Search

Most top impact factor ecology journals indicate a preference or requirement for short manuscripts; some state clearly defined word limits, whereas others indicate a preference for more concise papers. Yet evidence from a variety of academic fields indicates that within journals longer papers are both more positively reviewed by referees and more highly cited. We examine the relationship between citations received and manuscript length, number of authors, and number of references cited for papers published in 32 ecology journals between 2009 and 2012. We find that longer papers, those with more authors, and those that cite more references are cited more. Although paper length, author count, and references cited all positively covary, an increase in each independently predicts an increase in citations received, with estimated relationships positive for all the journals we examined. That all three variables covary positively with citations suggests that papers presenting more and a greater diversity of data and ideas are more impactful. We suggest that the imposition of arbitrary manuscript length limits discourages the publication of more impactful studies. We propose that journals abolish arbitrary word or page limits, avoid declining papers (or requiring shortening) on the basis of length alone (irrespective of content), and adopt the philosophy that papers should be as long as they need to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phylogenetic comparative methods are becoming increasingly popular for investigating evolutionary patterns and processes. However, these methods are not infallible - they suffer from biases and make assumptions like all other statistical methods., Unfortunately, although these limitations are generally well known in the phylogenetic comparative methods community, they are often inadequately assessed in empirical studies leading to misinterpreted results and poor model fits. Here, we explore reasons for the communication gap dividing those developing new methods and those using them., We suggest that some important pieces of information are missing from the literature and that others are difficult to extract from long, technical papers. We also highlight problems with users jumping straight into software implementations of methods (e.g. in r) that may lack documentation on biases and assumptions that are mentioned in the original papers., To help solve these problems, we make a number of suggestions including providing blog posts or videos to explain new methods in less technical terms, encouraging reproducibility and code sharing, making wiki-style pages summarising the literature on popular methods, more careful consideration and testing of whether a method is appropriate for a given question/data set, increased collaboration, and a shift from publishing purely novel methods to publishing improvements to existing methods and ways of detecting biases or testing model fit. Many of these points are applicable across methods in ecology and evolution, not just phylogenetic comparative methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a gap between concern about environmental degradation such as climate change and effective action taken against the forces that drive degradation. This paper argues that real helplessness, a social condition producing powerless, stupefied, and repressed actors, is a fortified barrier between climate concern and effective climate action. Political‐economic analysis has theoretical and methodological implications for environmental social science and helps explain a current conundrum in critical sociology: Why are alternatives to a system that drives climate change and other catastrophic risks still seen as unrealistic? We suffer from a political‐economic system impervious to transformation before we suffer from a lack of alternative ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the gendered politics of care in global environmental activism. Drawing on interviews with 96 Extinction Rebellion activists worldwide and a close analysis of 10 older women within this dataset, we contend that 'care' both replicated and contradicted the patriarchal order. Older women in Extinction Rebellion have often been relied upon to take on much of the caring labour involved in the maintenance of the movement at local and national levels. However, care also involved these women undertaking powerful—and empowering—forms of political action, often grounded in their knowledge and experience of organising social justice movements over decades. In contrast to prior research in the area, we found that women's participation in leadership roles within the movement against climate change appears to have increased over time. Using Sara Ahmed's (2004) concept of affective economies, we argue that the emotion of care came to be accumulated and attached to older women within Extinction Rebellion, producing inequalities in expectations for who would 'care for the movement' while also opening up opportunities for empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies estimate that the US military it is a bigger polluter than 140 individual countries, having emitted hundreds of millions of tons of greenhouse gases in the twenty‐first century. Despite this, the military is also one of the organizations most affected by climate change, given its global infrastructural reach, and one that is positioning itself to grapple with the social and political upheavals resulting from the climate crisis. Thus, paradoxically, despite its role as a major driver of ecological degradation, the military is one of the few influential institutions in the US that has demonstrated a willingness to grapple with the effects of climate change. In this paper we explore these two sides of the relationship between the military and climate change. Combining perspectives from the military and environmental sociology literature, we review the military's role as a polluter as well as a stakeholder. We examine the military's attempts to reconcile those two approaches through the adoption of a philosophy of "winners and losers" of climate change, highlighting the limits and possibilities of this approach. To make sense of the military's response, we review the conflicting institutional logics guiding the Pentagon's efforts. We conclude by suggesting that policymakers resolve these tensions through a strategic retreat from its globe‐spanning presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of a truly synthetic, cross-systems ecology has been often lauded but rarely implemented. Here, our authors have embraced the challenge to achieve synthesis via a multi-paper dialogue and we hope this format will act as a springboard for new ecological ideas, experiments and theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflexivity is an important sociological lens through which to examine the means by which people engage in actions that contribute to social reproduction or social elaboration. Reflexivity theorists have largely overlooked the central place of emotions in reflexive processing, however, thus missing opportunities to enhance our understanding of reflexivity by capitalizing on recent scholarship on emotions emanating from other fields of inquiry. This paper explores the role of emotion in reflexivity, with a qualitative analysis of social responses to hydraulic fracturing in Alberta, Canada, utilizing narrative analysis of long‐form interviews with rural landowners who have experienced direct impacts from hydraulic fracturing, and have attempted to voice their concerns in the public sphere. Based on interviews with a selection of two interview participants, the paper highlights the means by which emotions shape reflexivity in consequential ways, beginning with personal and highly individualized emotional responses to contingent situations, which then factor into the social interactions engaged in the pursuit of personal projects. The shared emotional context that emerges then plays a substantial role in shaping outcomes and their implications for social stasis or change. This study exemplifies the extent to which reflexive processing in response to breaches in the social order can be emotionally tumultuous affairs, constituting a significant personal toll that many may be unwilling to pay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I describe a few ways