Some Reflections on the Characterizacition of professional Firefighters in the District of Coimbra (Portugal): Identity, Risks and Operational Practice.

Abstract

In the new society of emerging risk, the challenge facing societies is to understand the uncertainties and risks resulting from that society and how to overcome them. How do national states considered semi-peripheral (Santos: 2002), such as the Portuguese, act towards this new order? When in Portugal we limit risks to merely natural and technological ones, we must talk about public responsibility. As far as the State is concerned, it is its mission, by means of the legal entities created for this purpose (institutions within civil defence), to assure protection and aid to people and property. Nonetheless, we have found, in recent years, a series of legal documents which regulate in regard to the civil defence system. The assumption sets for us a research framework for seeking to understand how, in a semi-peripheral society, one of its “subjects” as protector and aid guarantor - the professional firefighters of the district of Coimbra (Portugal) - positions itself operationally in the presence of legal provisions, taking into account the hybrid outlines of the Risk society. Who are they? What are their operational practices? And how do they integrate with the population? These are some of the issues to be answered within the ongoing research for the Masters Degree dissertation in “Social Dynamics and Natural Risks”, University of Coimbra.