Sociology and the Environment E-Book

Alan Irwin

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 398

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Can sociology help us to tackle environmental problems? What can sociology tell us about the nature of the environment and about the origins and consequences of environmental risks, hazards and change? In this important new book Alan Irwin maps out this emerging field of knowledge, teaching and research. He reviews the key sociological debates in the field and sets out a new framework for analysis and practice.

Among the themes examined are constructivism and realism, sustainable development and theories of the risk society. Readers are also introduced to communities at risk, institutional regulation and the environmental consequences of technology. Particular topics for discussion include genetically modified organisms, nuclear power, pesticide safety and the local hazards of the chemical industry. Rather than maintaining a fixed boundary between nature and society, Irwin highlights the hybrid character of environmental issues and emphasizes the role of social and cultural factors within environmental policy.

Combining theoretical discussion and case-studies with a sensitivity to the concerns of environmental policy and practice, Sociology and the Environment provides an excellent introduction to an expanding and immensely important field. It will be a valuable text for students and scholars in sociology, geography, environmental studies and related disciplines.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Dedication

Title page

Copyright page

Preface

Introduction

Getting Started

Elements of an Environmental Sociology

Overview and Book Structure

1 Sustainability as Social Challenge

The Emergence of Sustainability Talk

The Brundtland Report

Since Brundtland

The Sustainability Problematique

2 The Risk Society Thesis: The End of the World As We Know It?

Ulrich Beck and the ‘Risk Society’

The Risk Society Thesis

Re-examining the Risk Society

3 Science and the Social Construction of Environmental Threat

Science in Environmental Action

Perspectives from the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge

Scientists, Social Scientists, Mad Cows and Environmentalists

4 Risks in Context: The Local Construction of Environmental Issues

Making Sense of Environmental Concerns

The Centralia Mine Fire

The Jarrow Study

Discussion: Things that go Bump in the Night?

5 Institutional Judgements and Contested Decisions: The Governance of Environmental Problems

Deciding About the Environment

Discussion

6 Kamikazes and Chromosomes: Sociological Perspectives on Technology

Nuclear Landscapes, Rentiers and Kamikazes

Sustainable Technology?

Technological Determinism Revisited

7 Society, Nature, Knowledge: Co-constructing the Social and the Natural

Constructive Realists and Real Constructivists: The Social–Natural Debate in Environmental Sociology

Co-constructing the Social and the Natural

Towards an Environmental(ist) Sociology

Conclusion

References

Index

For George William Irwin who lovedfresh air and good company.

Copyright © Alan Irwin 2001

The right of Alan Irwin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2001 by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd

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Preface

In an influential lecture delivered in 1991, Howard Newby1 made two particular claims concerning the relationship between sociology and the environment. First, ‘that environmental change … is as much a social science as a natural science issue’. As Newby anticipated, this assertion was likely to be ‘highly congenial’ to most sociologists. Certainly, it is fundamental to this book.

Secondly, and less congenially, Newby argued that ‘the slender contribution of sociologists to the study of the environment has been, to put it mildly, disappointing’. More specifically, he asserted that sociology had been ‘inhibited’ in this regard by a ‘deeply rooted set of theoretical and conceptual issues which must be overcome if sociology is successfully to rise to the challenge which I believe to be there’. This book offers a critical introduction to these theoretical and conceptual challenges and, in so doing, addresses the sociology–environment relationship at a basic level.

Newby substantiated his claims in a number of ways: by noting that the causes of environmental change lie in human societies, by exploring the ‘technological determinism’ at the heart of policy prescriptions and by discussing the rhetorical usage of ‘scientific facts’ within environmental discussions. All these points are important and will be discussed in these pages. Nevertheless, one of the most interesting aspects of Newby’s lecture was its discussion of the question (which I paraphrase slightly): why, given the centrality of sociology to environmental questions, has sociology remained so silent?

Newby’s own answer to this question takes us into territory that will be central to the chapters that follow: ‘The very raison d’être of sociology has rested upon identifying and demarcating a disciplinary paradigm quite distinct from, and irreducible to, the natural and the biological. And, even to pick at this problem runs the risk of being tainted with an abhorrent political philosophy’ (Newby 1991, p. 7). For Newby, environmental questions represent a fundamental challenge to the discipline precisely because they raise what can be termed ‘foundational problems’. On that basis, the implications for the discipline are profound: ‘[T]he sociology of the environment ought not to be regarded as some esoteric, sub-disciplinary specialism, but rather [as] something which defines the sociological enterprise’ (ibid.). In a finale to the lecture, which serves equally well as an overture to this book, Newby asserted: ‘It is vital for all our futures that we lose no opportunity to acquire the appropriate knowledge about ourselves and our relationship to the planet’ (ibid., p. 8).