in which I've ventured outside of my comfort zone and become more engaged with multidisciplinary communities, policy groups and governmental agencies, the media, and civil society. Through such efforts, I've tried to help broaden and deepen the presence of environmental sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Recent resurgence of interest in social aspects of sustainability has enjoined with on-going debates on environmental justice and equity. However, discussions on the socio-geographic distribution of environmental (dis-) benefits have substantially overlooked the issue of class (as defined by Marx). This paper begins to address that deficit by presenting a new conceptualization of sustainable development explicitly drawing on Marxist theorizations of class. Capital and labour have a fundamental conflict of interest; governments have limited potential, or interest, in intervening on labour's behalf. Environmental policies have been portrayed as offering economic and social benefits including so-called green jobs. This paper argues that such policies generate competition for investment rather than promoting equity. Green jobs may offer distributional benefits to individual workers, in certain locations, but cannot benefit labour as a class. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how natural resource interests have been translated into political outcomes in the form of American climate change policy. Incorporating data about natural resource use and national decision-making, this paper concludes that comprehending fully political decisions about global climate change in the United States requires us to recognize how land-use interests in the growth machine are translated into political outcomes. The findings of this paper suggest that, in order to understand social phenomena more fully, sociologists must recommit to studying the conjoint constitution of natural resources and social processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous issue of Sustainable Development (Kaivo-oja, 1999) some alternative scenarios of social development were presented. The following scenarios were discussed: (i) the deep ecology scenario, (ii) the strong sustainable development scenario, (iii) the weak sustainable development scenario, (iv) the boomsday scenario, (v) the doomsday scenario and (vi) the World Bank ‘policy tunnel’ scenario. In this article a plausible, seventh social development scenario is presented: ‘social and ecological destruction in the first class’. The basic idea of this scenario is presented in this paper. The author argues that this scenario should also be taken into consideration in the strategic discussion of potential sustainable development paths. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This guide accompanies the following article: The Animal Rights Movement in Theory and Practice: A Review of the Sociological Literature, Compass 6/2 (2012): pp. 166-181, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2011.00440.x Author's introduction The animal rights movement has been described as one of the most neglected and misunderstood social movements of our era. However, social movement scholars are beginning to realise the political and moral significance of the world wide animal protection movement at a time when nature itself has been included in the specialist field of environmental sociology. Just as people are beginning to see that nature matters and is not separate from society, nonhuman animals (hereafter animals) too are increasingly perceived as worthy of our respect and consideration. The long-running animal protection movement which began in England in the 18th century is today better known as the animal rights movement. It is the men and women of this movement who, atypically for a social movement, are campaigning for a species that is not their own. The movement's theories and practices are important for what they do for animals and also because of what the animal rights controversy reveals about human beings. Author recommends Garner, Robert. 1998. Political Animals: Animal Protection Policies in Britain and the United States. London: Macmillan Press Ltd. The book describes the progress made by the animal protection movement in the two countries where animal rights protests have been most prominent. The author presents a comprehensive examination of animal welfare policies in Britain and the US thus providing an informative comparative study of the movement's relationship with the state in these two countries. Garner's focus on policy networks corresponds to the sociologist's concept of social movement organizations. More than fifty such organizations balanced evenly between animal protectionists and animal-user industries are discussed in the book. Political Animals provides an excellent introduction to the politics of animal rights, although missing in the accounts are the voices of the animal activists and their opponents. In the final analysis, it is the meaning activists attribute to their cause that drives the movement, a fact which Garner tacitly acknowledges. Imhoff, Daniel (ed) 2010. The CAFO Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories. Published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology with Watershed Media, Berkeley, LA: University of California Press. The Reader's subject - concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) - covers most of the topics relevant to factory farmed animals and is divided into seven parts: (1) The pathological mindset of the CAFO; (2) Myths of the CAFO; (3) Inside the CAFO; (4) The loss of diversity; (5) Hidden costs of CAFO; (6) Technological takeover; (7) Putting the CAFO out to pasture. The acronym CAFO suggests a bland, mundane practice and is therefore a name which the editor believes should be replaced by the more accurate label 'animal concentration camps'. The chapter titles indicate what is in store for the reader but the content is perhaps less confronting than the book's companion photo-format volume of the same name. The reader is a very comprehensive survey of how living creatures are subjected to inhumane practices for their body parts by 'corporate food purveyors' and is essential reading for anyone who cares about the future survival of all of the earth's species. Kean, Hilda. 1998. Animal Rights: Political and Social Change in Britain since 1800. London: Reaktion Books Ltd. In this attractive book, the historian Hilda Kean provides one of the most comprehensive and interesting surveys of the early animal protection movement in England, the birthplace of animal rights. Kean tells a compelling story of how and why people's attitudes and practices involving animals changed over the past two centuries. She attributes these changes largely to the seemingly simple idea of 'sight', or how people were influenced by seeing for themselves how animals such as horses and dogs were ill treated in public spaces such as in streets and markets. Animals 'out of sight' in vivisection laboratories and in abattoirs also came to the attention of the early animal protectionists, most of whom were women. The sight and spectacle of animal abuse turned hearts and stomachs once a light was shone on these everyday cruelties by the pioneers of animal rights in England. Kean's book is nicely illustrated in keeping with the theme of seeing animals in their various relationships with humans. Munro, Lyle. 2005. Confronting Cruelty: Moral Orthodoxy and the Challenge of the Animal Rights Movement. Leiden & Boston: Brill. For most people animal cruelty is understood as unspeakable acts perpetrated by warped individuals mostly against dogs, cats, birds and sometimes horses. The animal rights movement seeks to broaden the issue of animal cruelty to include the vast numbers of animals that suffer and die in 'the animal industrial complex' of intensive farming, recreational hunting and animal research and experimentation. The book draws on social movement theory to explain how and why an increasing number of people in the UK, US and Australia have taken up the cause of animals in campaigning against the exploitative practices of the animal-user industries. Essentially, the thesis is that animal abuse is constructed by the animal rights movement as a social problem (speciesism) on a par with sexism and racism. This is the first book in the Human and Animal Studies Series which currently lists about a dozen monographs published by Brill under the editorship of Kenneth Shapiro of the Society & Animals Institute in the US. Noske, Barbara. 