Ecological transformation When ecological knowledge and - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Ecological transformation

• When ecological knowledge and transformation

in the social practices as the goal of environmental studies

• ------
• Ecological transformation is best understood as

an ongoing process of wide-ranging and

interactive cluster of ideas and activities [Jamison, 2000]

• Ecology and environment as a distinct

combinations of thought and action, of intellectual and practical developments, of cultural struggles and tensions.

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• Environmental concern has become a living

source of identity not only for a wide of range of activists and scientists and activists in the field but also a more variegated, source of inspiration for society as a whole.

• What had previously been a social movement,

protesting against industrial society and its waste and artificiality, has come to be supplanted by a much more differentiated and contested set of symbols, ideas, slogans and practices , as represented in the western and non western traditions , and across scientific fields.

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• The emblematic depiction of doom,

identifying ‘limits to growth’ and ‘population bombs’, has tended to be replaced by more upbeat messages:

• ‘‘greening of industry’, ‘ecological

modernization’, sustainable development and so on.

• 5. Transformation in the

professional scientific field

• Already in the 1970s, it was apparent to

many educators that ecological issues required for their solution something more than a traditional natural scientific expertise, but it has proved difficult to develop a meaningful way to understand and deal with the multifarious social and technical dimensions

• 6. Transformation in the

sociological discipline

• the societal context in which

sociology and its unique disciplinary traditions developed was initially indifferent to environmental issues and environment was not considered as proper field of sociological studies ;

• Environmental problems were

thought to be a variant social problems rather than environmental.

• 7. Neglect of the biophysical world

in sociological discipline

• Sociology as a discipline, till 1970s moved

away from explanations of sociological phenomena [ for example, racial and cultural differences ] in terms of biological and geographical factors, respectively. Emphasis was on explaining social phenomena in terms of “social facts”.

• This aversion to excesses of biological and

geographical “determinisms generally led sociologists to ignore the biophysical world .

8 [sharp distinction between nature and society ]

• In the process of developing distinctively social

explanations for societal phenomena, discipline replaced older determinisms with socio-cultural determinism. Moreover, the general focus on increased urbanization, which reduced direct contact with the natural environment, and with industrialization and modernization, societies appeared to be increasingly disembedded from the biophysical world;

• -as there was greater stress on the cultural and

social aspects in the formation of society, human society was thought be exempt from natural constraints.

• 9. Transformation in sociology as a

discipline

• Transformation in the discipline began with a

critique of the discipline’s blindness to biophysical world;

• Since 1980s, attempts have been made to

codify the field of environmental sociology;

• Most importantly, it was accompanied by an

explication and critique of the so-called “Human Exceptionalism Paradigm(HEP]- a worldview represented by extreme form of anthropocentricism .

• 10. HEP
• . Humans are unique among the earth’s creatures, for

they have culture

• 2. Culture can vary almost infinitely and can change

much more rapidly than biological traits

• 3. Thus many human differences are socially induced

rather than inborn, they can be socially altered and inconvenient differences can be eliminated

• 4. Thus, also, cultural accumulation means that progress

can continue without limit, making all social problems ultimately soluble

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• environment’s carrying capacity is

always enlargeable as needed—thus denying the possibility of scarcity

• So the call for mainstream sociology’s

dominant paradigm to be replaced with a more ecologically sound one.

• .

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• Recognizing humans’ dependence on the eco-

system , [Catton and Dunlap] suggested that the HEP should be replaced by a new paradigm , what they called : New Ecological Paradigm [which they earlier named as `New Environmental Paradigm].

• While they do not deny the special abilities of

humans , they generally stressed that humans are not exempt from biophysical /natural constraints with respect to what they want to achieve;

• In other words, there are always some constraints

imposed by nature.