Re-reading Newby’s lecture today, a number of his observations remain valid. Although things are slowly changing, ‘sociology of the environment’ is still largely found ‘in the outer reaches of a third-year undergraduate option where it can be safely marginalized alongside the sociology of development, or some such’ (ibid., p. 6). One also suspects that many current sociology students – and staff too – would fail the ‘Brundtland test’ implied by Newby (i.e. of whether they have read – or perhaps even heard of – this influential report2). Equally, there is still a tendency for the ‘social’ dimensions of environmental problems to be seen as secondary within policy debates – as a set of ‘soft’ issues to be ironed out once the ‘hard facts’ have been collected.

On the other hand, and as Newby acknowledged, even back in the early 1990s there already existed a relevant sociological literature. This included environmental sociology3 (especially in the United States) and, very importantly for this book, a concern with risk and environmental issues within science and technology studies (STS). It could also have been argued against Newby that, although twentieth-century sociology was indeed largely silent on environmental matters, the sociological heritage should not be dismissed altogether (even if it is, as we will discuss, highly ‘questionable’ in this regard). Certainly, various sociologists have defended the con-tinued significance of the sociological classics for environmental issues and concerns.

In taking stock of the relationship between sociology and the en-vironment today, it must especially be noted that a range of books has emerged since the early 1990s with titles such as The Green Case, Social Theory and the Global Environment, Society and Nature, The Social Construction of Nature, Environmental Sociology, An Invitation to Environmental Sociology and Ecology and Society.4 The list is long and getting longer every year – particularly if one includes publications which, whilst not primarily sociological in orientation, have important implications for the discipline and specifically for our understanding of the social–natural relationship (for example, the expanding interdisciplinary literatures on sustainability, eco-feminism and green philosophy). As Riley Dunlap has observed, the 1990s witnessed a ‘dramatic resurgence’ in the field and ‘signs of its intellectual revitalization’ (1997, p. 29). This book hopes to capture that spirit of intellectual renewal and revitalization at the start of a new century when environmental problems and environmental understandings seem more important than ever.

Nevertheless, and a decade later, the central challenge posed by Newby’s talk remains: what should be the relationship between the discipline of sociology and the study of environmental issues, problems and concerns? In particular, it is still relevant to ask whether this area of study should simply take its place alongside other undergraduate options and specialty areas or whether instead more foundational challenges are being offered to the sociological canon. Does environmental sociology represent yet another sociological spe-cialty or should it alter the whole complexion of the discipline? In the following chapters, we will witness a challenge not only to the interpretation of the ‘natural’ within sociology but also to the meaning of the ‘social’ in a world where nature and society are so closely intertwined.

In asking such questions we are challenging not only the intel-lectual assumptions of contemporary sociologists but also the prevailing sense of what defines environmental issues, problems and concerns. Any radical attempt to reconstruct the conventional relationship between society and nature will have consequences for how we view the environment and the modern environmental crisis. This in turn means that Newby’s ‘environmental challenge’ to sociology may involve a more fundamental rethinking than is immediately apparent. Such a suggestion should not be seen as dismissive of contemporary environmental concerns (on the contrary). However, it does suggest that in offering a challenge to the discipline of sociology we are simultaneously and unavoidably challenging the conventional construction of environmental problems. Throughout Sociol-ogy and the Environment, we will be very conscious of this dual challenge both to sociology itself and to the definition of environmental concerns.

It follows from what has already been said here that the subsequent chapters are not primarily about the social dimensions of environmental change, nor are they designed to heighten sociologists’ awareness of the environmental crisis (although along the way they should stimulate reflection on both these points). My goal instead is to ask more basic questions about the very definition of the ‘natural environment’ and the ways in which environmental matters are defined within everyday talk, within policy formulations, within the institutions of science and, very importantly, within sociology as a discipline. This book will not survey environmental problems, nor will it directly review the different ways in which sociological analysis can assist environmental action. Instead, it will specifically focus on the larger theoretical and conceptual challenge: how can the discipline of sociology usefully address questions of nature and the physical environment and what would this in turn mean for sociology?

As I hope to suggest, the crude notion that the environment is simply ‘out there’ and that ‘it’ then has certain social impacts is being replaced by a more complex and multi-layered sense of the different ways in which the natural world is constituted, contested and defined within institutional practices, environmental discourses and forms of expertise. Central to this exploration of institutional practices and ‘contested natures’5 will be the question of environmental knowledge: how do we know what risks we run and what environmental threats we face? Since nature cannot speak to society without our active interpretation and understanding, environmental knowledge is central to the social–natural relationship.

In raising such basic conceptual issues, it should be stated from the beginning that I write as a sociologist with a long-standing interest in this area but also as someone with an equally long-standing concern with issues of hazard, risk and the environment at a practical as well as theoretical level. In that sense, what follows is not just the outcome of reading a particularly fascinating area of literature but also of personal (often troublesome) experience in this area. The attentive reader will certainly be able to detect my own attempts to make sense of a set of problems that can never be just ‘out there’ but are ‘in here’ within our own thoughts and practices.