1989. Humans and Other Animals: Beyond the Boundaries of Anthropology. London: Pluto Press. As an anthropologist, Noske brings a different perspective to our relationship with nature, especially in the long process of animal domestication. Her chapter on 'the animal industrial complex' shows how both human and nonhuman animals suffer within this structure of domination; for example, slaughterhouse work takes a heavy toll on the meat workers while the animals experience atrocious pain and misery on the assembly line of mass execution. Noske's book is valuable for its broad treatment of animal-human relations in which she describes cultural, historical, structural and sociological aspects of these relations particularly in America and Australia. Wilkie, Rhoda and Inglis David (eds.) 2007. The Social Scientific Study of Nonhuman Animals: A Five-volume Collection- Animals and Society: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences. (Vols 1-5), London: Routledge. This is a collection of 90 previously published articles and book chapters in approximately 2,000 pages on the social-scientific study of animals. The papers range from the earliest in 1928 on 'the culture of canines' to the latest in 2006 on 'religion and animals.' Three quarters of the papers were published in the last two decades and are derived from anthropology, sociology, psychology, geography, philosophy and feminist studies. Because Animals and Society is based mostly on work derived from more than 12 different specialist journals, it has a claim to comprehensiveness; however, the editors mention topics that are not covered in the collection: Ethical issues;, Animal welfare;, The characteristics of animal protectionists;, 'Wilderness';, The role of animals in the lives of children; and, The animal rights movement., The main topics included in the collection provide a hint of its value to researchers: Vol I. Representing the animal (Introduction and critical concepts in the social sciences) Vol II. Social science perspectives on human-animal interactions (I): Anthropology., Geography., Feminist studies., Vol III. Social science perspectives on human-animal interactions (II): Sociology., Psychology., Vol IV. Forms of human-animal relations and animal death - the dynamics of domestication: Human-pet relationships., Human-livestock relations., Animal abuse and animal death., Vol V. Boundaries and quandaries in human-animal relations: Border troubles: are humans unique and what is an animal?, The legal, ethical and moral status of animals., 'The Frankenstein syndrome': animals, genetic engineering, and ethical dilemmas., NB. The above is a shorter version of my review in Society & Animals, 16. 91-93, 2008. I thank the journal for publishing the original review and for permission to include the above version in Sociology Compass. Online materials This is the story of a protest against the live animal export trade from Australia to the Middle East. The 7.30 Report of 11 February 2008, was one of several media stories on the cruelty involved in the transport and slaughter of cattle, goats and sheep which outraged thousands of Australians when they witnessed footage shot by animal activists. The four minute video recording provides commentary and images that explain why the live animal export trade is a 'hot cognition' issue in Australia and the UK. More recently, in June 2012, the callous treatment of cattle in a number of Indonesian abattoirs became a major media story that prompted public outrage and calls for an immediate and permanent ban on the trade. For many people, sharks are the most feared of all creatures and also the most misunderstood. They have been called 'the mother of otherness' and as a result when they are hunted and killed there is very little concern for their welfare. This groundbreaking film explains the importance of sharks to the ocean and seeks to dispel the main stereotype of the shark as the creature from hell. The film is the work of Rob Stewart whose lifelong fascination with sharks was the catalyst for his mission to save the great predator from extinction. Regular internet users will probably have come across the advertisements from the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), particularly its campaign against the cruelty involved in bear dancing. The WSPA, as an international animal welfare organization, is one of a very select few animal and environmental organizations recognized by the United Nations. Another campaign which is featured on their website is 'The Red Collar Campaign', the motto for which is 'Collars not Cruelty'. Viewers are warned that the two and a half minute video clip contains some confronting images of cruelty to dogs suspected of being infected by rabies. WSPA's objective is to end the brutality inflicted unnecessarily on thousands of dogs perceived as a human health and safety risk; its solution to the problem of rabies is simple, cheap and effective. The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is one of the most effective animal protection societies in the US. Its founder, the late Christine Stevens, worked most of her life as an advocate and lobbyist for animals. The AWI's attractive website provides many useful features such as the AWI Quarterly and details of its seminal campaigns which include research animals, companion animals, farm animals, marine animals and wildlife. Since it was established in 1951, the AWI has had access to the US Congress and in gaining the attention of powerbrokers, the organization has succeeded in securing animal welfare improvements that are legislated in law, which owes much to the work of Christine Stevens. Hunting is a controversial issue in England which has developed into what is actually a class war between the aristocratic class and the 'great unwashed'. Founded in 1924, the League is virtually a household name in England. Its website contains some revealing film clips about the cruelty involved in the hunting of foxes, deer, rabbits and other animals in the English countryside. There is a great deal of information contained in the blogs and its FAQs as well as elsewhere on its website. Mention is also made of one of the latest hunting fads, 'trophy hunting' which is apparently gaining popularity in some parts of the USA. Topics for lectures & discussion Part I: introduction and overview What is the animal rights movement? Why do people campaign on behalf of a species that is not their own? How do individuals and social movements make their claims on behalf of nonhuman animals? These are some of the questions that would traditionally be posed in introducing the animal rights movement. Reading Munro, Lyle. 2012. 'The Animal Rights Movement in Theory and Practice: A Review of the Sociological Literature'. Sociology Compass 6(2): 166-81. Waldau's recent book is a good introduction to what the movement is all about: Waldau, Paul. 2011. Animal Rights: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press. There are three main discourses on animal rights which provide insights into our constructions of 'the animal': (1) Animals in this discourse are constructed as social problems (see Irvine, 2003 below for an example); (2) in this second discourse, animal defenders are demonised with labels ranging from 'sentimental animal lovers' to 'extremists' and even 'terrorists' (see Munro, 1999 below for an example); (3) finally, the animal rights movement constructs our cruel treatment of animals as morally wrong and therefore deserving of the strongest condemnation (see Shapiro, 1994 below for an example). How and why people campaign against the exploitation of animals are issues explored in the following papers: Irvine, Leslie. 2003. 'The Problem of Unwanted Pets; A Case Study in How Institutions 'Think' About Clients' Needs'. Social Problems 50: 550-66. Munro, Lyle. 1999. 'Contesting Moral Capital in Campaigns Against Animal Liberation' . Society & Animals 7: 35-53. Shapiro, Kenneth. 1994. 'The Caring Sleuth: Portrait of an Animal Rights Activist'. Society & Animals 2: 145-65. Part II: animal cruelty This section includes some important contributions to explaining cruelty to animals. Agnew, Robert. 1998. 