Environmental Sociology

Prof. Dr. Cordula Kropp; Dr. Marco Sonnberger

doi:10.5771/9783748917892

Summary

Mankind is facing great challenges because there are justified concerns that its relationship with nature is not sustainable. However, societies, milieus and fields of action differ considerably in their interactions with the so-called environment. What the ecological crisis means from a sociological perspective and what role environmental attitudes, consumption patterns, innovations, infrastructures or risks play in it is explained in this introduction to environmental sociology with references to many examples. This textbook introduces students of sociology and social sciences to the central questions, theories and subjects of environmental sociology in 10 incisive chapters, which can also be read individually.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2025
Copyright year: 2024
ISBN-Print: 978-3-7560-1248-0
ISBN-Online: 978-3-7489-1789-2
Publisher: Nomos, Baden-Baden
Series: NomosTextbook
Language: English
Pages: 214
Product type: Educational Book

Titelei/InhaltsverzeichnisPages 1 - 12 Download chapter (PDF)
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1. 1. Environment and nature as objects of scientific observation
2. 2. Environment and nature as objects of social appropriation
3. 3. Environment and nature as subjects of environmental sociology
4. 4. Theoretical perspectives of environmental sociology
5. 5. The development of environmental sociology
6. 6. The challenges facing environmental sociology in the Anthropocene
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1. 1. The social construction of nature: the importance of concepts of nature in everyday knowledge
2. 2. “Nature” in systems theory: environmental communication in social subsystems
3. 3. Changes in the social construction of nature
4. 4. Social understandings of nature, sustainable development and the Anthropocene
5. 5. The social construction of nature and its political implications
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1. 1. Nature relations – a look at the modern dualistic perspective on the relationships between human and non-human agents
2. 1. 2.1. The concept of societal relations to nature
  2. 2.2. Nature relations and the socio-ecological regime
  3. 2.3. Summary: Society-nature relations and their difficult transformation
3. 1. 3.1. Stories, figurations and the diversity of kinships in Donna Haraway’s work
  2. 3.2. Actor networks, propositions and associations in Bruno Latour’s work
  3. 3.3. Agential realism and intra-action in Karen Barad’s work
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1. 1. 1.1. The conceptual basis of environmental awareness
  2. 1.2. The empirical assessment of environmental awareness
  3. 1.3. Empirical findings on environmental awareness and environmental action
  4. 1.4. The gap between environmental awareness and environmental action
2. 1. 2.1. The grid-group scheme
  2. 2.2. Myths of nature
  3. 2.3. Criticism of Cultural Theory
3. 3. Moral appeals to environmental awareness and the problem of responsibilisation
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1. 1. Risk perception and defining risks
2. 1. 2.1. The risk society by Ulrich Beck
  2. 2.2. Risks and ecological communication in the work of Niklas Luhmann
  3. 2.3. The co-production of risky networks in the work of Bruno Latour
3. 3. The criticality of new types of systemic risk situations
4. 4. The relationship between global environmental risks and large-scale technical systems
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1. 1. The environment as an area of conflict
2. 1. 2.1. Resource mobilisation theory
  2. 2.2. Framing
  3. 2.3. The theory of political opportunity structures
3. 1. 3.1. A brief history of the environmental movement
  2. 3.2. Frames of the environmental movement: Conservation, environmental protection and ecology
  3. 3.3. The structural features of the environmental movement
  4. 3.4. The social and political impact of the environmental movement
4. 4. Outlook
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1. 1. What is (sustainable) consumption?
2. 2. People as rational decision-makers
3. 3. The symbolic dimension of consumption
4. 4. Practices of everyday consumption
5. 5. Outlook
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1. 1. The guiding principle of sustainable development
2. 2. Sustainable innovations
3. 3. Theories about the routinisation of innovation
4. 4. Innovation networks and alliances
5. 5. Innovations and the different levels involved in the transformation of unsustainable practices
6. 6. Outlook
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1. 1. Characteristics of infrastructures
2. 2. Infrastructures and their forces of inertia
3. 3. Conflicts related to infrastructuring
4. 4. Outlook
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1. 1. The origins of the concept of transdisciplinarity
2. 1. 2.1. Mode 2
  2. 2.2. Post-normal science
  3. 2.3. Criticism of Mode 2 and post-normal science
3. 3. Transdisciplinarity as a research principle of social ecology
4. 4. Transformative science and real-world laboratory research
5. 5. Outlook
IndexPages 213 - 214 Download chapter (PDF)