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2 - Globalizing Environmental Sociology

from Part I - Theory in Environmental Sociology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2020

By
Rolf Lidskog  and
Stewart Lockie
Edited by
Katharine Legun ,
Julie C. Keller ,
Michael Carolan  and
Michael M. Bell
Katharine Legun
Affiliation:
Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands
Julie C. Keller
Affiliation:
University of Rhode Island
Michael Carolan
Affiliation:
Colorado State University
Michael M. Bell
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Summary

This chapter discusses what a more thoroughly globalized environmental sociology might look like, and the need to re-think more deeply the ways in which we conceptualize environmental sociology. Five challenges are discussed: i) the need to better understand globalization itself and the emergence of new sources and forms of authority; ii) the socially uneven causes and impacts of global environmental problems and injustices; iii) the task of democratizing science by asking whose voices are missing and whose knowledge counts in the understanding of global environmental matters; iv) the need for a more cosmopolitan environmental sociology that is sensitive both to local particularities and to shared concerns at the national and transnational levels; and v) the question of how environmental sociology might contribute to debate about possible and desirable global futures. The chapter concludes by arguing that responding to these challenges and engaging productively with other disciplines requires a sociology that unsettles boundaries between the social and natural sciences and partipates on equal terms in the production of environmental knowledge.

Keywords

globalizingdemocratizationenvironmental justicecosmopolitan sociologyfutures
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology , pp. 30 - 46
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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