Edgework: The Sociology of Risk Taking (review)

In the introduction to this volume, Lyng argues that the promise of the edgework approach to voluntary risk lies in its simple answer to the question of why anyone would risk their well-being to participate in activities that seem to offer no material rewards — the "intensely seductive character of the experience itself" (5). The challenge, he suggests, is to offer a convincing sociological explanation of the place of edgework practices in late modernity. Since Lyng's initial formulation of the edgework model 15 years ago (Lyng 1990), numerous researchers have used this concept in studies of a wide variety of topics, including such things as urban graffiti (Ferrell 1995), "risky" research methods (Vail 2001), crime (Hamm 2004), financial risk-taking (Zwick and Dholakia 2004) and risk recreation activities (Celsi, Rose, and Leigh 1993; Ferrell, Milovanovic, and Lyng 2001). In light of the relevance of the edgework concept to so much scholarly activity, Lyng's recent edited collection of edgework essays would seem a welcome and important addition to the field.

Lyng outlines two general approaches to explaining the relationship between edgework activities and the institutions of late modernity. The first conceptualizes edgework as an escape from the institutional constraints of modernity, while the second frames edgework activity as part of the project of developing the skills and capacities needed to better function in the increasingly specialized and risk-conscious institutional environment of the postindustrial society. Lyng posits that the ideas of being simultaneously "pushed and pulled to edgework practices by opposing institutional imperatives" may not be contradictory, but rather might reflect "complexities in the contemporary experience of risk that we are just beginning to appreciate" (10). He arranges the volume to explore these two perspectives, with the first half of the contributions elaborating on the 'edgework as escape' theme, and the last half elaborating on the second approach, which "sees edgework skills and sentiments converging with the key institutional demands of late modern society rather than deviating from them" (11). He hopes that the volume serves "at least to begin the process of describing and understanding the variegated and evolving nature of the risk experience in the contemporary Western world" (10).

Lyng acknowledges that one of "the continuing critical responses to edgework research is that it has yielded conceptual models rooted in the unique experience of white, middle-class, adult males, whose edgework activities have been studied most extensively" (11). Eleanor Miller first articulated this critique following the publication of the initial edgework article in AJS (Miller 1991). In her appraisal of Lyng's initial analysis of edgework, she takes issue primarily with the macro level of analysis in Lyng's model, suggesting that Lyng's analysis is rooted in "what many underclass people would take to be the rather privileged (and male) world of paid work within the formal economy." She laments that Lyng's article also glosses over race/ethnicity and gender. In the years since, other researchers have raised similar criticisms of the edgework model, particularly in the field of criminology (Chan and Rigakos 2002; Walklate 1997).

Lyng's collection makes a significant contribution that goes some way towards addressing the criticisms outlined above. He devotes one section of the book to what he calls "group variations in edgework practices: Gender, age, and class." In the first chapter of this section, Jennifer Lois explores the different ways men and women manage intense emotions at different stages of the edgework experience in a volunteer rescue organization (see also Lois 2001). She suggests that rescue workers engage not only in physical edgework as they engage in technically demanding rescues, but also in emotional edgework as they manage the intense emotions associated with such visceral work. Further, she posits that this emotional edgework is gender specific, as men and women in the organization draw on different skills and techniques at each stage of the edgework experience. In the second chapter, William Miller highlights age and class in an investigation of 'delinquency' as edgework. He explores the notion of 'institutional constraint' as it...