scholarly journals Sociology for sustainability science

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano B. Longo ◽  
Ellinor Isgren ◽  
Brett Clark ◽  
Andrew K. Jorgenson ◽  
Anne Jerneck ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Sustainability Science ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Historical Specificity ◽  
Sociological Thought ◽  
Sustainability Challenges ◽  
Oriented Research

AbstractSociological insights are often underutilized in sustainability science. To further strengthen its commitment to interdisciplinary problem-driven, solutions-oriented research, sustainability science can better incorporate fundamental sociological conceptions into its core. We highlight four aspects of sociological thought that we consider crucial for advancing sustainability science research: (1) social construction and critical realism, (2) structure and agency, (3) historical specificity, and (4) collective action. We draw on examples from sociology to support a dynamic understanding of how social relations interact with the bio-geo-physical world. This necessary integration of sociological insights, we argue, is critical to generate comprehensive assessments of the causes and consequences of human-induced environmental change, and tend to be overlooked or oversimplified within the field of sustainability science. Beyond that, it can stimulate the development and implementation of viable solutions to sustainability challenges.

An Ontology of Capitalism

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-42
Author(s):  
Zoe Adams
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
Legal Form ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
Historical Specificity ◽  
Ontological Framework ◽  
Realist Ontology

This chapter develops an ontological framework through which to explore law’s relationship with capitalist social relations. It draws on insights from critical realism, before developing its ontology through an engagement with the immanent social critique associated with Marx’s Capital. The first section introduces critical realism and its theory of social reality and explains what we can take away from this theory for the purposes of law and legal analysis. This section focuses specifically on how critical realism can contribute to our understanding of the nature, and origins, of social structures and how they influence human behaviour. The second section makes some suggestions about how to refine the critical realist ontology, with a particular focus on the importance of exploring the historical specificity of particular forms of society, and relatedly, of the concepts and categories that are intrinsic to them. Drawing on Marx’s mature critical theory, the third section uses the insights from the previous sections to explore in detail the basic structure of capitalism and to identify and explain the emergence of its constitutive categories before teasing out the implications of this analysis for our understanding of law’s ‘constitutive’ role—the various functions it performs in the context of capitalism. The analysis in this chapter will lay the groundwork for a more detailed analysis of the legal form in Chapter 3.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Rethinking

2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Göran Eriksson
Keyword(s):  
Critical Realism ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Media Consumption ◽  
General Knowledge ◽  
Audience Research ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Oriented Research ◽  
Media Audience

Abstract During the last few decades, the possibilities and limitations of qualitative media audience research have regularly been discussed in media and communication research. Quantitatively oriented researchers have claimed that qualitatively oriented research is incapable of producing general knowledge. From a ‘radical ethnographic’ point of view it has been stated that such knowledge is more or less useless, while other qualitatively oriented researchers have approached the question of generality in a more balanced way, and argued for the necessity to interpret specific events within a framework of more general theories. But these solutions are not satisfactory. The aim of this article is to suggest an alternative conceptualisation of generality. From the meta-theoretical viewpoint of critical realism, this article states that generalisations have to take into consideration the domain of the deep structures of reality. Qualitative media audience research should aim at producing general knowledge about the constituent properties or transfactual conditions of the process of media consumption.

scholarly journals Pattern languages as a design tool to tackle “wicked problems” in sustainability science

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 237-242
Author(s):  
Lilian Ricaud ◽  
Maxime Thibon ◽  
Laurent Marseault ◽  
Jean-Luc Chotte
Keyword(s):  
Sustainability Science ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Pattern Language ◽  
Pattern Languages ◽  
Step Process ◽  
Local Sustainability ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Sustainability Challenges ◽  
Global And Local

Humanity is facing global and local sustainability challenges that call for the involvement of a wide range of expertise drawn from academia, civil society, the private sector, as well as funding and development agencies. The challenge will be to leverage this diversity to nurture decision making. To make such discussions successful we propose a pattern language approach. It can be used as a practical step-by-step process to guide interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers and to facilitate transdisciplinary interactions between the academic and nonacademic worlds. The patterns are documented and freely accessible online in the Sustainable Science Pattern database.

