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Soc io logy and the Env i ronment
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Sociology and the Environment
1
Environm ental Histo ry (February 25th):
Changing ideas and perceptions of nature and the environment
2 - Soc iolo gy and Nature (February 26th):
Thinking sociologically about nature and the environment
Key Questions:
How have understandings of nature and the environment
changed over time and what social transformations have led tothese shifts in perception?
What can sociological concepts and theories contribute to our
understandings of nature and environmental issues?
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Outline of Lectures
- Introduction: Sociology and the Environment
1. Environmental History: Changing Ideas and Perceptions of
Nature and the Environment
- Industrialisation: Modernism and Romanticism
- Late Modernity, Risk and the Globalisation of Nature
2. Thinking Sociologically about Nature and the Environment:
- Nature in Classical Sociology
- Critical Realism vs. Social Constructionism
- Ways Beyond the Realism/Constructionism Divide?
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Sociology and the Environment
The environment has only recentlystarted to become a major issue forsociology.
It is still not seen as one of the coresociological topics, like power, social
class, inequality, and gender.
Until recently nature and environmentwere seen as the preserve of naturalscientists and of scientific knowledge.
Why?
Because sociologists (and scientists) have traditionally assumedthat nature and society are separate entities they havemaintained a strict division between societyand nature.
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Sociology and the Environment
They have therefore tended to believe that sociologists shouldstudy society and natural scientists should study nature.
Sociologists have also felt the need to defend themselves against
biological reductionism.
Biological reductionism= explaining social phenomena in termsof biological factors.
E.g. Attempts to explain social
inequalities between the sexes
in terms of biological differences(e.g. men are naturally more
competitive, women are
naturally more caring).
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Biological reductionism was central to the socio-biology of
the 1970s and can still be found in crude forms ofevolutionary psychology.
It has been seen as a key task ofsociology to challenge biologicalreductionism, which is accused of
legitimising social inequality.
This has led to an institutionalisedsuspicion of the non-social in --------------------------sociology(Philip Sutton, 2004, 2).
insistence that what is socialand what is naturalmust bekept strictly separate.
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As a result of this Nature/Society separation:
Environmental degradation and pollution seen as outside the
domain of sociological knowledge.
It has been difficult to connect core sociological issues (power,class and inequality) to environmental issues.
There has been a suspicionthat environmental issues wouldprove a passing trend.
Also:
It is difficult to find the basis fora sociological understanding ofnature and the environment inclassical sociology (Durkheim,Marx, Weber).
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These thinkers seem to present an
anthropocentric(human-centred)
view which leaves little room for nature.
Although some have argued it is
possible to use classical sociology
to theorise the relationship between
society and nature (more on this
tomorrow).
Another problem has been a tension
between:
A sociology of the environment wants to introduce theenvironment as a topic into sociology.
And an environmental sociology wants to re-constructsociology by introducing theories and concepts from biologicaland environmental sciences.
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So why are nature and the environment sociological issues?
Our perceptions of nature are shapedby society and culture (meanings
and beliefs).
Our social organisation is shaped
by our material interventions intonature (labour and technology).
Our responses to environmental
problems depend upon social
structures and relationships
(power and institutions).
Human societies are ultimately dependent upon natural
life-support systems (the global eco-system or bio-sphere).
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Environmental History: Changing
Perceptions of Nature and Environment
We often think of nature as
completely objective
(i.e. solid and definite).
Laws of nature = timeless truths
But the meaning of nature is notfixedour understanding of
nature is shaped by the societywe live in.
That is why our perceptions and definitions of naturehave changed over time.
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E.g. Environmentalists today often see
nature as sacred:
Nature viewed as a finelybalanced natural order which
should be valued and protected.
But this perception is relativelyrecent:
before the 19thC (1800s) naturewas seen as wild, disordered,savage and cruel.
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E.g. The savage lives of animals were believed to show that nature
was a war of all against all.
The 17thcentury philosopher Thomas
Hobbes based his defence of the
authoritarian state on the argument
that
Without a sovereign power to enforce
order human society would descend
into an animal state of nature.
In this view nature was uncivilised:
it had to be subdued and
dominated in the interests of
human progress.
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This meant that:
wilderness had to be tamed land had to be cultivated
swamps had to be drained nature had to be cultured
So the dominant view was that culture and civilisation were superior tonature.
This idea strongly supported
capitalist industrialisation:
the extraction of raw
materials/
the use of scientific
knowledge to mine sources
of energy.
the forcible transformation
of uncivilised people into a
disciplined workforce.
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This view of nature as something to be
dominated is explicitly opposed
by environmentalists today.
Rather than celebrating modernitys
triumph over nature, they accuse
it of destroying the natural ecosystems
we depend upon.So the historical shift in perceptions of
nature has been dramatic.
And this is important for understanding
contemporary environmentalism andgreen politics.
But how has this shift in attitudes come
about?
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Environmental awareness is often presented as a very recent
development
But it can be traced back to 19thcentury conservationist and
preservationist movements, and to Romanticism.
The 19th century saw dramatic changes in both social
organisation and in the material relationship between human
society and nature:
capitalist industrialisation
urbanisation
population expansion
decline of rural way of life
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Critics saw these transformations as leading to:
dramatically increased poverty and inequality
pollution and degradation of the natural environment
moral and spiritual decline and social breakdown
These critics used nature as abasis for their attacks on Victoriancivilisation.
They argued that people hadlost touch with nature, and
needed to get back to natureand back to the land.
i.e. People needed to reconnectwith their natural selves.
