Society, nature and sociology: Society, nature and sociology (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Sociological Review, 2010
The social sciences have been faced with a series of challenges to their relevance since the beginning of the 21st century. In particular, the growing urgency of environmental crises and the remarkable increase in knowledge of genomics have raised questions about sociology's ability to analyse the contemporary world and, especially, its ability to understand the relationship between the natural world and human societies. The argument of this volume is that sociology has a significant contribution to make to this understanding and that it is imperative that sociologists become involved in what are often seen as purely scientific and technical discussions. In this opening chapter we contribute to this engagement by considering the question of how sociology understands the natural and the social and why many sociologists are re-thinking this relationship. We argue that this rethinking is due, on the one hand, to political and theoretical developments within and without sociology and, on the other hand, to the challenge of climate change and recent scientific interventions in, and transformations of, 'nature'. First, however, we discuss the relationship between nature and society that underpinned the development of sociology as a discipline.
CLOSING THE " GREAT DIVIDE " : New Social Theory on Society and Nature
■ Abstract Twenty years ago, two environmental sociologists made a bold call for a paradigmatic shift in the discipline of sociology—namely, one that would bring nature into the center of sociological inquiry and recognize the inseparability of nature and society. In this essay, we review recent scholarship that seeks to meet this challenge. The respective strands of this literature come from the margins of environmental sociology and border on other arenas of social theory production, including neo-Marxism, political ecology, materialist feminism, and social studies of science. Bringing together scholars from sociology, anthropology, geography, and history, each of these strands offers what we consider the most innovative new work trying to move sociology beyond the nature/society divide.
Nature, Society and Social Change
Societies Without Borders, 2012
"Environmental destruction has become an everyday reality in the contemporary world. Major concerns are being put forward regarding the dangers to the environment in general and to human societies in particular, with strong focus currently being put on climate change. Sociology has an important role to play in the analysis of environmental problems. The interaction between nature and society can be analysed through the concept of overdetermination. At the same time, the social construction on environmental problems is imperative for environmental issues to reach the agenda. An active environmental sociology which is as much concerned with analysis as it is with social change, should clearly highlight that claimsmaking and political strategy is imperative in the tackling of environmental issues within the public sphere. "
The Problem of Nature in Contemporary Social Theory
2000
This work examines the ways in which the relationship between society and nature is problematic for social theory. The Frankfurt School’s notion of the dialectic of enlightenment is considered, as are the attempts by Jurgen Habermas to defend an ‘emancipatory’ theory of modernity against this. The marginalising effect Habermas’ defence of reason has had on the place of nature in his critical social theory is examined, as is the work of theorists such as Ulrich Beck and Klaus Eder. For these latter authors, unlike Habermas, the social relation to nature is at the centre of contemporary society, giving rise to new forms of modernisation and politics. ¶ Michel Foucault’s work on biopolitics and governmentality is examined against the background of his philosophical debate with Habermas on power and rationality. The growth of scientific ecology is shown to have both problematised the social relation to nature and provided the political technology for new forms of regulatory intervention in the management of the population and resources. These new forms of intervention constitute a form of ecological governmentality along the lines discussed by Foucault and others in relation to the human sciences.
Bringing nature back in: The challenge of environmental sociology
Sociological inquiry, 1996
For the past twenty years sociologists have systematically addressed envi-ronmental problems, adding a viewpoint important to policymakers, planners, natural scientists, and engineers. Three kinds of environmental sociology have developed along the way: the ...
The Re-Naturalization of Society? Environmental Challenges for Sociology
Current Sociology, 2001
1 14 Current Sociology Vol. 49 No. 1 environmental studies have neglected the social dimensions when discussing environmental problems. This has to a large extent stemmed from sociology's development, where society has been kept distinct from nature and the con-sequence ...