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• New Ecological Paradigm
• 1. Humans are but one species among the

many that are interdependently involved in the biotic communities that shape our social life

• 2. Intricate linkages of cause and effect and

feed backs in the web of nature produce many unintended consequences which are distinct from positive human action

• 3. The world is finite, so there are potent

physical and biological limits constraining economic growth, social progress, and other societal phenomena

14 [institutionalization of the environmental practice in sociology

• The rise and institutionalization of

environmental sociology represents one of the most significant changes to the discipline

• f the past quarter century

Now environmental sociologists are producing rapidly expanding bodies of both empirical literature on the relationships between societal and environmental variables;

• And sociology now gives importance to

bio-physical environment

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• The modifications have occurred through a

process of extension – i.e., integrating previously ignored concerns into the fabric of the existing theories.

• The basic outline of sociology’s theories – be

its social constructivist approaches, Marxist perspectives, cultural studies, or whatever – remain unchanged with respect to their core framework, but now extended to environmental considerations.

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• The defining characteristic of the NEP is a

concept borrowed from biology – the notion

• f carrying capacity – or the existence of

biophysical limits on human society;

• Thus, environmental sociologists have

embraced biology’s orientation toward scarcity (in contrast to the economic conception traditionally held by the discipline)

• And in “greening” sociological theory rather

than radically revising it.

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• The carrying capacity of a biological species in

an environment -

• is the maximum population size of the species that

the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment.

• The carrying capacity could support a positive

natural increase, or could require a negative natural increase. Thus, the carrying capacity is the number of individuals an environment can support without significant negative impacts to the given

• rganism and its environment.

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• Assumptions about the biophysical limits

were influenced by Malthusians which hold that the demand for resources, stemming from population growth and the increasing standard of living, grows exponentially while the ability to provide them grows arithmetically.

• As a result, there exist strict biophysical limits
• n resource supply and the carrying capacity
• f an ecosystem or the biosphere.

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• The distinction between the HEP and the NEP reflects

a division between economic and biological conceptions of scarcity.

• The economic optimists argue that social

arrangements – typically free markets, science and liberal democracy – provide the institutional arrangements that allow humans to solve any problem they confront.

• Economic markets raise capital and provide incentives

for entepreneurs to solve problems; science provides knowledge about the functioning of the natural world, knowledge that can be applied to the problem and democracy allows participation by wider segments of the public, thus enhancing the probability that a solution will be found

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• The another limiting factor[in moving

towards environmental thinking] involves sociology’s traditional attitude toward system thinking

• - Functionalism treated social systems as

a self-regulating equilibrium in which, when confronted with pressure to change, a mechanism acts to restore the system to a state of balance.

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• This approach, exemplified in the highly

influential work of Talcott Parsons (1951), was beset with a number of problems; an excessively rigid relationship between parts and the whole and an inability to deal with either a) sudden change or b) diversity.

• Unable to overcome the objections,

sociology largely abandoned this traditional systems theorizing

From a linear to non-linear paradigm

• The study of development has mainly

proceeded within a linear paradigm, although change in thinking on the way, reducing economic development to distinct stages [for instance in Rostow’s [ 1960] model; Development was treated as a reasonably predictable activity that should respond to laws of universal applicability

• The drift away from certainty was

consolidated during the second half of the twentieth century, with contributions from mathematics, biology, meteorology, as well as the social sciences.

• Researchers became interested in

nonlinear situations where a system exhibits extreme sensitivity to variations in initial conditions

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• With the disputes resolved, the guiding principals
• f an ecological sociology become apparent:
• 1) a model of human nature – humans as

problem-solvers – predicated upon what is ecologically unique about humans;

• and 2) a model of co-evolving natural and social

systems premised upon that model of human nature.

• A belief that such a conceptualization would

integrate the social and ecological demands for energy flows ;

• with the differential cycling present in natural

systems (water, carbon, etc.) and social systems (the information necessary for problem-solving.