'The Causes of Animal Abuse: A Social-psychological Analysis'. Theoretical Criminology 2: 177-209. Munro, Lyle. 1997. 'Framing Cruelty: The Construction of Duck-Shooting as a Social Problem'. Society & Animals 5: 137-54. D'Silva, Joyce and John Webster. 2010. The Meat Crisis: Developing More Sustainable Production and Consumption. London and Washington: Earthscan. Merz-Perez, Linda and Kathleen Heide. 2004. Animal Cruelty: Pathway to Violence Against People. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Ltd. Ascione, Frank. 2008. 'Children Who Are Cruel to Animals: A Survey of Research and Implications for Developmental Psychology.' Pp. 171-89 in Social Creatures: A Human-Animals Studies Reader, edited by Clifton, Flynn. New York: Lantern Books. Winders, Bill and David Nibert. 2009. 'Expanding 'Meat' Consumption and Animal Oppression.' Pp. 183-9 in Between the Species: Readings in Human-Animal Relations, edited by Arnold, Arluke and Clinton Sanders. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc. Part III: social movement theory and animals There is a large literature on social movement theory with relatively little that refers to nonhuman animals. Some of those which do take up the issue are included below along with the following books that provide a general introduction to the study of social movements. Lowe, Brian and Caryn Ginsberg. 2002. 'Animal Rights as a Post-Citizenship Movement'. Society & Animals 10: 203-15. Jasper, James. 2007. 'The Emotions of Protest: Affective and Reactive Emotions in and around Social Movements.' Volume 4 Pp. 585-612 in Social Movements: Critical Concepts in Sociology Volumes 1-4, edited by Jeff, Goodwin and James Jasper. London and New York: Routledge. Buechler, Steven. 2011. Understanding Social Movements: Theories from the Classical Era to the Present. Boulder and London: Paradigm Publishers. Cochrane, Alasdair. 2010. Chapter 6 'Marxism and Animals.' Pp. 93-114 in An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory, edited by Cochrane's. Basingstoke Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Einwohner, Rachel. 2002. 'Bringing the Outsiders in: Opponents' Claims and the Construction of Animal Rights Activists' Identity'. Mobilization 7: 253-68. Part IV: animal advocacy and activism: strategy and tactics The above readings reveal to some extent at least why people campaign against animal cruelty. In this section's readings, the focus is on how animal activists run their campaigns in the streets (grassroots activism) and in the suites (organizational advocacy). Carrie Freeman Packwood. 2010. 'Framing Animal Rights in the 'Go Veg' Campaigns of US Animal Rights Organizations'. Society & Animals 18: 163-82. Paul, Elizabeth. 1995. 'Scientists' and Animal Rights Campaigners' Views of the Animal Experimentation Debate'. Society & Animals 3: 1-21. Upton, Andrew. 2010. 'Contingent Communication in a Hybrid Multi-Media World: Analysing the Campaigning Strategies of SHAC'. New Media & Society 13: 96-113. Munro, Lyle. 2001. Compassionate Beasts: The Quest for Animal Rights. Westport, CT: Praeger. Munro, Lyle. 2002. 'The Animal Activism of Henry Spira (1927-1998).' Society & Animals 10: 173-91. Munro, Lyle. 2005. 'Strategies, Action Repertoires and DIY Activism in the Animal Rights Movement.' Social Movement Studies 4: 75-94. Jasper, James. 1997. The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography and Creativity in Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Singer, Peter. 1998. Ethics into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal Rights Movement. Lanham MD: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers Inc. Part V: academic/activist collaboration Should academic teachers collaborate with activists in their campaigns? Like the church/state relations debate this is a controversial question since there are arguments both for and against academic involvement in political and social movements. Most of the readings in the original Compass article and below tend to see more benefits than costs to collaboration; however, higher education administrators don't like dissent and it is hard to imagine an academic holding down his or her job if they were seen to be working with animal activists on a particularly controversial campaign. It might be seen as acceptable if the collaboration was with the SPCA in the US or the RSPCA in Britain but not if the activists were affiliated with members of a radical animal liberation group. Furthermore, an academic-animal activist who campaigned say against the practice of animal experimentation at his or her university would surely be dismissed or at least threatened with dismissal unless they cut their ties with outside activists. Burnett, Cathleen. 2003. 'Passion through the Profession: Being Both Activist and Academic.' Social Justice 30: 135-50. Kleidman, Robert. 1994. 'Volunteer Activism and Professionalism in Social Movement Organizations.' Social Problems 41: 257-76. Focus questions Is the animal rights movement a genuine social movement when nonhuman animals are widely understood not to belong to society as it is generally understood?, How would you respond to the claim that cruelty to animals is our worst vice., From your experience of seeing animal rights protests either on television or as the real thing, what do you think are the dominant emotions exhibited by the campaigners and their opponents?, From what you've read or heard or seen of social movement protests, do you believe the most effective strategy is non-violence or violence; and which of these two strategies do you think is more acceptable for the animal protection movement to follow and why?, Should academics who lecture on social movements practice what they preach? What are some of the main benefits and problems associated with academic analysts of social movements collaborating with grassroots activists?, The animal rights movement has been described as one of the fastest-growing social movements in the West - and one of the most controversial. What evidence is there for these claims?, Seminar/project idea Please suggest an exercise to help bring the subject to life, appropriate either for undergraduate or graduate students, e.g. an assessment, a presentation, or other practical assignment. Project idea or presentation Compare and contrast the website of an animal welfare organization and an animal rights group in relation to (a) their objectives; (b) their most important campaign; and (c) their preferred overall strategies and tactics. Which of these organizations has the most potential in attracting new supporters and why? What advice would you give to these two organizations on how they might enhance their communicative effectiveness with the general public? (see Munro's Compass article for some clues)., Do an oral presentation on a radical animal liberation group such as the Animal Liberation Front or SHAC in which you describe its stated objectives, its seminal campaigns, its preferred tactics and its communication strategy as indicated by the group's website. Explain how effective the group is in terms of improving the lives of animals and how the activists justify the use of violence in their campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the conceptual history of ‘sustainable development’, from the Brundtland Commission's definition in 1987 to the present day. It argues that the superficial consensus that has characterized much of the early debate has given way to a series of parallel but distinct discourses around sustainability. The underlying assumptions behind much of the discussion are assessed, as is the move, after the first Earth Summit (1992), to focus on rights, rather than needs, as the principal line of enquiry. This analytical attention to rights is linked to the neo-liberal economic agendas of the 1990s, and the growth of interest in congruent areas, including human security and the environment, social capital, critical natural capital and intellectual property rights. The paper argues that increasing attention to questions of biology and science studies has strengthened this ‘rights-based’ approach, as well as interest in the linkages between ‘natural’ and ‘human’ systems, including attention to questions of environmental justice. It is clear that issues of global environmental justice are as important as they were when the concept of ‘sustainable development’ was in its infancy, but the new material realities of science and the environment in the 21st century demand a re-engagement with their social consequences, something which is largely ignored by the (market) liberal consensus. