Social nature: the environmental challenge to mainstream social theory

Lockie, Stewart

Abstract

[Extract] Until recently, sociological theory has had little to say about nature or the environment. Reflecting its origins in the social transformations of the Industrial and French Revolutions, sociological theory adopted the modernist ideology that through the application of labour and creativ¬ity humankind could emancipate itself from the animalistic fight for survival characteristic of other species (Latour 1993 ). The blowtorch of sociological analysis was turned towards a host of institutions rang¬ing from religion and art to education and class relations in order to illuminate and confront relationships of domination and control. But nature, and the multitude of organisms, substances and patterns that comprise it, were taken for granted as passive participants in this great human drama. Under the sway of modem science and technology, the environment had lost its mystical and autonomous status and become a blank canvas onto which human aspirations and projects could be painted.

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Controversies in environmental sociology

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978-0-521-60102-3

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Cambridge University Press

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Cambridge, UK

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