• 24. Ecological transformation and

social science practices since 80s

• With ecological transformation in social

sciences since mid 80s, we have begun to get a highly fragmented array of environmental sciences and social sciences,

• which typically seek to incorporate the

new problem area into the separate frameworks and theoretical programmes of the scientific disciplines.

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• The typical patterns of disciplinary

differentiation have led to a rather unhelpful division of the subject area,

• and, within and across the disciplines,

there has often been more competition than co-operation between representatives of opposing schools of thought.

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And as the social sciences became institutionalized since the nineteenth century, the different interests have led to

different academic specializations and disciplines,

• Economists tended to coalesce around

business schools, while humanities and social sciences tended to consolidate their positions at the traditional universities.

The study of society, in more general terms, split into social sciences, on the one hand, and into arts and humanities, on the

• ther, each with different ideologies and interests, different

conceptions and ideals of knowledge.

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• While science and environmental science

has grown as a professional activity, it has been reproduced in various ways.

• What might be termed the national styles of

interaction between the ‘two cultures’—the natural scientists and engineers, on the one hand, and the humanists and social scientists, on the other—have led to different forms of accommodation in different universities in different countries between the three main forms of sciencing.

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• The economists have tended to divide

themselves into ‘mainstream’ approaches,

• n the one hand, applying the concepts of

neo-classical economics to environmental issues, while diverse groups of ecological economists, on the other hand, have sought to adapt the terminology of ecology to economic relations and production processes.

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• Among political scientists, a different kind of sub-

disciplining has taken place, with experts in environmental policy, environmental organizations, and international relations dividing the realm of environmental politics into separate and specialized spheres of competence.

• Policy analysis has largely come to focus on the

evaluation of policy ‘instruments’ and/or institutional capacity-building,

• - the broader politics of the environment have

tended to be decomposed into particular activity areas { of parliamentary debates, ‘protest events’, intergovernmental negotiations, local projects, and so

• n (cf. Connelly and Smith, 1999).

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• In sociology and anthropology, in the mid-1980s,

environmental issues began to be taken seriously by sociologists after being more or less ignored through the 1960s and 1970s.

• But the ways in which the issues have come to be

conceptualized have been subject to the peculiar logic of sociological differentiation.

• Empirical sociology ,in the United States, what C.

Wright Mills once termed ‘abstracted empiricism’, has tended to divide environmental sociology into a number of disparate bits and pieces, sub-areas and sub-sectors.

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• In sociology and anthropology, there are

specialists in environmental movements, environmental catastrophes, large technical systems, sustainable transportation, renewable energy, environmental risks , and issues involving human rights and environment, gender and environment and so on.

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• With increasing differentiation of the

environmental field and generation of new ideas,

• there is now a distinct combination of theories

and practices.

• While the dominant, or hegemonic, culture

seeks to incorporate environmental concern into its established modes of operation and translate the quest for sustainable development into the language of business and commerce;

• seeds are also being planted ‘from below’ for

new forms of social interaction.

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• Top-down strategies compete with bottom-

up approaches in the integration of an environmental awareness into social and economic life.

• At a diverse and disparate number of

sites or locations, ecological transformation confronts our everyday life with differentiated and often conflict-filled processes.

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• While there appears to be widespread

agreement, in principle, about the need to bring about environmental awareness and a transformation at a broader societal level, there is an enormous and highly diverse range of activity that has emerged in the quest for more sustainable paths to socio-economic development.

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• There are differences between countries

—owing to various national political conditions, as well as different national policy styles and institutional traditions— and there are also conflicts within countries, as different actor groups or constituencies seek to redefine environmental issues in their own terms (cf. Jamison and Baark, 1999).

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Many corporate officials and political leaders have come to acknowledge [at least in words] the need to take more regard to environmental concerns in their policies and programmes, but their actual practices all too often continue to follow ‘business as usual’.

• The precepts of deregulation and privatization that

were put firmly on the corporate and public policy agenda in the 1980s have continued to reign supreme in most parts of the world.

