Seminar Twenty One: Capitalism/Anti-Capitalism, Evironment and Crisis

Overproduction, the environment and the general law of capitalist accumulation 

I recommend you start with Allan Schnaiberg’s treadmill of production theory (which ties in the production process within competitive capitalism with its impact on the environment). Then have a look at similar theoretical inputs by both Dunlap & Catton.

Then after that have a look at the more recent trends in environmental sociology, especially through discoures in which:

… notions such as modernity, postmodernity, risk society, and ecological modernization figure prominently (e.g., Mol and Spaargaren 1993; Spaargaren and Mol 1992). Equally significant has been the drift of sociologists of science, and their notions of the social construction of scientific knowledge, into the environmental sociology arena as interest has grown in researching the environmental sciences and the connections of environmental knowledge production to environmental politics and the environmental movement (Taylor and Buttel 1992; Wynne 1994; Yearley 1991). 

To make sense of these changes in environmental sociology, it is useful to turn back to the mid-1980s, in which the cultural turn in the discpline (sociology) began to take shape, with theoretical inputs that emphasised the ideation or decision making of individuals in their social context, especially the cultural construction of reality, and specifically the emphasis on individuals and agency, rather than collective structures. This approach has been problematic, more so within environmental sociology, that deals with the biophysical substructure (the natural world we inhabit) of nation states and global society. Dunlap and Catton (1994) and Murphy (1994), for example, are prominent pieces of recent literature in which:

… the cultural-constructivist invasion of environmental sociology has been strongly rebuked. Each has argued that cultural-environmental sociology is essentially incompatible with a sociology that is able to recognize the material and biophysical substructure of nation-states and global society.

Thus, considering this turn, enivronmental sociology has become more balkanized and contested.

One key input into the recent cultural turn, would be Beck’s concept of a ‘Risk Society’, which he identifies as a mark of ‘high modernity’ or ‘late modernity’. This approach is one of the more prominent and seminal contributions to environmental sociology, an insight that we should have a quick look at …

Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society 

To understand Beck’s idea of a ‘Risk Society’ it is important to link it back to the idea of the reflexive self, an approach that has been a feature of many theorists’ writings. However, theorists such as Beck and Giddens locate this shift within modernity or a higher stage within modernity, which they term as ‘late modernity’ or ‘high modenity’. Beck identifies three features of high modernity — individualization, greater reflexivity and a ‘risk society’, all of these features are intertwined.

To understand how they work, it is important to track the development back to the genesis of modernity, where we have the first release of individuals from previous social constraints, progressively people begin to reflexively constuct their own biographies. Beck then connects this ‘reflexive modernity’ to technogical and scientific advances, and the impact of these advances in the creation of evironmental hazards and risks. These effects are global and cut across class and other identities. As a result of these changes and shifts in social formation, due to many of these technogical shifts and changes, we have new forms of production i.e. post-fordist production system.

Nevertheless, Beck goes on to argue that whilst such changes have resulted in more risk, a political project of ‘reflexive scientization’ has the potential to be a tool for emanicpatory social practice. Just as the conditions of overproduction, for example, has resulted in greater envrionmental risks and hazards, a greater scientific reflexivity (due to technological breakthroughs), rooted in the same conditions of modenrity, has the potential to remedy for many of these risks. For a good introduction into Beck’s idea of ‘Risk Society’ click here…

• To download the presentation slides for this seminar click here…
• To download the handout from the seminar click here…
• For a good intro into the main ideas in environmental sociology, read this useful article by F. Buttel …

Further Reading

• New Directions in Environmental Sociology by Frederick H. Buttel
• Environmental Sociology: A Resource Page
• War, the Environment and Risk Society by Richard Tanter
• Rural Sociological Society
• The Encyclopedia of Earth
• The Silence of Words and Political Dynamics in the World Risk Society by Ulrich Beck
• Being Constructive: Social Constructionism And The Environment by Kate Burningham & Geoff Cooper
• BOOK Environmental Sociology: A Social Constructionist Perspective By John A. Hannigan
• BOOK The International Handbook of Environmental Sociology Edited By Michael Redclift & Graham Woodgate
• BOOK Sociological Theory and the Environment: classical foundations, Contemporary Insights Edited By Riley E. Dunlap, Frederick H. Buttel, Peter Dickens, August Gijswijt
• BOOK Ideology, Social Theory, and the Environment By William D. Sunderlin
• BOOK Environmental Sociology By John A. Hannigan