SOCI 509A Sociology of the Environment

Description

This course is restricted to graduate students. 

This course will provide an overview of key theoretical perspectives and concepts in environmental sociology, and will consider a variety of substantive topics such as climate change, natural resource communities, social movements and counter-movements, environmental justice, media coverage of environmental issues, Indigenous peoples and the environment, and gender and the environment. Some key theoretical perspectives to be covered include: the New Ecological Paradigm; political economy perspectives such as the Treadmill of Production, and Ecological Modernization; the social construction of environmental issues; social network perspectives relevant to environmental issues such as the role of networks in micromobilization in environmental movements, environmental policy networks, and social-ecological networks; approaches to studying environmental values (such as Values-Beliefs-Norms Theory) and employment of the NEP scale. We may also consider select methodological issues relevant to studying environmental topics.

Key concepts to be considered may include: "sustainability", "environmental justice", "disproportionality", anthropocentrism/biocentrism", "wilderness", "growth/limits to growth", "carrying capacity", "ecological footprint", sense of place, and "normal accidents", metabolic rift, risk society, amongst others.