Environmental Sociology This new edition of John Hannigan’s widely-known and respected text has been thoroughly revised to reflect major recent conceptual and empirical advances in environmental soci- ology. Key updates and additions include: • an extended discussion of how classic sociological theory relates to contemporary envi- ronmental sociology; • a focus on cultural sociologies of the environment, notably discourse analysis and social framing; • updated coverage of the environmental justice movement and global biodiversity loss; • a critical overview of contemporary interdisciplinary perspectives, namely co- constructionist theories of ‘socionature’. The new edition includes two new ‘hot topic’ chapters: • ‘Discourse, power relations and political ecology’ deals specifically with discursive conflicts between North and South, and includes a profile of contemporary struggles over water privatisation in Africa and Latin America; • ‘Towards an “emergence” model of environment and society’ introduces a new way of conceptualising the environmental field that brings together insights from complexity theory, the sociology of disasters, collective behaviour and social movements, perspec- tives on ‘social learning and the sociology of environmental ‘flows’. Written in a lively and accessible manner, Environmental Sociology makes a strong case for placing the study of emergent uncertainties, structures and flows central to a ‘realist/ constructionist model’ of environmental knowledge, politics and policy-making. The book offers a distinctive and even-handed treatment of environmental issues and debates, inte- grating European theoretical contributions such as risk society and ecological modernisation with North American empirical insights and findings. The book will interest environmental professionals and activists, and will be an invaluable resource to undergraduate and postgraduate students in geography, sociology, political science and environmental studies. John Hannigan is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto and author of two major books, Environmental Sociology: A Social Constructionist Perspective (1995) and Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern City (1998), both published by Routledge. Environmental Sociology Second edition John Hannigan First published 1995 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Second edition 2006 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1995, 2006 John Hannigan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN10: 0-415-35512-5 (Hbk) ISBN10: 0-415-35513-3 (Pbk) ISBN13: 9-78-0-415-35512-4 (Hbk) ISBN13: 9-78-0-415-35513-1 (Pbk) To Ruth Contents List of illustrations viii Preface ix Acknowledgements xi List of abbreviations xii 1 Environmental sociology as a field of inquiry 1 2 Contemporary theoretical approaches to environmental sociology 16 3 Environmental discourse 36 4 Discourse, power relations and political ecology 53 5 Social construction of environmental issues and problems 63 6 Media and environmental communication 79 7 Science, scientists and environmental problems 94 8 Risk 108 9 Biodiversity loss: the successful ‘career’ of a global environmental problem 122 10 Towards an ‘emergence’ model of environment and society 136 Notes 154 Bibliography 158 Name index 181 Subject index 188 Illustrations Figures 1 Competing functions of the environment 19 2 Global warming fact or fiction debate 96 Tables 1 Typology of key environmental discourses in the twentieth century 38 2 Key tasks in constructing environmental problems 68 Preface It has been ten years since the inaugural edition of Environmental Sociology was published by Routledge. In the ensuing decade, the field of environmental sociology has flourished. Today, the subject is taught at universities across Europe, North America and Australia, as well as establishing a firm foothold in Brazil, Japan and Korea. With growth has come increasing theoretical maturity. When I started writing the original draft of this book in the early 1990s, environmental scholars were still by and large committed to a strong ‘realist’ position whereby the gravity, configuration and causes of ecological damage and destruction were thought to be obvious. The recommended role of the environmental sociologist was to expose underlying mecha- nisms, for example the ‘treadmill of production’, and map out optimal directions for change. By contrast, a handful of researchers, mostly in the sociology of science, recognised that environmental risks and knowledge were by no means self-evident, but rather the product of social definition and construction. I was inspired to write an entire volume about this after listening to a keynote address by the late Fred Buttel about the socially constructed character of global environmental change (as it happens, Fred later moved away from social constructionism, partly because he feared that it would interfere with the progress of envi- ronmental reform). In recent years, the tone of the realist–constructionist conflict has moderated and envi- ronmental sociologists have put their energies into seeking some type of synthesis. In recog- nition of this, I have deliberately dropped the original subtitle of the book (‘A Social Constructionist Perspective’). While I have retained the original emphasis on the sociology of social problems (especially in Chapters 5–9), I have also added quite a bit of new material. In Chapter 1, you will find a new section in which I describe and assess the contributions to environmental thinking of the trinity of classical sociological theorists: Durkheim, Weber and Marx. In Chapter 2, I offer an extended appraisal of two leading theories of ‘the envi- ronmental state’: Beck’s ‘risk society’ thesis and Mol and Spaargaren’s version of ‘ecological modernisation theory’ (these were surveyed only briefly in the final chapter of the first edition). Furthermore, I have added an overview of the most significant, if not wholly satis- fying, attempt to bridge the ‘nature–society divide’, what is variously known as ‘co- constructionism’, or in its more specific version, ‘Actor–Network Theory’ (ANT). Chap- ters 3 and 4 deal with an aspect of constructionism which was underplayed in the first edition – environmental discourse. Since then, a host of environmental social scientists, most notably Robert Brulle, Eric Darier, John Dryzek and Maarten Hajer, have elevated this to a x Preface position of importance. In Chapter 4, I deal specifically with the link between environ- mental discourse and power, as reflected particularly in contemporary North–South rela- tions. The latter half of this chapter profiles one of the most important environmental conflicts today – water privatisation. Finally, in the concluding section (Chapter 10), I intro- duce a new perspective, which I label as the ‘emergence approach to environmental sociol- ogy’. This brings together threads from various fabrics in the environmental literature – social learning, risk society, hybrid management and boundary organisations, globalisation and environmental flows, and collective behaviour in environmental emergencies and disas- ters – around a focus on uncertainty and indeterminacy, improvisation, adaptation and fluidity. Acknowledgements As is the custom, I would like to thank a number of people who have helped make this second edition of Environmental Sociology possible. Among my academic colleagues, Harris Ali (whose path-breaking research on SARS and the Global City I discuss in the final chapter) has been especially helpful. At our occasional lunches over the past few years, he has provided some especially shrewd commentary on the state of environmental sociology and environmental health. Ray Murphy has been a beacon of creative synthesis, lighting up an important way forward with his analysis of the 1998 ice storm and how this may be conceptualised by employing a ‘constructionist/realist’ approach. Finally, my 2005 graduate seminar on Environmental Sociology provided an excellent opportunity to revisit past material and delve into more recent work. Many thanks are due to Gerhard Boomgaarden, Senior Sociology Editor at Routledge. While I had been intending to undertake a revision of this book for some time, a combina- tion of heavy university administrative responsibilities and a greater-than-expected success of my 1998 ‘urban’ book (Fantasy City) meant that I kept putting this off indefinitely. Gerhard’s enthusiasm for the project convinced me that now was the time. Also at Routledge, Constance Sutherland has been a helpful and patient liaison, ensuring that I would more or less meet the required deadline. As was the first edition, this book is dedicated to my wife