Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2009, Page 64

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DREAMS OF CARS ON AN ISLAND
windscreen changes all the time when
driving through the majestic landscape of
the islands; fast unexpected movements also
characterize the Faroese culture of the era of
globalization (Caini, 2008). The car culture
of the 1%0s or 1970s is not the same as the
car culture of the 1980s or 1990s. The car has
got a new meaning, status and function for
young drivers and their passengers. Global
mainstream media has a deep impact on
everyday life of Faroe Islanders anno 2009;
boys and girls navigate between local and
global, traditional and modern, in their
personal identity construction endeavours.
Different car cultures clash, because youth
groups propagate incompatible values - e.g.
in the interpretation of riskand safety on the
roads (Caini, 2006).
Risk society is, according to the British
sociologist Anthony Ciddens (1999: 3), a
society "increasingly preoccupied with the
future (and also with safety), which gene-
rates the notion of risk". Ulrich Beck, a
German sociologist, focuses mainly on the
insecurities that, he claims, modernization
itself has introduced (Beck, 1992). Risks,
according to Beck and other social scientists,
are distributed unevenly in the population
of a society. This implies a social stratification
where relative security - lack of risk - is a
limited sought after capital (op cit). The
main determinant in risk calculation is
knowledge: reliable knowledge about the
foreseeable consequences of action. Risk
taking is not necessarily something negative.
Risk is also an integral component of any
fresh creative venture in modern societies -
in culture, politics and economy. Young
people, I repeat, are champions of coura-
geous risk taking.
All risk, according to anthropologist
Mary Douglas (1982), is socially constructed
and risk knowledge depends on belief
systems and moral positions. Douglas argues
that individuals never strictly and exclusively
act as atomized rational cost-benefit
calculators, avoiding any risk of private
interests, because human beings are not able
to handle all the information concerning risk
and safety in logical rational manners. Much
of what we say is planned is coincidence
(Mlodinow, 2009). Individuals often act as
unintentional fools whose motivation is
spontaneous. In other words, risk is, says
Douglas (1982), a culturally relative pheno-
menon. The discourse on risk has changed
through time and context. Today it is highly
associated with something unwanted -
insecurity - and threatening. In a risk society
many people are permanently "scared" of life
and looking for "safe places". Young people
on the roads, taking risks, are under pressure
because of modern society's thirst for
controlled security (Denney, 2005).
Presentation and discussion
Passport tofreedom
Today it is difhcult to live in the Faroes
without a driver's licence. Most teenagers,
considering it a crucial investment, get their
driver's licence for cars before reaching the
age of 20. Some passionate car-lovers even
calculate the process in detail in order to
have the sought after licence in the pocket
for their eighteenth birthday. These youths
don’t want to wait one single day extra,
before being able to test the driver’s freedom
on the roads. The individual's economic,
social and psychological preparations start
many years before he is legally permitted to