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to a specialized research area within environmental sociology – ecological modernization theory – the shift towards seeking to protect the environment constitutes a broadly emergent sociological phenomenon: the radicalization of modernity. The understanding of the fundamentals of such phenomenon is, therefore, crucial for both the practice and theorization of organization and environment. This is the main reason why this paper seeks to incorporate ideas from the disciplines of both environmental sociology and organization theory. By delving into the main sources of dynamism that ‘produced’ modernity the paper argues that a sustainable organizational practice depends on the incorporation of a special type of radicalism into ecological modernization. The paper anchors its main arguments in research conducted in the European automobile industry – a socio-technical context undergoing ecological modernization. The main conclusions of the paper relate to the nature of the reforms required for organizational practices to facilitate sustainable industrial development. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Review of Sociology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, I consider 'green collar work,' broadly defined as work intended to counter environmental degradation. I consider what might count as green collar work and compare the greening of work in different sectors, including industrial production, service work, working on 'nature,' and expert work. I look also at how organizations affect the 'greenness' of work. I stress that 'green work' is not consistent across time and place and that it is important to understand the interdependencies between different kinds of work. As this is a new topic in sociology, I draw on research from different social science disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an introduction to articles in the April 2005 issue of the periodical "Population Ecology". Cooperation among unrelated individuals.

Many scientific collaboration networks have been extensively studied from different perspectives, such as network degree analysis or centrality. However, there has been little study of the scientific collaboration network in the industrial ecology (IE) research domain and community. In this study therefore, we collected co-authorship keywords and related data from 1,032 publications between 1997 and 2012 from the most influential journal on the topic: the Journal of Industrial Ecology. An evaluation of publications in terms of network characteristics was conducted. Journal characteristics, such as publications by each author, number of co-authors per paper, and keywords, were identified. Further, we developed a co-authorship network and maps with network centrality analysis, components, and cluster analysis. The results of this study clearly show the main topics of the science, structure of scientific collaboration, and status of individual researchers within the IE research community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Population change has been studied in the fields of human ecology, population geography, environmental sociology, transportation planning, and regional economics, which make unique contributions to theorizing and modeling population change. Drawing upon this diverse literature, we develop an integrated framework for understanding population change in this review paper. The proposed framework is composed of five putative influences (demographic characteristics, socio-economic conditions, transportation accessibility, natural amenities, and land development) analyzed across three dimensions-these influential factors of population change conditioned by spatial dynamics and temporal variation. We also proposed a practical procedure for tackling the complexity between population change and influential factors. This integrated framework has potential to complement existing population research approaches employed within individual disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is only a scant possibility of today's environmental problems being solved solely by technical means, with no account being taken of the social or economic aspects. Thus, three generally recognized dimensions of sustainable development have been devised: ecological, social and economic. However, the basis for them is moral reflection regarding humankind's responsibility for nature. Is this all? Perhaps we should also include technical, legal and political dimensions. All of them are important and all of them are characterized in this paper. Since they are connected with one another, examples of the degree to which they can overlap are also discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voluntary environmental programs are institutions that seek to induce firms to produce positive environmental externalities beyond what government regulations require. Drawing on club theory, this paper outlines a theoretical perspective to study the relationship between program design and program effectiveness. Effective programs have rule structures that mitigate two central collective action problems inherent in producing positive environmental externalities: attracting firms to participate in the program and ensuring that participating firms adhere to program obligations. Because program efficacy can be undermined by collective action problems associated with free riding and shirking, effective voluntary clubs should be designed to mitigate these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I examine river governance or river policy in Japan through the process of modernization over one century and analyze three hidden paradigms, “modern technicism”, “nature conservationism” and “life environmentalism”, with the theory of environmental value. Japanese rivers were governed traditionally by local people (life environmentalism) but the river management was put under the control of administration and the specialist (modern technicism) in the tide of modernization, and in order to confront this situation a new paradigm of “nature conservationism” was born. In the analysis of the stages of river policy development, the development of economic and political power will be traced according to an environmental sociology point of view. This means analyzing people's initiatives resulting from their recognition and value in the political and economical arena. Structuring of river governance through the interactive process of “government and self-government” is also analyzed by putting an emphasis on local residents as a political body and second, I will describe the theoretical direction of environmental sociology. Lake Biwa and The Yodo River Basin system, which have historical importance in Japanese river policy, will be taken as an example. From the position of environmental sociology, river governance as an interactive process of “government and self-governance” based on independence of people, is one practical model that can give us important keys for the new river governance, transcending difference of social conditions. Consider learning the spirit of traditional communal structure as a process of practice for building a new communalism, life environmentalism model, which fits today's society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions the rhetorical workings of ‘sustainable development’ as an ideological construct in contemporary global society. It suggests that this term actually is increasingly used as a label to place over modes of existence that are neither sustainable nor developmental. Yet, the rhetoric is also now a material culture of being that is created, carried and continued in the everyday practices of design, exchange and production. Copyright ©; 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terms“ecological restoration” and“restoration ecology” are frequently interchanged. Restoration ecology is the suite of scientific practices that constitute an emergent subdiscipline of ecology. Ecological restoration is the ensemble of practices that constitute the entire field of restoration, including restoration ecology as well as the participating human and natural