In one vivid illustration of this sociological complexity, I remember visiting a factory in the North of England during the early 1980s to discuss problems of occupational health with managers and local trade-union officials. Prior to my visit, I had studied a number of articles that chronicled the problems of cancer and lung disease and also the steps being taken at national level to control exposure. I certainly went with a clear sense of what the problem was – even if what should be done about it was less clear to me.

My cautious reception by management at the plant had been anticipated but not the positively hostile encounter with a senior trade-union official. The message was clear: my sense of a significant hazard was totally at odds with his sense of security, employment and an exceptionally rigorous set of workplace controls. This is not (as we agreed) to deny the general existence of health problems, but it does suggest the different ways in which such issues can be constructed, framed and understood – and also the relationship between these elements and the contexts of their enactment.

In line with that insight, my assumption of a major health issue was matched by his notion that this was merely the temporary and controllable side-effect of an otherwise successful technology. My scepticism of the plant’s management was countered by his sense of an honest and caring group of people who were brought up, lived and worked in the same small town as himself. My (inevitably partial and selective) use of scientific evidence conflicted with his trust in the technical competence of the company’s medical staff (did I have better formal qualifications than them?). In this one example, we can see many of the issues of risk, knowledge and expertise that will be specifically developed in this book. In particular, we can identify the importance of context and of social practices, which may have profound implications for environmental understanding without being primarily environmental in orientation. As we will discuss, risk issues do not arise in a socio-cultural vacuum.

Looking back, I suspect neither of us shifted position during the decidedly heated discussion. However, it does serve to illustrate the embeddedness of such questions within the assumptions and understandings of everyday life (including, of course, my own). At least for me, it especially emphasized the need not just to impose an outsider’s framework on a set of issues but to consider the ‘local knowledges’ and contextual understandings involved (even if they sometimes conflict with one’s own preferences and judgements). Put differently, our interpretation of the underlying reality of the situation differed markedly. There was no single environmental truth upon which we could agree – and, crucially, for reasons that are both social and natural in character.

The encounter also raised far-reaching questions concerning the analytical, political and ethical role of the researcher: to document and analyse this as a case-study or to make a practical intervention? Certainly, it was difficult for me to come away with the notion that I had some unproblematically privileged concept of what the problems ‘really’ were. Meanwhile, existing sociological theory seemed inadequate when applied to such a context. As I travelled back to what now felt like the comfort and intellectual shelter of the university, I was left wondering what the best role for the sociologist should be in situations of this kind.

So what does this book offer? First of all, it focuses squarely on the social–natural relationship and its consequences for the social sciences (specifically, for sociology). Secondly, it places questions of environmental knowledge and expertise at the core of relations between the social and the natural. Whilst ‘sound science’ is often presented as a sufficient foundation for effective environmental action, we will consider some of the inherent difficulties of ‘knowing’ the scale and severity of environmental problems.

Thirdly, this book suggests that the sociological study of the environment is not just a matter of applying conventional social theory (in all of its abstracted glory) but also of reconstructing that theory. Accordingly, we will both review existing sociological debates (including the entrenched battle between realists and constructivists6) and explore new possibilities (especially the concept of ‘co-construction’). This leads into a fourth point, that this reconstruction requires not just theoretical analysis but also empirical exploration and grounded discussion. For that reason, we examine an important range of institutional frameworks (including sustainable development and government decision-making) and everyday contexts (notably, the public reconstruction of environmental issues). I will suggest that these frameworks and contexts are not just illustrations of the social–natural relationship, but represent some of the crucial processes and contexts within which social–natural relations are enacted and practised.

Finally, we will consider both disciplinary and practical questions. Indeed, the whole argument is that we are unlikely to reach satisfactory conclusions about either unless we tackle both.

Constructing one’s audience for a book like this is never easy. In the usual egocentric manner of academics, it is particularly hard to remember that one’s own obsessions and enthusiasms are not universally shared. In taking up Newby’s theoretical and conceptual challenge, I am potentially addressing everyone interested in the future of sociology although I recognize that the audience will con-sist particularly of those within the discipline with a special interest in environmental and scientific matters (a number that is steadily growing). I also very much hope to engage those within geography, political science and science and technology studies as well as the wider social sciences who wish to reflect upon the status of environmental claims and the relationship between the social and the natural within environmental disputes.

This book is certainly designed to help sociology and other students who are tackling courses in this area. Much of this material developed whilst teaching final-year undergraduate and also graduate students. Just as importantly, I hope to gain the attention of those who are pondering how best to interpret and act upon environmental concerns: whether in environmentalist groups, industry, government or simply through more personal contemplation of a topic that touches us all.

