Environment and Society Literature and exam material
Inhoudsopgave
Lecture 1: Intro E&S, IPBES conceptual framework and global assessment......................................................3
1: Giddens, The Environment, chapter 5 (partim) from A. Giddens, Sociology, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2008
(6th Edition), pp. 155-166....................................................................................................................................3
2: J. Pretty et al., Introduction to Environment and Society, in J. Pretty et al., The SAGE Handbook of
Environment and Society, SAGE, Los Angeles, 2007, pp. 1-15.............................................................................5
3: Diaz, S. et al. 2015. The IPBES conceptual framework – connecting nature and people. Current Opinion in
Environmental Sustainability 14: 1-16.................................................................................................................9
4: Visseren-Hamakers, I.J., 2020. The 18th Sustainable Development Goal. Earth System Governance 3:
100047................................................................................................................................................................14
Lecture 2: Governance + Stakeholder analysis..............................................................................................15
5: P. Robbins, J. Hintz and S.A. Moore, Institutions and “The Commons”, in P. Robbins, J. Hintz and S.A.
Moore, Environment and Society, Wiley Blackwell, 2010, pp. 46-62................................................................15
6: Steffen, W., J. Grinevald, P. Crutzen and J. McNeill, The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical
perspectives, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 2011, vol. 369, pp. 842-867............................17
7: Baskin, J., Paradigm Dressed as Epoch: The Ideology of the Anthropocene, Environmental Values, 2015,
24, pp. 9-29........................................................................................................................................................19
8: Biermann, F. 2020. The future of ‘environmental’ policy in the Anthropocene: time for a paradigm shift,
Environmental Politics, DOI:10.1080/09644016.2020.1846958.......................................................................22
9: W.N. Adger and A. Jordan, Sustainability: exploring the outcomes and processes of governance, in W.N.
Adger and A. Jordan (eds.), Governing Sustainability, Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 3- 31................25
Lecture 3: Framing and worldviews.............................................................................................................. 27
10: R.D. Benford and D.A. Snow, Framing processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment,
Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 26, 2000, pp. 611-639...................................................................................27
11: J. Hannigan, Social construction of environmental issues and problems, in J. Hannigan, Environmental
Sociology, Routledge, 2006, pp. 62-78...............................................................................................................30
12: Clapp, J., & Dauvergne, P. (2011). Paths to a green world: The political....................................................35
13: Cronon, W. (1992). A place for stories: Nature, history, and narrative. The journal of American history,
78(4), 1347-1376................................................................................................................................................40
14: Tomlinson, I. (2013). Doubling food production to feed the 9 billion: a critical perspective on a key
discourse of food security in the UK. Journal of rural studies, 29, 81-90...........................................................41
Lecture 4: Treadmill of production and ecological modernization.................................................................42
15: K.A. Gould, D.N. Pellow and A. Schnaiberg, Interrogating the Treadmill of Production: Everything You
Wanted to Know about the Treadmill but Were Afraid to Ask, Organization and Environment 2004, 17, 296-
316......................................................................................................................................................................42
16: A.P.J. Mol and M. Jänicke, The origins and theoretical foundations of ecological modernization theory, in
A.P.J. Mol, D.A. Sonnenfeld and G. Spaargaren, The Ecological Modernisation Reader, Routledge, Oxon/New
York, 2009, 17-27...............................................................................................................................................45
17: MICHAEL S. CAROLAN (2004) Ecological Modernization Theory: What About Consumption?, Society and
Natural Resources, 17:3, 247-260, DOI: 10.1080/0894120490270294.............................................................49
, 18: F.H. Buttel, Ecological modernization as social theory, in A.P.J. Mol, D.A. Sonnenfeld and G. Spaargaren,
The Ecological Modernisation Reader, Routledge, Oxon/New York, 2009, 123-137.........................................53
Lecture 5: Philosophy of science and social scientific perspectives................................................................55
19: Moon, K. and Blackman, D. 2014. A Guide to Understanding Social Science Research for Natural
Scientists. Conservation Biology 28(5): 1167-1177. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12326.................................................55
Lecture 6: Guest lecture on the ‘four returns’ by Commonland.....................................................................60
‘the four returns’ by Commonland (www.commonland.com)...........................................................................60
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,Lecture 1: Intro E&S, IPBES conceptual framework and
global assessment
1: Giddens, The Environment, chapter 5 (partim) from A. Giddens,
Sociology, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2008 (6th Edition), pp. 155-166.
