Abstract
This introductory chapter presents the purpose of the book: to scrutinize existing core conceptualizations of environment-society relations, because such a critical gaze will allow for deeper reflection, help to confront denialism, engage sociological imagination, and lead to more fruitful communication and action within the environmental sciences and transdisciplinary. The chapter discusses the role of concepts and the opportunities and challenges related to when science, policy and practice share the same concepts. The chapter introduces three overall questions for the book concerning the explanatory power; social, cultural, or geo-political ‘biases’ and ‘blinders’; and the action-potential implicated by the concepts. It introduces a set of conceptual traps that scholars ought to avoid when theorizing on environment-society relations. Finally it introduces the concepts scrutinized in the book.
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Notes
- 1.
The concept is particularly associated with the theories of risk society and reflexive modernization, developed by Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens in the 1980s. It is associated with a rather optimistic account of the propensity of individuals , experts and organizations to, based on the experiences of escalating risks and hazards , reflect on how existing practices reproduce problems, and based on this develop new practices (see Boström et al. 2017 for a review). Even if risks and environmental problems escalate, the theory of reflexive modernization holds that there is an increasing propensity for reflexivity due to historical processes of individualization and the undermining of traditional authorities and structures (e.g. the state, church, science, gender roles).
- 2.
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Boström, M., Davidson, D.J. (2018). Introduction: Conceptualizing Environment-Society Relations. In: Boström, M., Davidson, D. (eds) Environment and Society. Palgrave Studies in Environmental Sociology and Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76415-3_1
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