It must be said that this sociological field is both controversial and disputed. It is also dynamic rather than settled into a single paradigm or disciplinary framework. I have to confess that it is partly for this reason that I am attracted to it. However, it also follows that much of what I present here will provoke disagreement, criticism and debate (and rightly so). It is therefore appropriate that the following chapters are not primarily intended as a magisterial or all-encompassing overview. My aim instead is to encourage engagement, reflection and discussion regarding a key area of international concern. This is offered as a critical introduction to a set of important discussions and, as such, aims to stimulate and provoke rather than to place this challenging and exciting subject in one tidy corner of the sociological edifice.

As my publisher is only too aware, this book has a long and en-tangled history. Certain people in particular deserve gratitude for keeping me alive, alert and on-course and for making a real contribution to what follows: Peter Dickens (to whom I owe particular thanks), Susse Georg, Christine Hine, Elaine Mc Carthy, Anthony Murphy, Henry Rothstein, Peter Simmons, Frederic Vandenberghe, Gordon Walker, Steve Woolgar, Brian Wynne and Steve Yearley. Let me also thank students and colleagues in Human Sciences and CRICT at Brunel University for their endless supply of good ideas and, just as importantly, good humour.

Notes

1. At that time, Newby was Chair of the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The talk, given in February 1991, marked the occasion of the British Sociological Association’s fortieth anniversary.

2. The Brundtland Report is discussed extensively in chapter 1.

3. For an early statement of this approach, see Catton and Dunlap 1978. For a more recent discussion, see Dunlap 1997. See also Buttel 1987; Erikson 1976.

4. Respectively, Yearley 1991; Redclift and Benton (eds) 1994; Dickens 1992; Eder 1996; Hannigan 1995; Bell 1998; Martell 1994.

5. See Macnaghten and Urry 1998.

6. Put very simply, realists emphasize the objective and independent reality of environmental problems. Constructivists, as we will discuss, emphasize the socially constructed character of environmental problems and argue that reality is actively manufactured in particular contexts through language and social interaction.

Introduction

I have divided this Introduction into three integral sections (‘Getting Started’, ‘Elements of an Environmental Sociology’ and ‘Overview and Book Structure’) with a brief summary at the start of each. If you want to begin with a quick overview of the whole chapter, I suggest you read through the three summaries right now. Similar summaries will be found at the start of each subsequent chapter.

Getting Started

In the first section of this Introduction, different forms of social environment are considered before we move to the main focus of this book: the natural environment. At this point, the important duality between the ‘social’ and the ‘natural’ within sociology is identified and some of its consequences noted. The discussion then moves on to consider the ‘questionable heritage’ provided by the sociological classics when approaching environmental issues. The conventional social–natural separation is linked to the perceived need to establish a distinctive disciplinary identity for sociology, the historical lack of awareness of environmental problems but also the ideological difficulties for sociology of acknowledging a ‘natural’ basis for social life (as embodied, for example, within fascist thought). Finally, I suggest that recent sociological accounts are beginning to engage once again with social–natural relations and so offer a more productive direction for environmental sociology.

Right from the start, it must be said that the relationship between sociology and the environment seems impossibly broad and all-encompassing. After all, the environment represents the whole setting within which we spend our lives. Equally, the ‘environment’ as a term gets used in a number of contexts: the ‘home’ environment, the ‘work’ environment, the ‘local’ environment, the ‘urban’ environment, the ‘global’ environment and so on. How can any single book or course of study possibly cover such a range of ‘environments’?

In practice, discussions of the environment tend to focus on quite specific contexts – the city and built environment, for example, within urban sociology; the work environment within occupational sociology or industrial relations. Generally, these environments are seen as separate from one another. They represent the discrete locations within which social life is conducted. However, it is important to consider the possible ways in which these different environments do more than just provide a backdrop to our lives: they also have the capa-city to change lives. The move from older-style terraced housing to high-rise blocks (and, increasingly, back again) can be seen as having various deleterious (but also positive) effects on the quality of urban life. Workplace design can affect productivity and job satisfaction. These environments influence how we interact with the people around us, how high our stress levels are, even our very sense of happiness and well-being.

It is clear, therefore, that we cannot discuss the meaning of ‘en-vironment’ without observing that we are not merely the passive victims of the environment. The environment is not just ‘given’. It is also created and interpreted. High-rise blocks can be demolished, factories and offices can be rebuilt or reconfigured. Of course, we do not all have equal influence over such matters – and we may still find ourselves living and working in environments that we consider to be oppressive and injurious – but they are all ultimately human pro-ducts and constructions.

There is another dimension to this basic point about the human (or, to be more precise, social) construction of environment. The environments discussed so far are not simply fixed in character. Instead, we read and construct them in different ways. One person’s slum is someone else’s proud home. One person’s experience of the excitement of a great city is someone else’s urban nightmare. We invest meanings in the world around us and those meanings make sense within the patterns of everyday life. This is not (of course) to deny that cities, housing estates and factories have a physical existence. However, it does suggest a subtle and overlapping relationship between the material and social worlds: a relationship that will be central to this book.

