Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1177/0952695109347164
Title (Primary) Not as natural as it seems: the social history of the environment in American sociology
Author Alexandrescu, F.M.
Source Titel History of the Human Sciences
Year 2009
Department SUSOZ
Volume 22
Issue 5
Page From 47
Page To 80
Language englisch
Keywords ‘Durkheimian dictum’; environment; functionalism; positivism; sociology of knowledge
Abstract

This article argues against Catton and Dunlap’s claims that the natural environment has been ignored or downplayed in American sociology before the emergence of environmental sociology in the 1970s. By reviewing a collection of 86 sociology textbooks between 1894 and 1980, the article provides quantitative evidence regarding the scope and types of references to the natural environment in mainstream sociology. The bulk of the article is based on an interpretive-historical analysis of the different representations of the environment in the textbook literature. This analysis is carried out from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, whereby sociological ideas about nature are interpreted in terms of their intellectual milieu and social context. The main finding is that the ‘natural environment’ has been interpreted in different ways and has been put to a variety of epistemological and ideological uses — particularly positivism and functionalism — throughout the history of the discipline.


Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=12089
Alexandrescu, F.M. (2009):
Not as natural as it seems: the social history of the environment in American sociology
Hist. Hum. Sci. 22 (5), 47 - 80 10.1177/0952695109347164