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An Invitation to Environmental Sociology
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An Invitation to Environmental Sociology

Sixth Edition
December 2020 | 504 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
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If there were ever a time for environmental sociology, it is now. As COVID-19 is spreading across our communities, our countries, our world, we have all become too familiar with maintaining that awful term of “social distance.” Yet there can be no true distance from that which is always with us and within us: our social ecology

An Invitation to Environmental Sociology invites students to delve into this rapidly changing field. Written in a lively, engaging style, the authors cover a broad range of topics in environmental sociology with a personal passion rarely seen in sociology texts. The book's unique organization explores three different kinds of questions about interactions between humans and the natural world: the material, the ideal, and the practical. The Sixth Edition of this bestseller comprises 12 chapters instead of 13, making it easier to fit into the normal rhythm of a course. But the result is also an edition that is up-to-date and enriched with much newer material, while continuing to use an inviting tone that the title promises.


Included with this title:

The password-protected Instructor Resource Site (formally known as SAGE Edge) offers access to all text-specific resources, including a test bank and editable, chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides. Learn more.
 
Preface
 
About the Authors
 
Chapter 1: Environmental Problems and Society
Joining the Dialogue

 
Environmental Justice Across Time

 
Environmental Justice Across Social Space

 
Environmental Justice Across Species

 
The Social Constitution of Environmental Problems and Solutions

 
 
Part I: The Material
 
Chapter 2: Health and Justice
The Material Basis of the Human Condition

 
One Health

 
One Justice

 
Living Downstream: The Precautionary Principle

 
Making Ties

 
 
Chapter 3: Consumption and Materialism
The Hierarchy of Needs

 
Consumption, Modern Style

 
Goods and Sentiments

 
Goods and Community

 
The Treadmill of Consumption

 
 
Chapter 4: Money and Markets
The Growth Compulsion

 
The “Invisible Elbow”

 
Overproduction and Underproduction

 
The Constructed Market

 
Rock Steady Farm and the Economics of Optimism

 
 
Chapter 5: Technology and Science
The Monologues of Technology and Science

 
Technology as a Dialogue

 
Technological Somnambulism

 
Science as Dialogue

 
Disasters, Fast and Slow

 
Science and Technology as Political

 
 
Chapter 6: Population and Development
The Malthusian Argument

 
Population as Culture

 
The Inequality Critique of Malthusianism

 
The Technologic Critique of Malthusianism

 
The Demographic Critique of Malthusianism

 
The Environment as a Social Actor

 
 
Part II: The Ideal
 
Chapter 7: The Ideology of Environmental Domination
Christianity and Environmental Domination

 
Individualism and Environmental Domination

 
Heteropatriarchy and Environmental Domination

 
The Difference That Ideology Makes

 
 
Chapter 8: The Ideology of Environmental Concern
Ancient Beginnings

 
The Moral Basis of Contemporary Environmental Concern

 
The Extent of Contemporary Environmental Concern

 
Two Theories of Contemporary Environmental Concern

 
The Dialogue of Environmental Concern

 
Postscript

 
 
Chapter 9: The Human Nature of Nature
The Contradictions of Nature

 
Nature as a Social Construction

 
Environment as a Social Construction

 
The Dialogue of Nature and Ideology

 
 
Part III. The Practical
 
Chapter 10: Mobilizing the Just Ecological Society
Mobilizing Ecological Conceptions

 
Mobilizing Ecological Connections

 
Mobilizing Ecological Contestations

 
The Pros of the Three Cons

 
 
Chapter 11: Transitioning to the Just Ecological Society
Democracy and Bureaucracy

 
Legal Structure

 
The Bottom and the Top

 
Participatory Governance

 
Local Knowledge

 
Governing Participation

 
Grounding Our Knowledge

 
Soul Fire Farm and Just Ecological Transition

 
Finding Our Balance

 
 
Chapter 12: Living in the Just Ecological Society
The A-B Split

 
The Reconstitution of Daily Life

 
Reconstituting Ourselves

 
 
References
 
Notes
 
Index

Supplements

Instructor Resource Site
edge.sagepub.com/bell6e

Online resources included with this text

The online resources for your text are available via the password-protected Instructor Resource Site, which offers access to all text-specific resources, including a test bank and editable, chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides.
Key features
NEW TO THIS EDITION:
  • The previous “Body and Justice” chapter was reframed and is now chapter 2, “Health and Justice,” enabling students to build on their understanding of environmental justice and health.as they progress through the rest of the chapters.
  • Thoroughly rewritten chapter 7, “The Ideology of Environmental Domination,” reframes the environmental challenges of patriarchy as based on heteropatriarchy, and in doing so considering the possibilities that a queer ecology affords.
  • The addition of two early-career scholars as co-authors brings valuable new perspectives to the text.
  • New discussions of emerging issues in environmental sociology include disappearing species and landscapes; Rock Steady Farm, a new paradigm of economic and ecological sustainability; and greening our cities.
  • More emphasis on inclusivity using gender-neutral language and widening the range of lived experiences in the examples and case studies.

KEY FEATURES:

  • Develops the notion of normal environmentalism as a practical application of environmental sociology to real-world problems
  • Offers an integration of environmental social movement theory
  • Discusses the latest theoretical trends in environmental sociology, including metabolic rift, biopolitics, environmental flows, the Jevons paradox, disproportionality, degrowth, and participatory governance
  • Presents evocative sketches that open each chapter

The Sixth Edition has been restructured, with 13 chapters from the previous edition reorganized into a 12-chapter format.
A new Ch. 2 focuses on issues of environmental justice and health.
Ch. 1 has a new discussion of environmental justice across species that addresses questions of disappearing species and landscapes.
Ch. 4 (Money and Markets) has a discussion about Rock Steady Farm, a new paradigm of economic and ecological sustainability.
Ch. 7 on the ideology of environmental domination includes new material on ideologies of heterosexism.
Ch. 12 has a new section on greening our cities.

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