Environmental social science
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Environmental social science is the broad, transdisciplinary study of interrelations between humans and the natural environment. Environmental social scientists work within and between the fields of anthropology, communication studies, economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, and sociology; and also in the interdisciplinary fields of environmental studies, human ecology and political ecology, social epidemiology, among others.
Ideologies, fields, and concepts in environmental social science aim to convey how environmental issues are intertwined with societal relations, institutions, and human activities that continually shape the environment or are themselves shaped by it. For example, political ecology is based on the premise that the environment is not apolitical. Therefore, how it is managed, who has access to the environment, and how environmental resources are distributed are shaped by political structures, power relations, economic institutions, and social processes.[1] Paul Robbins conveys this in his differentiation of 'apolitical' versus political ecologies. According to Robbins, political ecology emphasizes identifying "broader systems rather than blaming proximate and local forces; between viewing ecological systems as power-laden rather than politically inert; and between taking an explicitly normative approach rather than one that claims the objectivity of disinterest".[1] Human-environmental relations reverberate through "the system" (politics, economics, power relations) moving through an entire web of human relations and structures that are intertwined in ecological relations.[2] Therefore, environmental social scientists stress human–environmental relationships.
Another idea that has risen to prominence in environmental social science in light of this, is the idea of "environmental justice" which connects issues in the field of social justice with issues related to the environment.[3] In describing environmental justice, the concepts emphasized by Shoreman-Ouimet and Kopnina include "equity equality, and rights issues in relation to both social and ecological actors".[4] This pans out in debates about environmental vulnerability and the unequal distribution of resources. Here lies the idea that certain groups are made more vulnerable to "environmental burdens"[3] while others gain more access to "environmental benefits"[3] as defined in terms of environmental resources and services.[3]
In further attempts to understand human-environmental relationships, environmental social science disciplines have begun to explore relationships between humans and non-humans, to understand how both interact within the natural world -- interactions that force the reconceptualization of identity as ecocultural.[5] Ideas related to exploring human and animal interactions within the natural world have become prominent in environmental ethics. Shoreman-Ouimet and Kopnina define environment ethics as "a sub-discipline of philosophy that deals with the ethical problems surrounding the environment, in some cases providing ethical justification and moral motivation for the cause of environmental protection or for considerations of animal welfare".[3] This has culminated in debates regarding environmental value and moral rights and who within the larger ecosystem should be assigned these rights.[3] Environmental ethics explores the dialectic between human and nature, exploring how the human configuration of nature may in turn reshape humans, their relationships, and their conditions. Ideas that have emerged from the questions seeking to examine this dialectic include those of "post-domesticity and domesticity".[6] Domesticity refers to societal dynamics produced in societies in which humans have daily contact with animals other than pets. In contrast, in post-domesticity, people are quite distant from the animals they consume. In reference to Bulliet (2005), Emel and Neo convey that the distance from witnessing the processes that govern animal life, including births and deaths, while consuming animals as food, affects people differently than continuous interaction with animals.[6] They mention that post-domesticity may produce feelings of guilt however the continued distance between animal life brought by interacting with animals as a commodity may cause people to only distantly relate to them or think of them as packages in a store disassociating them from the life-cycles they embody.[6] Therefore, environmental science has paved the way to multiple concepts, ideas and paradigms that differ among each other. Still, all seek to intertwine environmental issues with other fields and issues in the social sciences.
