Social Ecology

7 Key excerpts on "Social Ecology"

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  The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

  • Ann Denis, Devorah Kalekin-Fishman, Ann Denis, Devorah Kalekin-Fishman(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  While the global human system can be addressed from the perspective of an interna-tional sociology, the challenge of construct-ing a global social science remains. Still, politics about the virtues and vices of a global human system are supplanting the focus on the influence of particular civiliza-tions and states that seek control and domi-nance. An ideological struggle about a global human system is taking place on the cusp of a transformation from an international world composed of states continuing to pursue their interests in competition over limited resources to a global system of growth and development with cooperation. The structure of the ecological paradigm for theory and research has the following fundamental characteristics: at least two levels (environment and the encompassed entities); at least two points in time; and at least one relationship, conflict being the most common. Implied are comparisons across systems and across time. From this ecological perspective, processes that increase complexity and change as growth or decline at the global level both incorporate and stimulate conflict dynamics at the local levels. In Social Ecology, as in any macro-social analysis, the first question is the aggregation rules of relevance for explanation; and THE DYNAMICS OF LOCAL-GLOBAL RELATIONS 401 the second, the relative and sufficient auton-omy of the aggregates or systems being examined from those encompassing them (Hannan, 1981). This means, in the first case, that explanations, for example, of the eco-nomic growth of regions are significantly different within a country to justify separate regional analysis and, in the second case, that regional economic growth in patterns is dif-ferent from national economic growth. In Social Ecology and its corollary of comparing social, economic, and political systems, a necessary assumption for comparing social niches or systems is that their defined bound-aries have some degree of independence from higher level systems.

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  Theorising Welfare

  Enlightenment and Modern Society

  • Sue Penna, Martin O′Brien(Authors)
  • 1998(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  6 Political Ecolo gy The relationship between social activ ities -of production, consumption, migration, technological development and pollution -and environmental change -global warming, resource depletion, divers ity loss and increased eco-toxicity -is a topic high on the agenda of many public and private, local and transnational organisat ions. Almost every aspect of economic and social policy is inflected by environmental considerat ions, including polic ies on taxation, social planning, performance monitoring, waste management, loca l economic development and internat ional trade relations. The incorporat ion of 'environmental ' issues into policy and practice has given rise to a wide range of multi-faceted social and politi-cal conflicts. Disputes over fish quotas in depleted seas, the health hazards of urban pollution, the consequences and control of infectious (human and animal) diseases, or liabi lity (and responsibil ity) for ecological disasters (oil spills, acid rain, nuclear discharges, etc.), for example, turn on the distr ibut ion of rights, duties, costs and benefits involved in inhab iting an increas ingly poisoned and degraded globa l environment. Some of these disputes are openly economic, centring on gains and losses of income and wealth resulting from environmental change; others place ethics and morals at the forefront of policy and practice, emphasising both human dependence on and obligation towards a sustainable environment. The meanings and the consequences of, and responsibil ities for, environmental change are the subject of intense and widesprea d negotiat ion and conflict (Burningham and O'Brien, 1994). Furthermore, they apply both to the direct and unmediated consequences of environmental exploitation and to the ind irect, knock-on effects of particula r ways of organis ing systems of production, distr ibution and consumption.

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  A Political Ecology of Youth and Crime

  • A. France, D. Bottrell, D. Armstrong(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Interpersonal interactions have embedded within them relationships of power. An individual’s microsystem is consistently being shaped and restructured by such forces. Political ecology is not neutral providing an ‘evenly’ balanced set of relationships. ‘Power’ operates across and through the wide range of ecological systems thus creating outcomes that reflect inequalities and power differentials, not only between classes, genders and races but also within such groupings. One useful way of understanding how this operates is provided by the work of Pierre Bourdieu. He provides a useful analysis of power in social relationships highlighting its conse- quences, especially on how a particular social order is maintained and reproduced. At the heart of Bourdieu’s view of power is the concept of ‘capital’ (Swartz, 1997). This goes beyond the Marxist focus on capital as economic exchange towards a more anthropological interpretation of capital where cultural exchange and social resources are fundamental to how power is exercised in late modern society (Swartz, 1997). Bourdieu argues that individuals and groups draw upon a variety of cultural, social and symbolic resources in order to maintain their own social positions. 1 One of the most significant forms of ‘capital’ is cultural capital. This according to Bourdieu has three distinctive features. First, it is embodied, being a part of a person’s history and sense of selfhood A Theory of the Political Ecology of Youth and Crime 23 (what he calls their habitus), second it is objectified (and maintained) through the ownership of cultural artefacts and goods (that can be transmitted intergenerationally and provide advantage), and finally, it is institutionalised being given recognition and status by a range of key institutions in modern society. The concept of social capital is also important. This is related to resources and networks that are influen- tial in connecting group membership.