Certainly, people in my home town still talk nostalgically about the town-hall clock, which represented a central focus to the town centre – and many of them (including me) still look up to check the time even though the town hall was demolished long ago. The physi-cal presence (or non-presence) of the clock, its height and architectural design are now less important than its persistent role within our memories and conversations. The clock ticks on through numerous anecdotes, jokes and everyday references.

However, what was ‘read’ by some people (at least in retrospect) as a symbol of local pride was obviously interpreted by others as an outdated eyesore, which should be replaced with a concrete-and-glass civic centre more appropriate to the town’s changing image.1 At this point, we can see how these different environmental constructions might serve as a basis for political and campaigning alliances which offer fundamentally different presentations of the issues.

The following chapters are centrally concerned with the question of just how different an account should emerge when we move from this set of explicitly human-made environments to the main focus of this book – what is generally referred to as the natural environment. As several commentators have noted, social scientific analysis has routinely distinguished between the above forms of human-built (or social) environments and the natural environment.

A definite dualism is at work here. The ‘social’ environment has been seen as legitimate territory for sociologists, whilst the ‘natural’ environment has been left to the natural sciences – a category that specifically excludes (or grants only a supporting role to) the social sciences. Whilst, for example, the workplace and home have been portrayed as appropriate settings for sociological analysis, the natural world – almost by definition – is regarded as asocial and external to human life. Indeed, much of sociology deals with what makes the social structure distinctively ‘human’ rather than ‘natural’. On that basis also, the physical surroundings within which different societies are located are seen as less sociologically interesting than how people respond to the environment within which they live. Put differently, the natural environment may be presented as a backdrop to the dramas enacted by human beings – but certainly not as an actor itself.

Various assumptions have served to divide the natural environment from the more social environments considered so far. These will be discussed in greater detail in this and later chapters. For now, a few simple observations can be offered:

1. As the very term ‘natural environment’ suggests, issues of ecology, pollution and global environmental change have been considered as outside the competence of the social sciences: science offers a powerful means of understanding such issues so why should sociology get involved?

2. In line with this, the natural environment has generally been presented as outside human agency or intervention: the assumption seems to be that we can improve a city square (or even rebuild a town-hall clock) but we can hardly improve or rebuild a rainforest or wilderness.

3. There is an apparent sociological assumption that the social and the natural are separable even though one prevailing feature of contemporary social life is its blurring of such categories (national parks, canal-side walks, traditional villages and towns are examples here – they are often presented as natural yet are unavoidably also social in origin and character). As Simon Schama observes in discussion of the Yosemite National Park in California: ‘The wilderness, after all, does not locate itself, does not name itself’ (1995, p. 7).2

4. Issues of environmental destruction seem far removed from what is still largely the staple fare of sociology courses: what have species loss, acid rain or ozone depletion to do with mainstream social theory or key disciplinary concepts such as class, power and inequality?

5. Linked to the above, there may still be a lingering suspicion that environmental concerns are simply a flash in the pan – a passing concern that can easily be ignored. At the same time, research and teaching around such topics can be dismissed as an attempt to cash in on environmental awareness or perhaps as a distraction from more weighty intellectual matters (presumably, of the kind researched and taught by those making this accusation).

6. It has been suggested that any attempt to blur the lines between the ‘natural’ and the ‘social’ might undermine environmental activism and policy-making: how can we protect or preserve nature when it can no longer be distinguished from the social world?

As might already have been gathered, this book will not be sympathetic to such attempts at excluding the natural environment from sociological discussion. Instead, it will explore and challenge the very distinctions that have been built up between the social and the natural sciences. Going further, Sociology and the Environment will argue that in order to engage positively with environmental issues it will be necessary to reconsider many of the taken-for-granted assumptions within both the social and natural sciences.

Shortly, we will go on to discuss the kinds of intellectual challenge that environmental sociology represents to such established disciplinary assumptions. Before that, it is important to reflect a little further on the relationship between sociology and the analysis of environmental issues and concerns. What foundation for such a line of investigation can the discipline offer? How might ‘classical’ social theory help in dealing with these issues?

A Questionable Heritage?

It is sadly true that classical social theory has had an ambivalent and indeed problematic relationship to environmental issues. This is not to deny the significance of sociological analysis in this context. However, it is important to acknowledge from the outset that sociology (and especially social theory) provides us with what Redclift and Benton (1994) have termed a ‘questionable heritage’ in this regard.

