The Emergence of Environmental Sociology: Contributions of Riley E. Dunlap and William R. Catton, Jr. |
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| Authors: | William R Freudenburg Robert Gramling |
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| Institution: | William R. Freudenburg is the chair-elect of the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association. His research has focused on social responses to controversial technologies and technological risks, including social impacts of coal, oil shale, and nuclear power. His articles have been published in numerous sociological and interdisciplinary journals including the American Journal of Sociolog and Technological Forecasting and Social Change. He has published two books, Public Reactions to Nuclear Power: Are There Critical Masses? and Paradoxes of Western Energy Development. Dr. Freudenburg is a graduate of Yale University.;Robert Gramling, former co-editior of Sociological Spectrum, is professor of sociology at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, and director of the Center for Socioeconomic Research. His research interests lie in the areas of micro theory and social impact assessment and the effects of natural resource development. |
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| Abstract: | Human beings have a dualistic relationship with the environment, being subject to physical and biological limits and yet being unique in the capacity for culture and symbolic communication. Sociology reflects this context and adds another dualism, drawing heavily from the concepts and perspectives of biological ecology, but reacting almost violently against "reductionism" of any sort, specifically including social Darwinism and environmental determinism. During much of the twentieth century, the predominant trend within sociology was for scholars to downplay or even ignore the importance of the environment, particularly in the United States. This trend was ultimately counterbalanced by sociological responses to the environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s and by the efforts of selected sociologists-particulady Riley Dunlap and William Catton-who helped bring together the field of "environmental sociology." Given the finite nature of many natural resources and the ways in which human activities depend upon and affect the environment, the field of environmental sociology is likely to be an increasingly important one in the years to come. |
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