Environment, Self and Society

Abstract

It is evident that sociological studies of environmental ideas, movements and issues have an extremely broad scope, now constituting a sociological specialism in its own right. This specialism can be alternatively described as ‘environmental sociology’ or the ‘sociology of the environment’ and the tension between these two approaches has been one of the main themes running throughout this book. It should be equally clear that some of the central problems in social theory and in society itself are being debated and tackled within this field, which brings together academics and political activists, social and natural scientific findings, theories of the social and of nature, together with all of those interested in what human society’s ‘proper’ relationship to the natural environment could or should be. In short, far from being the marginalised ‘outsider’ that it once was, the study of society-environment relations is, albeit slowly, emerging as perhaps one of the most significant sociological specialisms.