Thus, substantial references to the environment are generally limited within classical social theory as represented by the usual triumvirate of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. More specifically, there has been an absence (at least until recently) of serious sociological discussion concerning the ecological implications of human actions and social development.3 As Goldblatt puts this:

The limitations of classical social theory for our purposes are, first, that it does not possess an adequate conceptual framework with which to understand the complex interactions between societies and environments, and second, that where it has addressed such issues it has focused on the ways in which human societies have transformed their environment without attending to the negative consequences of those transformations. (1996, p. 6)

Looked at from a larger historical perspective, there has certainly been a long-standing intellectual tradition of discussing the impact of nature upon society. However, with the emergence of sociology as a distinct discipline, such naturally driven arguments were generally downgraded. Thus, in the early essays and writings of Montaigne and Montesquieu (often heralded as the progenitors of modern social science) there was an extensive discussion of the impact of national climates on the form of various civilizations.4 At a different level, early nineteenth-century theorists such as Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer regularly built upon biological and, especially, evolutionary concepts as a basis for sociological explanation. Marx also argued that natural conditions (e.g. soil and climate) cause different social divisions of labour: ‘The mother country of capital is not the tropical region, with its luxuriant vegetation, but the temperate zone’ (1976, p. 649).

The shift in thinking away from these initial discussions of the ‘impact of the natural upon the social’ appears to emanate particularly from Durkheim and Weber. Thus, the first meeting of the German Sociological Association (held in 1910) featured a lively debate over whether sociological discussion should give any credence to ‘natural’ categories such as ‘race’ or biology. Max Weber was one of the most vigorous opponents of such elements being included within sociology. Stehr and Grundmann suggest that Weber took this line for at least two reasons. First, in order to give sociology a ‘professional profile of its own’. Secondly, in order to develop a political outlook that was not dependent on ‘naturalistic or biologistic concepts’ (1996, p. 7).

Similarly, it was a central tenet of Émile Durkheim’s definition of the discipline that social facts must be explained by other social facts – that suicide rates, for example, are caused by social forces rather than ‘natural’ elements such as climate or season. Durkheim, in other words, granted little significance to what we now know as ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’, preferring instead to link suicide to the social condition of anomie. At this point, we can identify a sociological world-view that is explicitly premised on the separation between the social and the natural – with the social as the legitimate professional territory of the sociologist. As Redclift and Woodgate put this: ‘For the “founding fathers” of modern sociology the natural environment was, on the whole, defined negatively as that which was not “social” ’ (1994, p. 53). Rather than providing a detailed account of the historical relationship between the social and the natural within sociology,5 I want to consider briefly the broad characteristics of this sociological heritage and, in particular, the exclusion of the natural from questions of the social.

One important element within this disciplinary definition has been the attempt to separate our social from our biological selves – and hence to lay a foundation for the discipline of sociology. In that sense, sociology has become part of an intellectual (or, more properly, epistemological) division of labour, which constrains the possibilities for social theory to engage with questions of the natural. Instead, such questions are predetermined as lying outside the sociological domain. At the same time, the social was constrained so as to exclude issues that can be allocated to science (a demarcation that, as we will discuss, is being challenged by contemporary sociologists of scientific knowledge).6

Of course, such separations of the social from the natural, biological and scientific can be effective in terms of establishing disciplinary boundaries and gaining professional recognition from practitioners of other disciplines. Sociology has often felt particularly hard-pressed in this regard – especially when natural scientists are characteristically less hesitant about discussing social matters than sociologists are about engaging with the natural.7 However, and as this book will argue, such a division of labour becomes profoundly problematic when confronting environmental questions. Certainly, the ambitious argument for an environmental sociology suggests the need to transcend rather than be constrained by established intellectual and disciplinary boundaries – even if, as we will suggest, this has significant implications for the discipline as a whole.

Linked to the conventional ‘ring-fencing of the social’, there has very often been a sense within orthodox sociological accounts that the natural no longer has major significance within everyday social life. Weber, for example, in his discussion of ‘rational-ization’ as the characteristic trend of modernity,8 considers the possible emancipation of human beings: ‘from the cycle of the old, simple and organic existence of the peasant’ (in Gerth and Mills 1993, p. 346).

For Weber, rationalization brought its own problems – but the distinction between the ‘modern’ and the ‘organic’ world is very apparent (and has echoed since throughout social theory). Indeed, many early sociologists were specifically driven to contrast pre-modern social structures (where natural constraints had a profound effect on everyday life) with modern social life (which had progressed beyond such natural constraints). The very notion of a transition (in Tönnies’s well-known formulation9) from gemeinschaft (the old and traditional order) to gesellschaft (the modern way of life) is hinged upon this notion of a fundamental change in relations between the social and the natural.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the notion of the ‘transcendence of the social over the natural’ seems less straight-forward both in social and environmental terms – as some contemporary sociologists such as Beck (1992) have argued. In other words, both the intellectual development of the discipline and a wider sense of ‘environmental crisis’ are necessitating a reconsideration of the basic social–natural divide upon which sociology has been founded.

