Environmental sociology

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The Environmental Sociology is a field of sociology . The object of consideration is the relationship between society and the environment .

In particular, social interventions in nature and how the consequences of these interventions are perceived and communicated in society are examined. It is a so-called hyphenated sociology, that is to say at universities, despite its general approach, mostly a “special sociology”.

General

Environmental sociology therefore pays particular attention to the relationship between nature and society. Two theoretical directions can be distinguished:

  1. Dualism of nature and society - nature is the environment of society, and this develops largely endogenously, i.e. independently of nature (many modernization theories )
  2. Society is dependent on nature and nature cannot be separated from society. Society is not only dependent on pre- and post-production processes of nature (ecological modernization, model of sustainable development ), but creates and changes social relationships with nature and nature.

Theoretical approaches

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The following theoretical strands of environmental sociology can be distinguished:

  1. Modernization-theoretical approaches - compare Ulrich Beck's Risk Society . The globalization of risks binds society and nature together and eliminates inequalities.
  2. Technology-oriented approaches such as ecological modernization according to Joseph Huber , Martin Jänicke , Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker and others. a. that aim to increase environmental productivity through efficiency gains as well as new technologies and changed everyday practices.
  3. Systems-theoretical approaches - these include the theory of social systems by Niklas Luhmann (especially his work Ecological Communication , according to which nature as the environment "disturbs" social systems; the " resonance " term, i.e. the degree to which social systems differ from the Environment-induced irritation could process according to system requirements without it being possible to predict whether too much or too little resonance would arise).
  4. Interdisciplinary approaches and concepts from science and technology research that break with the modern dualism of nature and culture and develop “relational” or “hybrid” concepts of society. Particular mention should be made of the actor-network theory and the work of Bruno Latour , which provided environmental sociology with important theoretical impulses.
  5. An approach based on gender studies , albeit an interdisciplinary one: Issues of this approach deal with gender relations and sustainability, they emphasize the different effects of environmental destruction on the living conditions of the sexes. Gender hierarchies, social struggles of environmental movements in the context of gender discrimination, positioning and differentiation from a Western-mandated International Women's Solidarity , the demands of international women's networks and general ideas for a " global economic gender-neutral conversion and global environmental concerns " play a role.
  6. Marxist-oriented approaches, some of which argue with recourse to historical materialism and take into account the social and economic structures of a society in their analyzes. The capitalist mode of production also receives greater attention.

Practical approaches

Environmental sociology is primarily concerned with the following areas of application:

  1. Environmental attitudes: What values ​​are attitudes towards the environment and nature based on and in what contexts and how do these attitudes become behavior-relevant?
  2. Environmental behavior: How and from which attitudes do people behave in an environmentally responsible manner? The term “long way from head to hand” is used here, ie the phenomenon that a high level of environmental awareness does not lead to consistently environmentally friendly action.
  3. Observation of social discourses: How does society change under the influence of environmental and nature discourses (e.g. through social movements such as the ecological movement of the 1970s and 1980s or through the model of sustainable development)?
  4. Sociology of risk: How do people perceive environmental risks and how do they react to them and how are risks communicated differently internationally (e.g. forest dieback, which in Germany was assessed and communicated as a high risk and in France as low)?

See also

literature

introduction

  • Karl-Werner Brand : Environmental sociology: development lines, basic concepts and explanatory models . Beltz-Juventa, Weinheim 2014.
  • Andreas Diekmann, Peter Preisendörfer: Environmental Sociology: An Introduction. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2001.
  • Riley E. Dunlap, Frederick H. Buttel, Peter Dickens, August Gijswit (Eds.): Sociological Theory and the Environment. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD 2002.
  • David Goldblatt: Social Theory and the Environment. Polity Press, Oxford 1996.
  • Matthias Groß , Harald Heinrichs (Ed.): Environmental Sociology: European Perspectives and Interdisciplinary Challenges. Springer, Dordrecht 2010.
  • Matthias Groß (Hrsg.): Handbuch Umweltsoziologie. Wiesbaden 2011.
  • Joseph Huber: General environmental sociology. 2nd, completely revised edition. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011.
  • Arthur PJ Mol: Globalization and Environmental Reform. The Ecological Modernization of the Global Economy. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 2001.
  • Steven Yearley: Cultures of Environmentalism: Empirical Studies in Environmental Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills 2005.

classic

  • Walter L. Bühl : Ecological scarcity: Social and technological conditions for coping with them. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1981.
  • Karl-Heinz Hillmann : Environmental Crisis and Change in Value. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1981.
  • Joseph Huber : The lost innocence of ecology: New technologies and super-industrial development. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1982.
  • Bruno Latour : The Parliament of Things. For a political ecology. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2001.
  • Niklas Luhmann : ecological communication. VS, Wiesbaden 1986.
  • Joachim Radkau : Nature and Power. A world history of the environment. Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-48655-X .

history

  • Matthias Groß: The nature of society. A history of environmental sociology. Juventa Verlag, Weinheim 2001.
  • Ross E. Mitchell (Ed.): Thorstein Veblen 's Contribution to Environmental Sociology. Essays in the Political Ecology of Wasteful Industrialism. Mellen Press, Lewiston, NY 2007.

Practical use

  • Manuel Eisner, Nicole Graf, Peter Moser: Risk Discourses. The dynamics of public debates on environmental and risk problems in Switzerland. Seismo, 2003.
  • Jürgen Hampel, Ortwin Renn (ed.): Genetic engineering in public. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2001.
  • Karl-Heinz Hillmann: Survival Society. From the end-time danger to securing the future. An overview study on the environmental crisis. Carolus Verlag eK, 1998.
  • Wolfgang Zierhofer: Environmental research and the public. Forest dieback and the communicative achievements of science and the mass media. West German Publishing House, Wiesbaden 1998.

Interdisciplinary approaches, important impulses

  • Egon Becker , Thomas Jahn (Ed.): Social Ecology. Basic features of a science of the social relations of nature. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-593-37993-7 .
  • Gernot Böhme : Naturally nature. About nature in the age of its technical reproducibility. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1992
  • Karl-Heinz Hillmann : Environmental Crisis and Change in Value. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1981.
  • Bruno Latour : The Parliament of Things. For a political ecology. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2001.
  • Niklas Luhmann : ecological communication. VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 1986.
  • Johannes Dingler: Postmodernism and Sustainability. A discourse theoretical analysis of the social constructions of sustainable development. Ökom Verlag, 2003.
  • Tim Forsyth: Critical Political Ecology. The Politics of Environmental Science. Routledge, 2003.
  • Donna J. Haraway: Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The Reinvention of Nature. Free Association Books, 1991.
  • Markus Holzinger: Nature as a social actor. Realism and Constructivism in Science and Social Theory. Opladen 2004.
  • Michel Serres , The Nature Contract. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1991.
  • Steven Yearley: Sociology, Environmentalism, Globalization. Sage, 1996.

Current discussion of newer approaches, secondary literature

  • Martin Voss, Birgit Peuker: Is nature disappearing? The actor-network theory in the environmental sociological discussion . Transcript, 2006. Introduction (PDF; 117 kB).
  • Rainer Schoenen, Halim Yanikomeroglu: User in the loop : Spatial and Temporal Demand Shaping for Sustainable Wireless Networks. In: IEEE Communications Magazine. February 2014.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Sabine Hofmeister, Christine Katz: Nature relations, gender relations, sustainability. In: Matthias Groß (Hrsg.): Handbuch Umweltsoziologie. Wiesbaden 2011, pp. 365-398.