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The English Romantic Poets (Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge,
Byron, Shelley, Keats) were prominent advocates of this view:
The Romantic viewof nature:
Getting and spending,
we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature thatis ours. (Wordsworth)
Come forth into the light
of things, let Nature be your
teacher. (Wordsworth)
The Romantics were fierce critics of modernity who saw nature
as the ultimate source of human spiritual well-being.
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They emphasised the importance of sensory and emotional
experience and intuitive wisdom against the Enlightenment
philosophy of rationality and science.
Romantic thinking was a
response to modernity made
possible by industrialisation
and urbanisation.
But it was fiercely opposed to
modern culture and urban
life, instead promoting a
pastoral existence.
This helped to create a country/city polaritywith a powerful set
of cultural associations which persist today:
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Country (rural) City (urban)
peace
+ innocence
simple virtue
learning
+ communication
enlightenment
backwardness- ignorance
limitation
noise- pollution
ambition/greed
Like the Romantics, the 19th century conservationists
emphasised the positive virtues of country life and the
negative aspects of urban life.
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They also argued that industrialisation disfigured both the
natural landscape and human moral values.
And this led to the
development of an
environmental
consciousness from
the mid-19thcentury,
and the growth of
various conservation
societies (e.g. RSPCA).
So the origins of social organisations dedicated to the idea
of protecting and defending nature can be traced back to the
1800s.
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Some historians have suggested that a concern for the natural
world goes back even further (to the 1500s).
Man and the Natural World Keith Thomas (1984)
Changes in cultural values over
a long period (1500-1800)
provided the right conditions
for environmental concerns toemerge.
Gradual shift away from an
instrumentalattitude to nature
and towards a non-utilitarianattitude.
The utilitarian view= the idea that nature is there to be used
and exploited to serve human ends
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This instrumental view is rooted in Judaeo-Christian theology:
= Nature was created by God for humans,who can therefore use it at will.
This has often been seen as sanctioning
the exploitation of the natural world
But, Christian theology always contained
the possibility for an alternative view:
= Nature was sacred (as Gods creation)
and humans were entrusted with its
stewardship.
E.gSaint Francis of Assisi.
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Keith Thomas shows how the instrumental view was graduallychallenged by a concern for nonhuman animals and nature.
Why?
Because in an increasingly urban industrial society, peoplesdistancefrom naturein the raw and its threats actuallyfostered a longing for the countryside, for wilderness, and
for the well-being of animals.
Therefore:
There was a growing contradictionbetween:
an increasingly emotional caring attitude towards natureand animals.
and the real exploitation of nature and animals on which
modern society was based.
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It is clear that these contradictions persist today:
E.g. between peoples attitudestowards their pets, and towards
agricultural food animals.
Thomas suggests
that the growth of a
non-utilitarian attitude
to nature resulted from:
changes in social organisation
(urbanisation, industrialisation).
the growth of a scientific world-view.
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A similar account of historical changes in perceptions
of nature is provided by the sociologist Norbert Elias:
The Civilizing Process Norbert Elias
Argues that an increase in human
control over nature has reduced our
fear of nature and natural events.
This has led to more sympathetic
attitudes towards nature and animals,
and to an aesthetic appreciation of thenatural environment.
Elias calls this the civilizing process.
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Contemporary Views of Nature and the Environment
Todays environmental consciousness is the product of a long
and gradual history.
It is not just a response to the contemporary ecological crisis
(i.e. climate change).
But how are social understandings of
nature and the environment changingtoday?
Ulrich BeckThe Risk Society
Beck says that we live in an age of risk,in which the main threats to late modern
societies stem from their relationship to
the natural world.
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If our increasingly non-utilitarian attitudes to nature were rootedin an increasing distance from nature, and a diminishing threatfrom nature
Then how is the return of nature (i.e. environmental risk)transforming our attitudes?
Arewe seeing a strengthening of instrumental attitudesas
the distance between society and nature is reduced?
Orare we witnessing an ecological revolution - the birth of a
new ecological awareness?
Perhaps there will be no majorshift in consciousness until
the effects of climate change
are felt in the everyday lives
of people in the West
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History suggests that any change is likely to be dialectical:
(i.e. it will involve deeply contradictory elements).
E.g. Efforts to secure new carbon reduction targets.
Andat the same time a rush tosecure Arctic territories with oilpotential.
Because new sites of drilling
are made possible as the ice melts!
Other obstacles to an ecologicalrevolution include the divisionsbetween nations, regions,hemispheres:
Rapidly industrialising and urbanising nations in the third world
(the global south) reluctant to curb emissions.
The US as the biggest consumer-polluter is unwilling to give up
its carbon advantage (Kyoto).
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Summary 2:
These organisations were early pre-cursorsto contemporary environmental groups.
There has been a dramatic transformation of
attitudes to nature since the early modern period.
Rather than an uncivilized wilderness in need of
cultivation, nature has come to be seen as a
precious resource that must be protected:
Developments today may be leading to a newecological revolution in which an environmental
consciousness is becoming increasingly
globalised.
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Summary 3:
This is a part of the globalisation process, as well
as a product of globalisation:
the increasing social and economic interconnectedness
of people around the world
the globalisation of industrial capitalism (especially therapid industrialisation of China and India)
the globalisation of environmental crisis
This contemporary age of risk could lead to a new view of
nature, a new global ecological awareness.
But there are many obstacles to this, and any global
environmental consciousness is likely to generate its own
contradictions and opposing views.
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