Social ecology

Social Ecology brings together a selection of pioneering essays on a subject of increasing interest to sociologists and social anthropologists. With the growing awareness of the causes and consequences of environmental degradation, the once neglected field of 'social ecology' has assumed enormous theoretical and practical import. The essays assembled in this Reader provide a 'state of the art' survey of the field as well as an orientation to future research.

The introduction, while analysing the neglect of ecological issues in the dominant traditions of social science, discusses the alternative, ecologically sensitive traditions of 'cultural ecology'. The selections in Section I, 'Nature and Culture', illustrate in different ways the relationship between ecological context and social structure. Section II, 'Resource Use and Abuse', provides several case studies of the social organization of natural resource use and/ or the social forces behind environmental destruction. Section III, 'Conflicts over Nature', highlights competing claims over forests and wildlife in the past and in the present, while Section IV, Towards Environmental Renewal', presents two reflective, programmatic statements on environmentally sound development.