sciences, politics, technologies, economic factors, and cultural dimensions. This paper is motivated by the concern that the broader practice of restoration may become narrowed over the next decade as a result of zealous attention to scientific and technological considerations, and that restoration ecology will trump ecological restoration. Scientific and technological acumen is necessary for successful restoration, but insufficient. Maintaining a broader approach to restoration requires respect for other kinds of knowledge than science, and especially the recognition of a moral center that is beyond the scope of science to address fully. An example of integrated restoration is presented: the ecological and cultural restoration of Discovery Island (near Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) by the Lekwungen people (Songhees First Nation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The paper argues that animals are central to rural social life and a rural sociology needs to develop theorisations of the rural which incorporate this fact. It looks to environmental sociology, the sociology of the relations between ‘nature’ and ‘society’, for help in this respect, but argues that the debates (particularly the ‘realist’ versus ‘social constructionist’ debate) which have characterised recent sociology of the environment have focussed attention on the problems of conceptualising ‘nature’ at the expense of attempts to reconceptualise ‘society’. It ends by arguing that sociology needs a ‘New Societal Paradigm’ which would include at least ‘domestic’ animals within society, and recognise the social relations of inequality and hierarchy through which their life opportunities are structured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edward A. Ross, a key figure in the early history of American sociology, developed a conceptualization of natural and social changes of the material environment that is virtually forgotten today. In this paper, these topics are discussed and located vis-à-vis Ross's intellectual contemporaries and their general take on the nature/society relationship. It is argued that ecological and sociological ideas in the early twentieth century influenced one another and, in the case of Ross, produced a perspective of social change that tried to include the dynamics of nature. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, environmental sociology has produced a tremendous stream of research pertaining to environmental justice issues. In general we now know that low income groups and communities of color are disproportionately exposed to toxic wastes. In this paper, I argue that future research requires a shift in methodological approach. Learning how groups come to be exposed to toxic wastes requires an understanding of the organizational processes that shape decisions regarding production practices and regulatory enforcement strategies. I conclude by making three claims: (1) Documenting that disempowered groups are exposed to toxic wastes more than other groups is important. Disentangling whether race or class matters more is more dubious. (2) If we want to make claims about process, we should study process and not outcomes. (3) Insofar as we have to study outcomes, in should be more aware of which outcomes we want to study and what types of inferences we are able to draw from outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research lays out the debates and contradictory findings regarding the impacts of corruption on forest loss in a cross‐national context, specifically in low‐ and middle‐income nations. After, I describe how these inconsistent findings may be due to difficulties in untangling the complexities of corruption definitionally and then operationalizing it in a cross‐national context. Then, I review the advances in corruption data collection and measurement. Finally, I discuss how these developments in data collection and operationalization have led to an expansion of research on corruption to other aspects of governance, bringing forward several avenues for future research, but also potentially conflating definitions of corruption with governance. Overall, I aim to capture how scholars are studying corruption and forest loss from a cross‐national context and what their findings tell us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental “public voluntary programs” (PVPs) involve government offers of positive publicity and technical assistance to firms that reach certain environmental goals. A growing body of empirical work suggests these programs generally have little impact on the behavior of their participants. A natural policy conclusion would be to eliminate PVPs, but we argue that such a conclusion is premature. Many PVPs are best viewed as information diffusion programs, so identifying their effects econometrically is difficult because information is likely to diffuse to nonparticipants. Thus, after the early phases of even a successful PVP, it may well be impossible to detect a difference in the performance between participants and nonparticipants. We argue that new estimation approaches are needed to identify the effects of PVPs. We also explore the design of PVPs in detail, showing how PVPs can potentially enhance the diffusion of cost-effective techniques for pollution abatement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philip Lowe died in February 2020, and so an academic career spanning five decades in environmental and rural social science and the sociology of knowledge came to an end. A pioneer of the social science of environmentalism, since the early 1990s, Philip Lowe had been closely associated with the Centre for Rural Economy at Newcastle University in the UK and had been the intellectual force behind establishing rural economy as both a subject and mode of social science analysis. This article reflects on a career and the evolving concept of 'rural economy' as an economic form, a policy realm and a knowledge practice. Through this history, it presents an account of the contribution of Philip Lowe's research and writing that, as a result of his death, now stands as a bounded and complete body of work for the benefit of future generations of scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central premise of environmental sociology is that social and environmental processes influence one another in fundamental ways. Here we build upon that insight and develop the concept of "environmental precedent" to better incorporate the full range of environmentally consequential law ‐ even law that is not "environmental" per se ‐ in sociological analysis. Environmental precedent refers to the environmental consequences of legal processes, consequences that become the new, enduring, dynamic material reality for future legal processes. Unlike legal precedent, which may be amended to suit immediate needs through judicial or legislative action, environmental precedent can have interpretive and material consequences that may be impossible for any social process to predict, amend, or reverse. To demonstrate the concept's usefulness, we illustrate the varied, dialectical environmental and legal relationships that exist in three case studies; the Flint water crisis, the federal passage of a suite of environmental laws in the early 1970s, and how some preconditions to the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina came to pass in New Orleans. In addition to foregrounding the benefits to sociology of a sharper understanding of environmental legal theory and practice, our aim is to encourage collaboration between social scientists, environmental lawyers, and legal scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite sociopolitical controversy surrounding the solid waste crisis, little sociological attention has focused on this crucial environmental issue. Drawing on research from the technological controversies, environmental concern, and solid waste literatures, this study examines the pre-implementation anxieties of a Louisiana community faced with a proposal to build an incinerator in its backyard. Utilizing survey data, a causal path model is developed in which the perceived advantages of the technology, general environmental concern, and support for recycling initiatives are identified as explanatory variables of incinerator opposition. Implications of these findings for the study of technical