ATTITUDES, ACCOUNTS AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the sociological study of environmental issues. One area in which this is evident is in the application of social scientific methods in social impact assessm ent (SIA): the study of the anticipated social impact of proposed chan ges to the environment. This paper addresses one aspect of the debate about appropriate methods for SIA; whether, and how, to include the ex pressed views and perceptions of those who will be affected. It is arg ued first that although SIA ostensibly deals with the social effects o f projects there is a tendency for assessments to avoid any detailed c onsideration of the ways in which people are affected. Instead there i s an emphasis upon technical and economic considerations. When assessm ents do attempt to incorporate the perceptions of local people they ty pically do so through some form of attitude research. However if langu age is viewed as a form of social action rather than as a detached com mentary on reality there are radical implications for the methods trad itionally used in SIA to gauge people's views and attitudes. I conclud e by outlining an alternative to the traditional practice of viewing p eoples' accounts as a repository of their attitudes, arguing that they might be more profitably used to explore how social impacts are socia lly constructed.