Thematic Profiles of Social Ecology — Knowledge Synthesis in a Theory of Interaction of Society and Nature

Abstract

Social ecology is an interdisciplinary discourse system with open boundaries. A plurality of theories and analytical frameworks can be applied and connected in varying forms for the study of different aspects in the broad theme of interaction of society and nature. For social ecology this theme cannot remain one of an unstructured variety of ideas and concepts from empirical studies, documenting historical cases and the cultural variation of ideas, as, for example, in the history of ideas by Pojman (2006), which summarises the theories of human nature throughout the history of science. Theoretical knowledge synthesis in social ecology is an attempt to integrate the pretheoretical concepts of society, man and nature in a historically specified core theory. This theory allows the interaction between society and nature to be studied and explained for different historical forms of societies with conceptual models as socio-metabolic regimes.