controversies and the larger solid waste crisis also are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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—particularly Riley Dunlap and William Cation—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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental sociology is founded on the assumption that the natural resource base of a society establishes the limits or constraints within which that society must operate. Thus, a change in the resource base on which a society depends will necessitate changes or adaptations within that society. This study attempts to empirically test these assumptions by looking at the effects of groundwater availability in the Great Plains of the United States from 1940 to 1980. Using a model derived from human ecology theory, it was found that irrigation development had major implications on nonmetropolitan counties during the time period studied. Irrigation development resulted in increased agricultural production, variations in the structure of farm enterprises, and in increased retention of both farm and nonfarm populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1972 a comprehensive history was published of the Canadian Civil Service Commission from 1908 to 1967. The authors had access to, and used as references, many internal papers and correspondence. One ex-employee of the Commission, in reviewing the book, stated ‘it was intriguing to learn the inside story of many of the more recent episodes of the last twenty years which were only vaguely known by the staff of the day. Time and again I found myself saying, “so that's what really happened!”’. The first aim here is not to challenge the facts and opinions expressed in this book but to analyse one function, developed within the Commission over the latter twenty-one years of this history, and to reveal in a similar way and in further detail ‘what really happened’. The function is the advisory O & M activity, started in 1946. The second aim is to illustrate the difficulty of introducing innovation into what Hodgetts et al have called a ‘well-entrenched organization’ in the public service and to show what happens when that innovation is started in the wrong place. The third aim is to show that management improvement in the public service is achieved by a combination of management skills, political sensitivity and rare leadership qualities. The final aim is to encourage those engaged in promoting management improvement in the public service by recounting one experience which led to a successful conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the 15th Annual Conference of The International Environmetrics Society (TIES) and the 6th International Symposium on Spatial Accuracy Assessment in natural Resources and Environment Sciences which was held on June 28 to July 1 2004 in Portland, Maine. TIES are to foster the development and use of statistical and other quantitative methods in the environmental sciences, environmental engineering and environmental monitoring and protection. It has been mentioned that the International Spatial Accuracy Research Association aims to concentrate on measuring, modeling and managing uncertainty in spatial data in the natural resources and environmental sciences.

This section presents several abstracts of articles on rural sociology. Reading the Space of the Farmers' Market: A Case Study from the United Kingdom, by Lewis Holloway and Moya Kneafsey examines the emergence of Farmers' Markets in Great Britain. Resource, Arcadia, Lifeworld. Nature Concepts in Environmental Sociology, by C.S.A. (Kris) van Koppen offers a tentative framework for bridging the gap between constructionism and the other nature approaches. Rural Community Life and the Importance of Reciprocal Survival Strategies, by Henk Meert stresses that not every deprived rural household should be regarded as excluded from society. Globalization, Localization and Sustainable Livelihood, by Leo de Haan concludes that research on sustainable livelihood will increasingly have to become multi-dimensional, multi-local and reciprocal. Finally, the article Can Rural Voices Effect Rural Choices? Contesting Deregulation in New Zealand's Apple Industry, by Megan K. L. McKenna evaluates the relative success of local contestation of the terms of neoliberalism and globalization.

Introduces the themes of the articles featured in the November 2005 issue of the journal "Sustainable Development." Examination of the evolving discourse of sustainable development from a critical perspective; Conceptual history of sustainable development; Discussion of the rhetorical workings of sustainable development as an ideological construct in contemporary global society; Sustainability of the economy in relation to nature.

Modern agricultural production typically requires large quantities of chemical pesticides, a potential source of both environmental and human harm. Previous social science research has suggested that environmental problems such as those associated with pesticide use may begin to decline at higher levels of economic development. Using fixed effects models, we examine whether this possible relationship holds within nations and over time. This study draws on data from the World Bank as well as pesticide use data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to examine the relationship between pesticide use and economic development within nations from 1990 to 2014. The findings are considered from theoretical perspectives in environmental sociology on the drivers of environmental impacts: the treadmill of production theory, structural human ecology, ecological modernization theory, and the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. The results of this study show a positive relationship between economic development and pesticide consumption over time, with no decline in use at higher levels of economic development. Thus, they generally support the claims made by treadmill of production and structural human ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic growth is a key contributor to climate change, but undergirding growth is capitalist profitability. In this article, I refine this long‐standing relationship between growth and emissions by estimating if the profit rate and the "exploitation rate" (surplus profits / wages and salaries) predict greenhouse gas emissions. I do so in a sample of advanced capitalist economies from 1995 to 2016 with profitability data on four industries (agriculture, manufacturing/construction, energy, and transportation) as well as greenhouse gas emissions data for both those industries and emissions at the national level. Methodologically, I use two‐way fixed effects models and panel‐corrected standard errors. My results show that the total profit and exploitation rates are positively associated with emissions. Exploitation in the transportation and manufacturing/construction sectors, moreover, is also positively associated with emissions. This article provides empirical support for those in environmental sociology claiming that capitalist profitability is a key driver of climate change and ecological change is inseparable from unequal social relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the intention of the author to publish issues in the journal "Sociological Inquiry," which was of importance to sociology in the 1980s. One of these topics was environmental sociology. The author hopes that the material contained in the special issue of the journal will bring its greater visibility and contribute to its future maturity. To the best of his knowledge this is the first time a major journal has featured an issue on environmental sociology. This is true despite the fact that the American Sociological Society has recognized a Section on Environmental Sociology since 1976. For the most part, what the author knows about environmental sociology he has gleaned from editing this special issue. For the special issue 9 of the 54 authors were female. For the general issues 31 of the 121 authors were female. The bulk of the articles submitted for the special issue were review and position papers. In contrast over 80 percent of those submitted for general issues were theoretical pieces and reports of empirical research. Less than one-quarter of the manuscripts submitted for the special issue were research reports.

