis and emancipatory catastrophism – by examining the articulation between transportation disasters and financial crises. The article explains why metamorphosis is an ongoing and open process that is unpredictable, unintentional, and inclusive. It also illustrates how dialogical communities of risk, as one of the possible emancipatory side effects of global risk, may weaken due to social organisms and inequality in risk definition.
BeckU (1992) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
2.
BeckU (2006) Living in the world risk society: A Hobhouse Memorial Public Lecture given on Wednesday 15 February 2006 at the London School of Economics. Economy and Society35(3): 329–345.
3.
BeckU (2009) Critical theory of world risk society: A cosmopolitan vision. Constellations16(1): 3–22.
4.
BeckU (2010) Climate for change, or how to create a green modernity. Theory, Culture and Society27(2–3): 254–266.
5.
BeckU (2011) Cosmopolitanism as imagined communities of global risk. American Behavioral Scientist55(10): 1346–1361.
6.
BeckU (2014) Emancipatory catastrophism: What does it mean to climate change and risk society? In: The Seoul Conference 2014 – Climate Change and Risk Society: New Trends of Megacity Transformation, Seoul, 8 July 2014.
7.
DurkheimE (1984 [1893]) The Division of Labor in Society. New York: The Free Press.