The environment
Although much sociological research tends to focus on how human institutions and citizens respond
to ecological hazards, the 2004 tsunami reminds us that natural processes can be complex and
unpredictable. The natural environment is not simply an inert, passive backdrop to the dramas of
social life, but is an active force, which often plays a large role in the shaping of societies. The high
loss of life amongst Westerners during the tsunami reflects the processes of globalization (Thailand
had become a travel destination).
In this chapter we look at ideas of nature and environment and what constitutes an environmental
issue.
Nature, the environment and sociology
Williams (1987): nature is one of the most complex and difficult words in the English nature because
its dominate meaning has changed over time along with the development of societies.
- Nature can mean something that is essential to a person or a thing
- Can be a series of forces
- Can be seen as the whole material world of things,
- The world of Natural things (animals, fields, scenery)
2 major and related causes of this latest change in meaning were:
- Industrialisation: which shifted people away from working the land in agricultural settings
- Urbanisation: which led to larger human settlements that generated new living environments
largely divorced from natural things
On the one hand nature was seen as the obstacle, on the other hand the industrial society was seen
as the obstacle. For both tamers and protectors, nature and society were seen as separate things.
Nature was that which society was not, and vice versa.
Since 1950s the term ‘nature’ was taken over by the term ‘environment’.
In this chapter, the environment is assumed to mean all of those non-human natural surroundings
within which human beings exists. It’s simply planet Earth as a whole
How can sociology help us understand environmental issues?
1. It can help us understand how environmental problems are distributed.
If the tsunami didn’t take place in Asia but in richer countries of the Pacific Ocean, what
would have happened. Also global warming happens everywhere but it affects people in
different ways.
2. Sociologists can provide an account of how patterns of human behaviour create pressure on
the natural environment. Sociological theories of capitalist expansion, globalization or
rationalization can all help us to understand how human societies are transforming the
environment
3. Sociology can help us to evaluate policies and proposals aimed at providing solutions to
environmental problems. Example: some environmental activists and ‘green’ writers argue
that people in the rich countries must turn away from consumerism and return to simpler
ways of life, implying that global environment will thus mean radical social & technological
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, change. However, given the enormous global inequalities there’s little chance that the poor
countries of the developing worlds will sacrifice their own economic growth because of
environmental problems created by the rich countries. Some governments of developing
countries have argued for ‘luxury emissions’ and ‘survival emissions’. In this way, sociological
accounts of international relations and global inequality can clarify some of the underlying
causes of the problems.
Sociology’s founders (Marx, Durkheim, Weber) paid little attention to what we now call
‘environmental issues’. Sociological studies of the environment have been characterized by a dispute
amongst social constructionists and critical realist approaches over just how environmental issues
should be studied sociologically.
Social constructionism and critical realism
Social constructionism
- Approach to studying social problems, including environmental problems
- Investigates how some environmental issues are more significant while others don’t seem so
important
- Constructionists ask a series of important questions about environmental problems:
o What is the history of the problem and how was it developed?
o Who is making the claim that it is a problem; do they have any vested interest and
stand to benefit from doing so?
o What do they say about it and does the evidence support this?
o How do they say it? Do they use scientific, emotional, political, or moral arguments
and why do they do so?
o Who opposes the claim and on what grounds?
- Social constructionists remind us of all that environmental problems are, in part, socially
created or ‘constructed’ by groups of people. For environmental activists this is not helpful.
Constructionism tells us a lot about people and social interactions, but nothing about society-
environment relations.
Critical realism/ environmental realism
- Is the alternative approach. It approaches environmental issues in a scientific way, which
brings together evidence from a cross the social and natural sciences to understand better
why environmental problems occur
- It aims to get beneath the surface of the visible evidence and uncovers the underlying
causes.
- Realists search for causal explanations and considers the objective reality of natural objects
and environments.
From these two approaches we can say that social constructionism leads in the direction of a
sociology of the environment that explores environmental issues. By contrast, critical realism leads
towards an environmental sociology which demands the revision of existing sociological approaches
to take account of the complex intertwining of society and environment.
What are environmental issues?
There are many; local, regional, global. What they al share is that they both involve social
relationships and interactions and non-human, natural phenomena. In this sense, they are hybrid
issues of society and the environment.
Air pollution
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, - Does not only affect the health of human and animal populations, it also has damaging
impact on other elements in the ecosystem: acid rain
o Acid rain: when sulphur and nitrogen oxide emissions in one country drift across
borders and produce acidic rainfalls in another. It’s harmful to forests, crops, animals
and leads to acidification of lakes.
- Like many environmental issues, acid rain is difficult to counteract bc it’s transnational in
origins and consequences.
Water pollution
- For many years, waste products are dumped directly into rivers. Only in the half past century
have efforts been made to protect the quality of water.