I argue that food regimes need to take into account the production relations of paid and unpaid work. As an angle of vision, I use the historical geography of late colonial Philippines (1901–1941) to show how paid and unpaid work in food production was not discrete and separated processes but rather conjoined moments of capital accumulation. The colonial regime—in this context, American colonial government, U.S. agribusinesses, and Filipino landed elites—utilized state power, customary land relations, and commodity‐specific characteristics to appropriate vast amounts of unpaid work from agrarian classes of Philippine labour and draft animals towards the exploitation of commodified labour power. These processes not only produced considerable quantities of coconut and sugar products that were exported to the American consumer market, sold at cheaper prices, and contributed to the profitability of U.S. agribusiness elites but also allowed the colonial regime to efficiently expand commodity production across the islands. The more the American capitalists and Philippine elites invested in Philippine agriculture, the more they appropriated unpaid work from the agrarian classes of labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservationists and academics have long investigated the factors that impact forest loss in low‐ and middle‐income nations. Characteristics of the state, namely state spending, may impact forest loss in low‐ and middle‐income nations, although this relationship has been understudied and the limited research that exists has yielded contradictory results. I begin by reevaluating the relationship between state spending and forest loss using robust regression models for a sample of 97 low‐ and middle‐income nations. Initially, in line with extant literature, I find no support for the idea that state spending is related to forest loss. However, I respecify the models to consider if state spending interacts with governance factors including political stability, control of corruption, rule of law, government effectiveness, and regulatory quality. Governance is defined as the state's ability to formulate, implement, and manage the nation's funds, policies, and procedures effectively. I find that state spending reduces forest loss more in nations with higher levels of governance than at lower levels of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the fourth volume of the "Australian Journal of Ecology" on the high standards of material content and presentation that have been achieved to date about the conditions of the environment. Policies and practices suggested by the previous editor of the Journal; Limitations of space dictate a maxim of parsimony with respect to the texts; Invitation for critical reviews and keynote articles in addition to research papers and thesis abstracts on ecology.

Low‐carbon development is a challenging endeavor for many fossil fuels exporting nations around the world, and is especially important in light of the recent Paris Agreement on climate change. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have been adopting innovations and policies in order to diversify their economies and decrease environmental degradation. After decades of high demographic and economic growth, balancing ecological concerns and the need for more dynamic growth have now become cornerstones of those countries' national, urban, and infrastructure planning strategies. This review article introduces the ecological modernization in the GCC region through innovations and reforms. Such a pathway might be a viable model for other oil‐ and gas‐rich economies. The review outlines the current model in the GCC region for achieving a low‐carbon future through interventions in the built environment, deployment of renewables, technological investments, and gradual integration in knowledge‐intensive global industries. On the other hand, the review points to mixed results with regards to megaprojects and the still existing barriers to adoption of renewables. The obstacles in addressing large environmental footprints and fossil fuel dependency are evaluated. Overall, modernization policies in the Gulf region are still emerging, are rather supply‐side focused, and are implicitly driven by the idea of technological primacy. At the same time, in an effort to develop local capacities, policymakers seek to promote comparatively high‐potential sectors and maintain the region's global image as a crossroads of trade and modernity. This article is categorized under: The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Decarbonizing Energy and/or Reducing Demand Trans‐Disciplinary Perspectives > Regional Reviews [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The sociology of natural resources and the environment constitutes a major field of inquiry in the research on human–environmental interactions. A constructive debate and dialogue on the relationships between environmental sociology (ES) and the sociology of natural resources (SNR) began at the 2000 International Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM) in Bellingham, Washington. Frederick Buttel argued that the two subdisciplines had different subject matters, levels of analysis, spatial focuses, theoretical orientations, policy relevance, and interdisciplinary commitments. These distinctive tendencies have been widely accepted in environmental and natural resource social science but have not been systematically analyzed. The primary objective of this research is to conduct an empirical test of Buttel's differentiating criteria through a systematic review of sample American sociological journal articles published in 2000 and 2014. The multivalue qualitative comparative analysis revealed that there was no clear‐cut divide between the two subfields regarding the combinations of empirical research characteristics, while the general tendencies within both of them became more diverse over time. The overall lack of empirical research evidence for rigid ES–SNR distinctions also indicates that there is more potential than typically realized to build an integrative environmental and resource sociology in the American context and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Review of Sociology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Natural resources governance is key to enhancing resilience toward climate change and strengthening socioecological systems in light of future uncertainties. Overlapping jurisdictions and lack of clarity in the lines of authority reduce the efficiency of environmental policies and governance, jeopardizing the conservation and sustainable use of resources. With the forecast of longer droughts, extreme precipitation patterns, faster runoff, and slower water table recharge over the coming years, water governance becomes an impellent issue. To understand the risks posed by water scarcity and water regulations, a case study was conducted of Oklahoma state-level water policies and governance. A content analysis of water policies and a network analysis of water governance was used to determine how Oklahoma experiences features of fragmented and adaptive governance within its natural resource governance structure. Data analysis reveals that Oklahoma water governance experiences multiple forms of fragmentation while also showing features of an adaptive network. Such adaptive features make Oklahoma's water governance network more resilient than forecasted. Identifying gaps and understanding how a governance system experiences fragmentation can help policy makers develop strategies to enhance the adaptive features of water governance, thus preparing for risk and disasters related to water scarcity and climate variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we explore the lived experience of avoiding environmental chemicals through safer consumption, such as buying 'eco-friendly' products. Using focus groups and in-depth interviews involving 50 subjects, we investigate how individuals become aware of environmental chemicals and how they adapt to this awareness. Our participants describe being surprised or alarmed to learn that chemicals are present in food and commodities that they believed were safe. They respond by developing a set of heuristics rendering the 'dangerous' consumer landscape into a space that is amenable to personal control. They learn to read an ingredient label and look for organic certification seals on product packaging. We develop the idea of the 'contingent boundary' to describe how participants perceive personal control as uneven: they believe they can activate a protective boundary in local and familiar contexts, but outside these contexts, they believe the boundary dissolves. They accept this contingency as normal and describe having to ignore some chemical exposures, for fear of becoming too 'crazy.' We conclude that the individuals in our study accept that inverted quarantine (Szasz 2007) is out of reach, and instead try to impose order upon a ubiquitous risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on a teaching and learning guide related to state of gender in environmental sociology. It informs guide suggests various study materials including online materials, video, and books such as "Gender and Environmental Concern: Insights from Recent Work and for Future Research" by A. McCright and C. Xiao. It also presents syllabus, seminar idea for the said study.