Environmental sociology

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Environmental sociology is typically defined as the study of societal-environmental interactions, although this definition immediately presents the perhaps insolvable problem of separating human cultures from the rest of ecology. Although the focus of the field is the relationship between society and environment in general, environmental sociologists typically place special emphasis on studying the social factors that cause environmental problems, the societal impacts of those problems, and efforts to solve the problems. In addition, considerable attention is paid to the social processes by which certain environmental conditions become socially defined as problems.

Although there was sometimes acrimonious debate between the constructivist and realist "camps" within environmental sociology in the 1990s, the two sides have found considerable common ground as both increasingly accept that while most environmental problems have a material "reality" they nonetheless become known only via human processes such as scientific knowledge, activists' efforts, and media attention. In other words, most environmental problems have a "real" ontological status despite our knowledge/awareness of them stemming from social processes, processes by which various conditions are "constructed" as problems by scientists, activists, media and other social actors. Correspondingly, environmental problems must all be understood via social processes, despite any material basis they may have external to the human. This interactiveness is now broadly accepted, but many aspects of the debate continue in contemporary research in the field.

[edit] See also

• Human ecology
• Important publications in environmental sociology
• Environmental design
• Environmental design and planning
• Sociology of architecture

[edit] References

• Handbook of Environmental Sociology (Greenwood Press, 2002; ISBN 0-313-26808-8)
• International Handbook of Environmental Sociology (Edgar Elgar, 1997; ISBN 1-84064-243-2)
• Sociological Theory and the Environment: Classical Foundations, Contemporary Insights (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002; ISBN 0-7425-0186-8).
• Michael Mehta and Eric Ouellet (1995) Environmental Sociology: Theory and Practice, Toronto: Captus Press.