- In industrialized countries, it’s often the cause of overuse of fertilizers.
2: J. Pretty et al., Introduction to Environment and Society, in J. Pretty
et al., The SAGE Handbook of Environment and Society, SAGE, Los
Angeles, 2007, pp. 1-15.
Perspectives on sustainability
Environmental concerns began to develop in the 1960s and were particularly driven by Rachel
Carson’s book Silent Spring. It focused on the environmental harm caused by the economic sector, in
this case agriculture.
- 1970s: Club of Rome identified the problems that societies would face
- 1980s: World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland) published Our
Common Future, the first serious attempt to link poverty to natural resource management
and the state of the environment. Sustainable development was defined as ‘meeting the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs’
- 1992: UN conference on Environment and Development in Rio makes Agenda 21
Over time, the concept of sustainability has grown from an initial focus on environmental aspects to
include first economic and then broader social and political dimensions
Environmental or ecological: the core concerns are to reduce negative environmental and
health externalities, to enhance and use local ecosystem resources and preserve biodiversity
Economic: economic perspectives recognize that many environmental services are not priced
by markets and that, because of this, it may be economically rational to use the environment
in unsustainable ways and to undersupply environmental public goods
Social and political: local level; sustainability is associated with participation, group action,
promotion, and culture. At the higher level, the concern is for enabling policies that target
preservation of nature and its vital goods and services
Social perspective on environment and society
Important part of this Handbook centres on how social organization constrains humans’ relationships
with nature, but also how social organizations are shaped by nature. Perhaps the most distinctive
feature of such an approach is that it rejects the notion of any form of social organization or
structured human action is ideal or given by nature. While human action is constrained by social
structures, it’s assumed that those structures are socially constructed and subject to change. This
implies that human behaviour in relation to nature can be redirected if social structures change.
Perhaps the most celebrated scientist to mount a sustained critique of the environmental impacts of
technology was Rachel Carson. Many observers claim that the publication of her book Silent Spring
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, marked the rise of contemporary environmentalism in the USA but there is clear evidence that
concern been stirring throughout the industrial world. The rise of environmental movement in the
US, for example, led to the enactment of a variety of unprecedented environmental legislation.
Sociologists were taken by surprised and struggled to understand it. The focus and composition is
different from the other social movements of the day. The movement’s adherents were initially
thought to be more middle class and perhaps more mainstream than the anti-war and civil rights
activists of the time. Also, the movement seemed to be charting a new course that was not rooted in
the dominant socialist or capitalist ideologies. For this reason, some sociologists began to suspect
that environmentalists were advocating an entirely new paradigm – one that politically was neither
left nor right, but entirely different.
Without a clear theory to guide the development of an alternative sociology of the environment,
early efforts moved in a variety of directions that steered environmental sociology away from
established theories of society.
- Environmental sociologists initially criticized existing social theories for their hubris in
assuming that humans through science and technology could dominate nature without
significant impacts on the natural world or society. This paradigm was labelled ‘human
exceptionalism’.
- But environmentalists’ concerns about the destruction of nature and its consequences for
society led to a reconsideration of how nature shapes society.
So, what shapes the relationship between society and the environment?
- Some early attempts to apply sociology to the understanding nature society originate from
Marxism
The implications of the dominant system of market capitalism for nature-society relationships are a
point of considerable contention in sociology. Some would argue that the capitalist economy is
fundamentally destructive of the environment and for this reason is unsustainable in the long run.
Recently, a decidedly more optimistic theory of ecological modernization has come into play. From
this pov, environmental destruction reflects a lack of investment in modern technologies and this
deficit can be remedied with state policies that prohibit production practices wasteful or destructive
of the environment. EM is not just about technology, though. It’s as much about bringing ecological
considerations into market decision making through appropriate pricing of environmental services.
Regardless of their theoretical orientation, sociologists consider organizational forms to be social
constructs that are subject to change. This assumption implies that human behaviour is not inherent
or given but moulded by the social structures in place and time.
Environmental assets and externalities
Many economic sectors directly affect many of the very assets on which they rely for success. The 5
capitals have been defined in the following ways:
1. Natural capital: produces environmental goods and services, and is the source of food, wood,
and fibre etc etc
2. Social capital: yields a flow of mutually beneficial collective action, contributing to the
cohesiveness of people in their societies.
3. Human capital: total capability residing in individuals, based on their stock of knowledge,
skills, health, nutrition
4. Physical capital: store of human-made material resources
5. Financial capital: more of an accounting concept as it represents accumulated claims on
goods.
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