Nevertheless, and as was briefly suggested in the Preface, the existence of this division does not necessarily render the sociological heritage irrelevant to the task at hand. Instead, there is much that can be retrieved from this tradition. Thus, it may be true that Marxist thinking has typically focused on the social conditions of capitalism rather than on the significance of relations between the social and natural. In this, sociological thinking may well have been reflecting the abiding concerns of its historical period of conception:

[T]he classical social theorists were historically late enough to witness not simply the escape of modern societies from their organic constraints, but also their dynamic capacity to transform the natural world. … Yet they were too early to register fully the implications of those transformations; far from transcending ecological constraints, modern societies were rapidly acquiring new ones of their own making. (Goldblatt 1996, p. 5)

However, Marx had much to say about the appalling health and safety conditions experienced by workers in the nineteenth century (1976, ch. 10). Equally, Engels wrote powerfully about the squalor of working-class housing in industrial cities such as Salford and Manchester (1968). Marx and Engels also made reference to the negative impact of capitalism on natural resources and the urban environment. Goldblatt suggests that these were ‘at best illuminating asides rather than core areas of concern or investigation’ (1996, p. 5). Nevertheless, as we will see, Peter Dickens has developed (and criticized) ideas taken from Marx and Engels in order to suggest a ‘green social theory’ that draws upon ‘critical realism’.10

There seems considerable further scope for such development of established social theory. Weberian notions of ‘disenchantment’ have implications for understanding current notions of an ‘environmental crisis’ – and not least in terms of the intimate connection between ‘crisis’ and the character of modernity. So far, however, relatively little sociological attention (with notable exceptions such as Goldblatt, Dickens and Benton) has been devoted to the task of recasting and reworking classical social theory.

In making such general arguments, it must also be considered that the conventional sociological separation of the social and natural may be due not only to reasons of sociological imperialism (i.e. in order to establish a distinct base for the discipline) or histori-cal contingency (since these issues were simply not on the intellectual agenda), but also to the possibly constraining effects of many arguments concerning the natural on sociological thinking. Thus, and as Mary Douglas (1977) has suggested, nature is often evoked as a powerful justification for established customs and modes of behaviour: boys (it used to be argued) are naturally aggressive, while girls are just as naturally neat and compliant; certain ‘races’ (defined again as if these were naturally given) are naturally intel-ligent/hard-working/dominant; it is natural for society to be divided into rich and poor. Significantly, a reification of the natural and an emphasis on its significance for the organization of social life has been central to fascist thought. As Mark Neocleous expresses this: ‘The Nazi “blood and soil” doctrine, for example, is suggestive of an intimate connection between the blood of the people (nation) and the soil of the land (culture), expressing the unity of a racial people and its land’ (1997, p. 76). In this way, there can indeed be a ‘green thread’ running through fascist ideology.11

One of the prime challenges for the sociological imagination has been to attack such claims to the natural and to identify their social roots (in, for example, prevailing notions of ‘race’ or gender). Feminist scholarship has been especially influential in its general opposition to the argument that gender inequality can simply be explained by reference to ‘natural differences’ between men and women (Buckingham-Hatfield 2000). Sociological thinking, therefore, has generally been dismissive of the natural – or, rather, it recognizes its power within everyday discourse but characteristically aims to uncover its social roots. Certainly, an essential feature of any sociological training is to encourage scepticism every time the phrase ‘it’s only natural’ is used as justification for an argument or course of action.

These sociological challenges to natural claims have inspired significant developments in the discipline. However, such an approach can also lead to a characteristic awkwardness in add-ressing, for example, questions of our biological rather than social beings. Rather than viewing such factors as being in interaction with one another, the tendency for sociologists has been to keep them firmly apart and to maintain a focus on the social dimension.12 In this way, questions of the natural have been set aside from the main business of sociology – for disciplinary and, at times, ideological reasons.

In the particular case of the natural environment, the division of labour between the social and natural sciences appears especially fixed. The natural has been debunked in areas of life that sociologists have predetermined as social (e.g. with regard to gender or racial stereotypes) but left unchallenged with regard to what is still seen as the ‘natural world’ – presumably on the grounds that the judgements of natural scientists are value-free and asocial in character. As Dickens outlines the situation:

We have a dichotomous understanding, one based on science, the other on social theory. So, while social theory can certainly continue to make major contributions, the danger is that it will do so within its comparatively watertight disciplinary compartments. Much the same could be said of the sciences. (1992, p. 2)

It is possible to detect not only a dichotomous understanding but also a characteristic sociological inconsistency in this treatment of the natural world.

It is here that more recent sociological accounts (of the kind discussed in the next section of this chapter) are of particular value in more systematically challenging the dichotomy between ‘science’ and ‘social science’ – and the distinction between the social and natural upon which this dichotomy depends. Thus, rather than separating scientific from sociological accounts as if these were simply given, it becomes relevant to examine their interaction and mutual dependence. Accordingly, we will consider theoretical accounts – and notably the sociology of scientific knowledge and notions of the ‘risk society’ – which together suggest that it may no longer be possible to separate either the social from the natural or the sociological from the scientific (as a variety of writers from perspectives as different as Beck 1992, Dickens 1992, Haraway 1991 and Latour 1992 now argue). The collapse of such established dualities also has important consequences for our understanding of the environmental crisis.

