Environment and Social Theory

Environment and Social Theory PDF Author: John Barry
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113418462X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book Here

Book Description
Written in an engaging and accessible manner by one of the leading scholars in his field, Environment and Social Theory, completed revised and updated with two new chapters, is an indispensable guide to the way in which the environment and social theory relate to one another. This popular text outlines the complex interlinking of the environment, nature and social theory from ancient and pre-modern thinking to contemporary social theorizing. John Barry: examines the ways major religions such as Judaeo-Christianity have and continue to conceptualize the environment analyzes the way the non-human environment features in Western thinking from Marx and Darwin, to Freud and Horkheimer explores the relationship between gender and the environment, postmodernism and risk society schools of thought, and the contemporary ideology of orthodox economic thinking in social theorising about the environment. How humans value, use and think about the environment, is an increasingly central and important aspect of recent social theory. It has become clear that the present generation is faced with a series of unique environmental dilemmas, largely unprecedented in human history. With summary points, illustrative examples, glossary and further reading sections this invaluable resource will benefit anyone with an interest in environmentalism, politics, sociology, geography, development studies and environmental and ecological economics.

Environment and Social Theory

Environment and Social Theory PDF Author: John Barry
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113418462X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book Here

Book Description
Written in an engaging and accessible manner by one of the leading scholars in his field, Environment and Social Theory, completed revised and updated with two new chapters, is an indispensable guide to the way in which the environment and social theory relate to one another. This popular text outlines the complex interlinking of the environment, nature and social theory from ancient and pre-modern thinking to contemporary social theorizing. John Barry: examines the ways major religions such as Judaeo-Christianity have and continue to conceptualize the environment analyzes the way the non-human environment features in Western thinking from Marx and Darwin, to Freud and Horkheimer explores the relationship between gender and the environment, postmodernism and risk society schools of thought, and the contemporary ideology of orthodox economic thinking in social theorising about the environment. How humans value, use and think about the environment, is an increasingly central and important aspect of recent social theory. It has become clear that the present generation is faced with a series of unique environmental dilemmas, largely unprecedented in human history. With summary points, illustrative examples, glossary and further reading sections this invaluable resource will benefit anyone with an interest in environmentalism, politics, sociology, geography, development studies and environmental and ecological economics.

Nature and Social Theory

Nature and Social Theory PDF Author: Adrian Franklin
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761963783
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book asks the questions can `Man' be separated from `Nature'? Is it valid to seek to `control' Nature? It argues that the firm modern boundaries between nature and culture have been breached and pulls together new strands of thinking about nature which suggest that humanity and nature have never been separate. The argument is developed through a critical discussion of the Romantic ideal of pure nature, unsullied by humanity and largely confined to fragile margins in need of protection and more recent discourses which identify nature with environment, and cast man in the role of a polluter and destroyer.

Social Theory and the Global Environment

Social Theory and the Global Environment PDF Author: Ted Benton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134833032
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book marks a watershed in the social sciences. The qualitative, critical perspective of sociology and allied disciplines challenges the technocentric `managerialism' which dominates environmental policy, its discourse and its impact. The authors explore the relationship between social theory and sustainability in an attempt to transend technical rhetoric and embrace a broader understanding of `nature'.

Environments, Natures and Social Theory

Environments, Natures and Social Theory PDF Author: Damian White
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1137524251
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Get Book Here

Book Description
From climate change to fossil fuel dependency, from the uneven effects of natural disasters to the loss of biodiversity: complex socio-environmental problems indicate the urgency for cross-disciplinary research into the ways in which the social, the natural and the technological are ever more entangled. This ground breaking text moves between environmental sociology and environmental geography, political and social ecology and critical design studies to provide a definitive mapping of the state of environmental social theory in the age of the anthropocene. Environments, Natures and Social Theory provokes dialogue and confrontation between critical political economists, actor network theorists, neo-Malthusians and environmental justice advocates. It maps out the new environmental politics of hybridity moving from hybrid neo-liberals to end times ecologists, from post environmentalists to cyborg eco-socialists. White, Rudy and Gareau insist on the necessity of a critical but optimistic hybrid politics, arguing that a more just, egalitarian, democratic and sustainable anthropocene is within our grasp. This will only be brought into being, however, by reclaiming, celebrating and channeling the reconstructive potential of entangled hybrid humans as inventive hominids, creative gardeners, critical publics and political agents. Written in an accessible style, Environments, Natures and Social Theory is an essential resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students across the social sciences.