Society, space and environment. Towards a sociological re-conceptualisation of nature
Housing Theory and Society, 1998
Modern environmental problems constitute a challenge for the social sciences, and during the last few decades the human being's relationship to nature itself has been an object for sociological thought. In this article the concept of nature is elaborated through discussing sociological contributions on the environmental issue, and through discussing recent thinking of human geographers and sociologists about space. It is stated that nature viewed as unmediated reality cannot be given an autonomous position in social theory, but has to be theoretically elaborated through how social practices and processes incorporate and transform it. This leads to the suggestion that biophysical objects should be theorised as belonging to the social, but that at the same time the mechanisms that generate these objects are to be regarded as not belonging wholly to the social world. In developing two different meanings of nature -as materiality and as mechanisms -this article presents a reconceptualisation of nature such as to make it relevant for sociological analysis.
Sociological Theory and the Natural Environment
HIstory of the Human Sciences 18/1, 2005
In this article, I criticize environmental sociology's conventional diagnosis of its methodological situation and overly narrow definition of its field. I argue for a greater engagement with the natural science base and consideration of anthropological approaches. I start with conceptual analysis, identifying the human-environment relationship as a proactive two-way interaction. I then present an outline of global environmental dynamics, highlighting the unequal size of human activities on geosphere and biosphere scale, and the role of the biosphere as manager of the geosphere; this as context for the human population problem. Three types of environmental problems are next identified: urban-industrial, rural-agrarian, and high hazard exposure. These are seen as forming a continuum, with anthropogenic and natural factors synergizing at the centre. I comment on their geographic distribution, noting Europe's limited and specific environmental experience. Lastly I attempt an overview without biological metaphors of the human-environment relationship through time, commenting on its inherent imbalances and how these might be diagnosed. I conclude that sociology's bias to modernity and the West renders it inadequate to the global environmental question. A wider and deeper spacio-temporal consideration is needed, with the whole continuum of environmental problems considered. For this, environmental sociology should seek a synthesis with cultural anthropology centring on the anthropological concept of culture; an approach, I argue, that is accessible through the sociology of Max Weber.
Social Nature: Theory, Practice, and Politics
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2003
For over a century, geographers have sought to describe and explain the society-nature interface. When, James Bryce (1886, p. 426) -one of geography's early advocates -characterized the discipline as "a meeting point between the sciences of Nature and the sciences of Man [sic]" he sought to create a distinctive place for it within the academic division of labor. As we enter the twenty-first century, geography remains one of the few subjects dedicated to exploring the relations between humanity and nature. To be sure, the geographical project extends beyond the study of these relations. But many geographers remain convinced that the society-nature nexus should be a central disciplinary preoccupation. It's easy to understand why. The world has changed enormously since Bryce penned his words in the genteel surroundings of Victorian Oxford, where he was a university professor. In the twenty-first century, society-nature relations seem to be marked by a new breadth, depth, and consequentiality. By breadth, I simply mean that few areas and aspects of nature today remain untouched by human hands; by depth, I mean that many society-nature relations extend 'all the way down,' even to the level of genetic modification; and by consequentiality, I mean that what happens to nature today may be of world-changing importance, both for ourselves and other species. In short, Bryce could scarcely have anticipated a future in which mass deforestation, global warming, the collapse of commercial fisheries, chronic species extinction, transgenic organisms, a growing ozone 'hole,' and desertification would be just a few of the problems arising from human transformations of nature. And he could hardly have imagined that such problems would spawn a global environmental movement, or that governments worldwide would put the question of nature near the top of their political agendas.
Stevens, P (2012). Towards an ecosociology. Sociology, 46(4), 579-595.
This article offers insights from ecopsychology – which aims to place human behaviour back in the context of the natural world – to further the development of an ecosociology that meets Catton and Dunlap’s (1978) call for a paradigmatic shift in the way sociology views the role of nature in human society. A more ecocentric viewpoint, reincorporating direct experience, including the environment as part of being embodied, and extending the social to the more-than-human world, could offer new views on the nature of the social, what it is to be human, and wider issues of environmental sustainability. This would be a move towards a revitalized ecosociology that could help humanity come to terms with its unique, but not pre-eminent role in the global system.