Such an interim conclusion suggests an ambitious path for the sociological study of the environment. Along the way, we will need to reconsider our sense not only of the natural but also of what it means to use the term ‘social’. Both are likely to be changed by a study of their interaction. In this, we will also be moving beyond the kind of environmental sociology that simply calls for society and nature to be seen as interconnected. Instead, we will be taking a closer and more sceptical look at the dynamic and changing construction (what we will term co-construction) of these categories.

Elements of an Environmental Sociology

Now that the main characteristics of the historical relationship between sociology and the environment have been briefly sketched out, the second section of the Introduction presents some central topics for analysis and discussion. These include questions of epistemology, social theory, the operation of social institutions and, very importantly, the relationship between the social and the natural. Taken together, these questions reinforce the point that what is needed is not simply the further application of existing sociological understanding (what can be presented as a ‘sociology of the environment’ approach) but a more radical reassessment of the discipline and its treatment of the natural environment (‘environmental sociology’). Rather than simply dusting off the ‘sociological toolkit’ and applying it to a new set of problems, a fresh perspective is required.

Three contemporary sources of inspiration for such a sociological treatment are presented: the concept of ‘sustainable development’, theories of the ‘risk society’, and emergent work within science and technology studies and the sociology of scientific knowledge. These provide the focus for the next three chapters of this book. Before this, however, it is important for us to consider four sociological interpretations of what it means to conduct environmental sociology – all of which have tried to move beyond the disciplinary constraints presented so far. Crucially, each of these tackles the question of how we should understand the relationship between the social and the natural (and hence the relationship between sociology and the environment). As presented here, these interpretations are: the call for a new ecological paradigm, critical realism, the social construction of environmental problems, the concept of social nature. Discussions between these four interpretations of environmental sociology provide important conceptual background to the rest of this book and locate subsequent discussions in their contemporary sociological context. Finally, this section indicates the book’s intention to move beyond the entrenched sociological debate over whether the natural world is either real or constructed.

It follows from these introductory comments that issues of the environment pose a fundamental challenge for sociology and its theoreti-cal foundations. Incorporating the environment within sociological discussion means reassessing the whole relationship between the social and the natural and the disciplinary structure that has been built upon this. As Benton puts it succinctly: ‘The really difficult problems only start here’ (1994, p. 29; italics in original).

Expressed like this, the attempt to provide a critical introduction to the relationship between sociology and the environment seems daunting for both the reader and the author. How can we possibly get started on such a journey? Do we have any idea what an environmental sociology would resemble? Of course, it would be easier if this book limited itself to a discussion of environmental issues and their social dimensions. It is not difficult, for example, to suggest that environmental change might have major social consequences and to consider the possible character of these. Equally, various aspects of the natural environment can be considered in terms of their relationship to established social theory.13

This important but inherently less ambitious ‘sociology of the environment’ suggests an interesting pathway but misses the most challenging and rewarding sections of the route. Instead, I will suggest a more ambitious road towards an environmental sociology that addresses foundational matters of the discipline as well as significant but applied matters. In so doing, we should be presented with fresh sociological insights but also a better understanding of how to deal practically with matters of environmental policy. Specifically, the strong case for an environmental sociology raises questions that take us to the heart of the discipline, including:

matters of epistemology: how do we come to ‘know’ about environmental problems? what constraints are there on our environmental knowledges?social theory: how can environmental issues inform – and be informed by – the classical themes considered so far and also more recent areas of theoretical debate?social institutions and institutional practices: what can we learn from this area of inquiry concerning the capacity of existing institutions – whether in the public or private domain – to cope with emerging social and political challenges?crucially, the relationship between the social and the natural: how should sociology deal with problems, questions and concerns that are presented as either ‘natural’ or ‘social’ in character? The following chapters present this relationship as fundamental to the disciplinary engagement with environmental issues and concerns.

A number of recent developments in sociological understanding and in public debate provide an important stimulus for what is to follow in terms of the treatment of the social–natural relationship – and together suggest the need for a more radical approach than that implied by the development of another ‘sociology of’. These again will be discussed in greater detail as we proceed. For now, let me simply introduce some of those that have been especially significant in shaping the ensuing discussion – and with which the first three chapters of this book will commence.

A major stimulus to environmental sociology is provided by the contemporary experience of environmental concerns – and particularly the complexity and controversy that surround environmental issues. It seems – especially given the scale of possible harm and the level of social change being called for – that this is not just ‘business as usual’. National and international disagreements over, for exam-ple, acid rain or global warming strongly imply the need for fresh social scientific insights. As chapter 1 discusses, environmental action represents a major challenge to existing institutions and methods of decision-making. This challenge seems far from trivial in social scientific terms. It indicates instead the need for revised patterns of national and international collaboration, new industrial practices, changing citizen behaviour and the development of new environmental values.

Specifically, since the 1980s the international debate over sustainable development