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  The Ecological Transition

  Cultural Anthropology and Human Adaptation

  • John W. Bennett, Cyril S. Belshaw(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Pergamon

    (Publisher)

  (2) Many if not most existing studies have treated the societies as isolates (whether they are or not) out of contact with larger institutional systems. Hence, in such cases, the study of the role of powerful forces external to these communities in molding their use and abuse of envh-onment has not been considered. (3) The majority of cultural-ecological studies of living societies have been concerned with culture rather than ecology: subsistence systems are described, but the major emphasis is on their contribution to an explana-tion of sociocultural forms. (4) Few communities have been studied over sufficient periods of time to enable cultural anthropologists to determine the pattern of growth and change in resource use; hence there is a tendency to conceive of ecological relations as relatively stable and enduring. Culture, Ecology, and Social Policy 27 A cultural ecology concerned with sustained yield and processes of resource utilization will need to explore problems of power. Humans take from Nature what they desire, and exert control over Nature and over society in the process. This means that political power and social stratification can be placed in an ecological frame of reference; ulti-mately, cultural ecology must investigate the question of how power is related to Nature via human actions.^ (Concern for the power question need not be confined to studies of living peoples; on the contrary, archeological studies of developments such as Bronze Age irrigation and its relationships to stratification, statehood, and miHtarism are of growing importance for cultural ecology.) A commitment to policy orientation in scientific endeavor of any kind requires an important qualification: while one can commit a scientific investigation to some relevant social objective, the conduct of the research itself must be guided by methodological rigor, a respect for factual data, and other factors indigenous to science.

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  Ecological Social Work

  Towards Sustainability

  • Jennifer McKinnon, Margaret Alston(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  To understand the politics of theory, we need to exam-ine the power relations between various groups in their efforts to deal with the historical environment. This understanding contributes also to our understand-ing of the role of theory in the development of social work (ibid.). We argue that in the historical development of ecological social work theories, it has become time for social work not only to concentrate on the effects that the close con-nection between humans and nature have on human-in-environment debates and theory building in social work, but to also act within an eco-critically con-scious way towards an ecological, socially sustainable transformation in society. Summary This chapter has taken a historical approach in defining and building a critical understanding of ecological social work. Drawing on the work of historical fig-ures, the chapter traces the developments of social work theories of the environ-ment. In particular, we note the challenges for social work in incorporating nature into practice. CONCEPTUAL AND HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF ECOLOGICAL SOCIAL WORK 35 Questions for reflection While reflecting upon the future development of current Western ecological social theorising and practice the following challenges remain open: How is Western social work able to understand itself as a part of nature? How is Western social work able to re-evaluate its action and interventions towards political action and reforms? How is it possible for the mainstream of Western social work working in individualising settings to go back to the local communities and work with them? How can the social case work tradition be able to incorporate the effects of the wider environment, nature, in its practice? How is social work able to work towards ecological social transition in social work and in society in general? Additional reading Helne, Tuula and Hirvilammi, Tuuli (2015). Connecting Wellbeing and Sustainability: A Relational Approach.

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  Common Futures

  Social Transformation and Political Ecology

  • Alexandros Schismenos, Yavor Tarinski(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Black Rose Books

    (Publisher)

  I. Political Ecology and Social Change Yavor Tarinski Introduction [I]t is one thing to establish international treatises, national laws, and environmental ministries and agencies; it is quite another to effect the concrete changes in attitudes, practices and institutions necessary to resolve the ecological crisis. Dimitrios Roussopoulos 1 NOWADAYS, the need to act against the ongoing environmental degrada-tion seems more than evident, as well as its relatedness to other social, polit-ical, and economic problems that we are facing today. From marginal activist groups to governments of the strongest countries on the planet, all appear to be concerned with how the future of our shared world will look like. However, what does not seem so obvious is how we are going to deal with the deepening ecological crisis. The mainstream environmentalist strategy, strongly propagated by governments and big business, strives at situating the current ecological challenges on the level of nation-states and global markets. According to it, it is the national governments and the multinational corporate players, the very ones responsible for the current mess in the first place, that should agree on how to protect nature. For many years, a significant part of the environ-mental movement had its imaginary entangled with the bureaucratic dynamics of political parties or green consumerism. But renowned author Dimitrios Roussopoulos masterfully points at the inability of nation-states and intergovernmental technocratic institutions to successfully tackle the crisis, despite thousands of international agreements and protocols: “In 1886, the first international environmental agreement was signed; today there are over 250 agreements, most of them concluded since the 1960s.

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  Global Environmental Politics

  Power, Perspectives, and Practice

  • Ronnie D. Lipschutz(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • CQ Press

    (Publisher)

  But who can act to protect the environment? In recent decades, the envi-ronmental movement, acting through what can be called social power, has in-creasingly been able to affect environmental politics and policy all over the world. 42 Social power is, in part, a response to the failure of political author-ities to address specific environmental problems and the absence of institu-tionalized political methods to influence policymakers and corporations in ways that can solve those problems. But social power is also a form of politics operating outside of conventional institutionalized practices, and many of those engaged in social power are seeking to revitalize politics. 43 The envi-ronmental movement is not a monolith; it is fragmented between and within countries and between and within groups and organizations themselves. 44 There is a furious debate over the methods used by some environmental groups to lobby policymakers and politicians and over the ethics of corporate sponsorship, a method of fund-raising that has transformed some environ-mental organizations into corporate mouthpieces. 45 Businesses and corporate associations have become prominent both in debates and in policymaking. This chapter offers a context for understanding social power and an overview of social power as it is deployed both locally and globally. In Chapter 5, “The National Origins of International Environmental Policies and Practices: ‘My Country Is in the World,’ ” we examine states and the environment. Most books on international environmental politics begin with the state. Because nature does not recognize national borders, as we saw earlier, environmental problems cross them. According to some of the philos-ophies in Table 1-1, if such problems are to be addressed, countries must co-operate to eliminate them.

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