What's behind social and environmental risks?

What are the conceptual and practical significations of the social and environmental in current expressions like “social risks” and “environmental risks”? This question frames the conceptual and pragmatic exploration proposed in this communication. The empirical observation of social and environmental disasters shows that the representation of the collective involved in such disasters matters more than the nature of the perturbation at works inside the collective. Social disasters as environmental disasters as well affect humans and non-humans. Both cases are the result of the collapse of an inherited arrangement made out by humans and non-humans. Reversely, the language operates a tangible distinction and inflexion in the way the collectives represent themselves somewhere during the twentieth century. From the moment a new expression is available, it becomes necessary to choose between both existing expressions. The choices made by the collectives indicate how they represent themselves. Following this reasoning the difference between a social risk and an environmental risk steps first in the conscious that collectives have about their associations with non-humans and the networks they form with them. It is not a positive distinction. This proposition confirms the thesis of the symmetric anthropology according to which the “Moderns” think different from the others societies. They hide that they build associations with non-humans who commit them beyond what they identify as society. Once the Moderns have realized that their world is wider and more complex as imagined the real problems start. They have to learn to live in a world which seems suddenly and brutally open for entities the existence of which we had until then denied otherwise proclaimed that we contained them. Dealing with this new complexity starts with the evaluation of the inherited rules and norms through a new frame.