Item: WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO SAVE? A SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL EMBEDEDDNESS PERSPECTIVE ON ‘SAYING NO’ IN EXTREME CONTEXT
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Title: WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO SAVE? A SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL EMBEDEDDNESS PERSPECTIVE ON ‘SAYING NO’ IN EXTREME CONTEXT
Proceedings: International Snow Science Workshop 2024, Tromsø, Norway
Authors:
- Virginie Fernandez [ Umeå School of Business, Economics and Statistics, Umeå, Sweden ]
- Markus Hällgren [ Umeå School of Business, Economics and Statistics, Umeå, Sweden ]
Date: 2024-09-23
Abstract: It is taken for granted that first responders (e.g., firefighters, police, and hospital staff) jobs include physical risk. They are assumed to do whatever is needed to save people’s lives and fulfill their mission. However, recently highlighted but poorly understood, they must say no to situations with unknown risks and potential death. Those studies suggest that socio-ecological embeddedness and context are key in the sensemaking process that shapes the decision to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a rescue operation. Yet, we know little about how such a practice is enacted and the implications for being representatives of a profession. Building on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with mountain rescue operators, we selected nine narratives where rescuers had to stop or put the operation on hold. Our main contribution lies in showing how ‘hypothesizing’ – imagining a worst-case scenario of the future – proves critical in maintaining legit yet controversial practices. We also contribute to the literature on place, showing that the meaning of place change with the situation by disentangling its multiple layers.
Object ID: ISSW2024_O11.5.pdf
Language of Article: English
Presenter(s): Virginie Fernandez
Keywords: mountain rescue, ‘saying no’, custodianship, sociological embeddedness
Page Number(s): 1457 - 1464
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