Charlotte Cabasse: Waiting for the Next Big One: Assessing Earthquake Risk in San Francisco Bay

The possibility of disasters compels us to rethink progressive, yet non-linear definitions (or ‘instauration’, to use Souriau’s terminology) of risk, space and expertise. Adopting a symmetrical approach, this work explores several shifting dimensions of the subject and of ‘at-risk’ space in the San Francisco Bay Area, within the shared experience of an epistemic community awaiting a major earthquake – ‘the Big One’. From the perspective of geography and science and technology studies, we will examine the complex system of relationships that co-construct seismic risk, as well as the way in which this successive instauration brings about transformations in the fabrication of space, the definition of risk and, finally, the translation of this scientific work into public policy and the figure of the expert.

Drawing on extensive empirical research conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area, and analysing the community of ‘Earthquake Junkies’ – as these experts have dubbed themselves – as well as other risk-aware residents, this work highlights the role of experience and emotion in a multitude of intertwined processes linking risk, space and expertise.

Further exploration of this issue will show that the rigid definitions which have pitted science against experience, rationality against emotion, and expertise against lay perception should be rethought in favour of a more systematic approach that takes into account the role of the various dimensions of knowledge. With a view to gaining a better understanding of the complex definition of risk in the public sphere, this research also proposes a framework for reflecting on the definition of the ‘at-risk’ subject, whilst facilitating reflection on the establishment of a closer relationship between scientific and non-scientific knowledge.