Agency, Democracy, and Nature

Agency, Democracy, and Nature PDF Author: Robert J. Brulle
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262522816
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this book Robert Brulle draws on a broad range of empirical and theoretical research to investigate the effectiveness of U.S. environmental groups. Brulle shows how Critical Theory--in particular the work of Jürgen Habermas--can expand our understanding of the social causes of environmental degradation and the political actions necessary to deal with it. He then develops both a pragmatic and a moral argument for broad-based democratization of society as a prerequisite to the achievement of ecological sustainability. From the perspectives of frame analysis, resource mobilization, and historical sociology, using data on more than one hundred environmental groups, Brulle examines the core beliefs, structures, funding, and political practices of a wide variety of environmental organizations. He identifies the social processes that foster the development of a democratic environmental movement and those that hinder it. He concludes with suggestions for how environmental groups can make their organizational practices more democratic and politically effective.

Ideology, Social Theory, and the Environment

Ideology, Social Theory, and the Environment PDF Author: William D. Sunderlin
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742519701
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book shows that polemical environmental and ecological debates are governed not so much by access to 'facts' as they are by the political ideology of the expert advancing a particular argument. Moreover, the thoughts of these experts tend to be based largely in just one of three competing streams of political thought: the left, the center, or the right. Drawing on social theory, the author explains the philosophical origins of this tendency to rely on just one of three traditions, and why this poses a serious obstacle to conceptualizing the cause, nature, and resolution of environmental problems.

Social Theory and the Environment

Social Theory and the Environment PDF Author: David Goldblatt
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745677231
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book establishes whether contemporary social theory can help us understand the structural origins of environmental degradation and environmental politics.

Society and Nature

Society and Nature PDF Author: Peter Dickens
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 9780877229681
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this wide-ranging effort to theorize about the relationships between society and nature, Peter Dickens attempts to reconstruct social theory in a way that enables it to speak to contemporary environmental issues. After reviewing existing sociological traditions, he draws on the early work of Karl Marx to suggest that processes and relations in the workplace are the main source of people's separation from nature. In addition, people's understanding of "nature" tends to mirror their experience of the social world. Redefining the work of Anthony Giddens in an ecological direction, Dickens analyzes developments in biological thinking that seem consistent with this approach. He considers the role of culture, and he critiques the contemporary "deep green" and "deep ecology" movements. Focusing on the alienation of human begins from the natural world and the place of nature in their "deep mental structures," the author works in part from a Marxist perspective but draws a wide variety of social psychological, and biological theories into the discussion. Society and Nature not only addresses a central debate in contemporary social science regarding this interrelationship but also responds to the intellectual challenge presented by natural scientific concepts of environmental problems that oversimplify or ignore their political or social relational dimensions. Author note: Peter Dickens is Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies and Social Policy at the University of Sussex (UK) and the author of Urban Sociology: Society, Locality and Human Nature.

Sociological Theory and the Environment

Sociological Theory and the Environment PDF Author: Riley E. Dunlap
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742501867
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 374

Get Book Here

Book Description
Nearly all of the major perspectives, focal points and debates in environmental sociology are reflected in this collection of essays. The volume exceeds the bounds of conventional theory by surveying societies and their natural biophysical environments.

Risk and Social Theory in Environmental Management

Risk and Social Theory in Environmental Management PDF Author: Tom Measham
Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
ISBN: 0643104127
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book Here

Book Description
Risk and Social Theory in Environmental Managementmarks a timely contribution, given that environmental management is no longer just about protecting pristine ecosystems and endangered species from anthropogenic harm; it is about calculating and managing the risks to human communities of rapid environmental and technological change. First, the book provides a solid foundation of the social theory underpinning the nature of risk, then presents a rethinking of key concepts and methods in order to take more seriously the biophysical embeddedness of human society. Second, it presents a rich set of case studies from Australia and around the world, drawing on the latest applied research conducted by leading research institutions. In so doing, the book identifies the tensions that arise from decision making over risk and uncertainty in a contested policy environment, and provides crucial insights for addressing on-the-ground problems in an integrated way. * First volume to address environmental risk from a social science perspective * Latest theoretical developments * In depth case studies of contemporary issues (e.g. climate change, water shortages)