• A new kind of tension has thus emerged between

ecologically minded businessmen and critically minded ecologists.

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• At the doctrinal, or discursive level, there continues to

be an overriding emphasis in most countries on furthering economic growth and international competitiveness.

• The quest for sustainable development has come to

be seriously constrained by the real or imagined imperatives of globalization. The notion of sustainable development has thus been reformulated into a language of business and high technology, so-called ecological modernization;

• Economists and engineers have developed the

concepts of environmental management, cleaner production, eco-efficiency, ecological consumption, life-cycle analysis and industrial ecology .

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• At the institutional ‘level’, the quest for sustainable

development has been confronted by the

• verriding emphasis on economic efficiency and

rationalization.

• The dominant tendency has been to assign the

main responsibility for the achievement of sustainable development to the private sector,

• and this has meant a number of new managerial

and administrative procedures that attempt to incorporate environmental concern into normal business practices [ for instance, to make pollution prevention pay]

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• There are discursive debates about

defining programmes and conceptualizing ambitions; there are institutional disputes in the construction and implementation of policy reforms and organizational innovations.

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• Some sociologists conceptualize the

current practices of environmentalism as a kind of cognitive praxis, combining new ecological world-view assumptions with new criteria for technical design and construction with new modes of organizing and institutionalizing knowledge production (Eyerman and Jamison, 1999]

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• The emblematic depiction of doom, identifying

‘limits to growth’ and ‘population bombs’, has tended to be replaced by more upbeat messages: ‘changing course’, ‘greening of industry’, ‘ecological modernization’.

• Meanwhile, instead of being viewed by those in

powerful positions primarily as a threat to the further expansion of industrial society, environmental concern has come to be seen, by many infulential actors in both business and government, as an important contributor to economic recovery and rejuvenation, and, for some, even as an interesting source of profit (Frankel, 1998).

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• In all social domains, the various discourses,
• r theories, of environmental politics cannot

be adequately understood without considering the institutional and scientific– technical activities that are also taking place.

• Some experts focus their attention on the

material, or economic aspects, of social life— primarily what companies do—while others focus on the more symbolic, or cultural aspects.

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• Type of Practices -State -- Industry - civil

society are: Discursive , institutional and technololgical

• And type of discourses at these various

levels

• [ie., Sustainable development [state];

Ecological Modernization [industry level];

• life style issues at the level of civil society ;

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• Similarly at the institutional responses are:
• At the state level, it tends to be responsive

regulation;

• at the industry level , ecological

management, and at the civil society level, it tends to be public participation

• At the Technological responses are:
• Ecological Procurement [state level]

Cleaner Production [industry] Green Consumption [civil society].

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• But while there is a growing literature of

competing, even conflicting, explanations and proposed solutions to the new environmental challenges, it can be suggested that two main frameworks of interpretation have come to the fore.

• The one approach is generally optimistic,

progressive, and business-oriented, and in some of its variants, has been characterized as signalling a new stage of capitalism (cf. Frankel, 1998).

• 46. Green business versus critical
• rientation
• The other is generally critical, often

pessimistic, and, in some of its variants, puts in question the very idea of modernity and the myth of progress that is so central to modernist thinking.

• A central assumption of this critical school
• f thought is that contemporary industrial

societies are still governed by an

• verriding capitalist, or accumulative logic.

• 47. Incorporation versus

resistance

The newer generation of social, or critical, ecologists explicitly reject the incorporation of environmentalism into the mainstream that is so characteristic of corporate, or business environmentalism. Instead, they are seeking to foster new styles

• f academic life [some are post modern] both

in terms of relativizing knowledge claims, as well as in building alliances with representatives of civil society .

• As ideal typical counterpoints -----green

business and critical ecology---- have served to divide or split apart the field of environmental studies , although they are facing challenges conditioned by the same globalizing economy.

• They are separated by language, by

tradition, by values, and by disciplinary identity, and they are often distinguished by ideological or normative political preference, as well.