The book 51 Stories in Culture, To Live and To Be is now available for free download. If you want to learn about culture and safety culture, this book will help.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE 

This is book 14 in the series on the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) with many other books available for free download here: https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/

As we quickly approach 1.2 million downloads it is clear that the risk and safety industry value the work of SPoR and its different perspective and alternative to traditional risk and safety. As authors with expertise in Anthropology and Social Psychology we hope this approach will prove helpful for you.

If you want to understand culture the place to start is not through a rational, propositional or materialist approach as is common in safety but rather through semiotics. The tired old definition of culture as ‘what we do around here’ doesn’t help understand much at all about culture. Indeed, all it does is further anchor Safety to a behaviourist lens that constrains understanding. The summary on the back cover provides a good overview:

This is a book about culture and the nature of risk. Its foundational premise is that culture cannot be known through books or propositions but is best known through the phenomenon of experience and felt knowing. So, in a way, the book is situated in a paradox.

 But paradox need not be a problem rather a typical characteristic of living and being in culture. Culture is a Wicked Problem. Whilst we need to talk about it, study it and experience it, it has no limit and, like the Semiosphere, Mythosphere, Atmosphere and the Universe, it has no beginning or end. Yet, in order to live in it, we need to try and grasp what we can about the lived life or being in culture. After all, differences in culture also pose the greatest threat to understanding, community and Socialitie.

 Unless we understand cultures other than our own, we will never learn to live in harmony and being with others.

 This book uses the semiotic of the Culture Cloud to explore as many dimensions of culture as possible within the confines of a book. The Culture Cloud is a semiotic, metaphor and framework to help tackle everything from worldview, paradigms and being, to living with risk, human fallibility and faith.

 The focus of the book is also on the nature of risk and, the risk and safety industry including, it’s culture of safety. Whilst the safety industry argues about itself and even denies such a thing as ‘safety culture’ exists, this is mostly due to one of its principle cultural characteristics, ignorance.

 Most often the safety industry comments on culture from a source of no expertise in culture. We know this by the many silences and omissions in any discussion about culture in the sector. For example, all of the following are never discussed in books on safety culture: myth, ritual, faith, religion,

gesture, semiotics, linguistics, affordance, ethics, para-linguistics, memes, personhood, politics and power. In this book none of these are off limits. This enables a new look at culture through the lens of the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) worldview that poses a new way of engaging in culture and risk.

 The two authors bring their considerable depth of experience, education and risk intelligence to this discussion on culture. The comparative stories that each author brings to discussion, the rich differences between two distinctly different cultures, views of faith, religion, philosophy and the world, make this a unique book. This enables the reader to feel the richness of diverse cultures but also the way these two authors come together in tolerance, understanding, discussion, debate and resonance.

 It is through the many stories of this book that the reader walks with each in their world, experiences their history and begins to understand their particular focus on culture and risk.

The book commences and concludes with a conversation between each author to emphasise a desire to step beyond an academic understanding to a lived experience of journeying in learning. This book is an invitation to join in that walk and understand cultural being.

So, enjoy the read and we trust that this book helps you and your organisation better tackle the complexities of culture in the journey of tackling risk.

Dr Nippin Anand and Dr Robert Long

If you would like to join us on the next free Zoom module on culture you can register here: https://safetyrisk.net/register-for-free-spor-module-on-culture-starting-july-2025/