scholarly journals Opinion: Endogenizing culture in sustainability science research and policy

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (27) ◽  
pp. 8157-8159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcellus M. Caldas ◽  
Matthew R. Sanderson ◽  
Martha Mather ◽  
Melinda D. Daniels ◽  
Jason S. Bergtold ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainability Science ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Research And Policy

scholarly journals The erosion of relational values resulting from landscape simplification

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (11) ◽  
pp. 2601-2612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maraja Riechers ◽  
Ágnes Balázsi ◽  
Lydia Betz ◽  
Tolera S. Jiren ◽  
Joern Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Sustainability Science ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Landscape Sustainability ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Relational Values ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
The Social ◽  
Instrumental Values ◽  
Landscape Sustainability Science

Abstract Context The global trend of landscape simplification for industrial agriculture is known to cause losses in biodiversity and ecosystem service diversity. Despite these problems being widely known, status quo trajectories driven by global economic growth and changing diets continue to lead to further landscape simplification. Objectives In this perspective article, we argue that landscape simplification has negative consequences for a range of relational values, affecting the social-ecological relationships between people and nature, as well as the social relationships among people. A focus on relational values has been proposed to overcome the divide between intrinsic and instrumental values that people gain from nature. Results We use a landscape sustainability science framing to examine the interconnections between ecological and social changes taking place in rural landscapes. We propose that increasingly rapid and extreme landscape simplification erodes human-nature connectedness, social relations, and the sense of agency of inhabitants—potentially to the point of severe erosion of relational values in extreme cases. We illustrate these hypothesized changes through four case studies from across the globe. Leaving the links between ecological, social-ecological and social dimensions of landscape change unattended could exacerbate disconnection from nature. Conclusion A relational values perspective can shed new light on managing and restoring landscapes. Landscape sustainability science is ideally placed as an integrative space that can connect relevant insights from landscape ecology and work on relational values. We see local agency as a likely key ingredient to landscape sustainability that should be actively fostered in conservation and restoration projects.

scholarly journals Lonely, Poor, and Ugly? How Cultural Practices and Forms of Capital Relate to Physical Unattractiveness

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-105
Author(s):  
Christian Schneickert ◽  
Leonie C. Steckermeier ◽  
Lisa-Marie Brand
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Physical Appearance ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Structure And Agency

Physical attractiveness is increasingly framed as a meritocratic good that involves individual benefits, such as higher wages or success in the partner market. Investing in one’s physical appearance is thereby seen as a means to increase one’s human capital. While the positive effects are well documented, its counterpart, the dark side of physical appearance, has received much less attention from social science research. This article sheds light on the negative effects of physical appearance using a theoretical framework based on the cultural sociology of Bourdieu, integrating both structure and agency perspectives. Using data from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) from 2014, we demonstrate that unattractiveness is socially stratified by economic, cultural, and social capital. The article highlights the relevance of cultural factors (e.g. forms of cultural capital and cultural practices) for the analysis of the interplay between physical appearance and stratification as well as the relevance of physical appearance for cultural sociology.

Media Representations of Domestic Violence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meda Chesney-Lind ◽  
Nicholas Chagnon
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Routine Manner ◽  
The Media

Though it is generally given less attention than sexual assault, domestic violence is quite often depicted in corporate media products, including news broadcasts, television shows, and films. Mediated depictions of domestic violence share many of the same problems as those of sexual assault. In particular, the media tends to imply that women are somehow culpable when they are being beaten, even murdered, by their partners. News on domestic violence is often reported in a routine manner that focuses on minutiae instead of context, informing audiences minimally about the nature, extent, and causes of domestic violence. Though it is encouraging that over the past several decades the media has begun to acknowledge that domestic violence is a serious problem, this recognition is challenged by antifeminist claims-making in the media. Such challenges generally cite contested social science research as proof that feminist research on domestic violence is biased and inaccurate. Furthermore, media representations of domestic violence often supply racializing and class-biased discourses about abusers and their victims that frame domestic violence as largely the product of marginalized classes, rather a problem that affects the various strata of society. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, media coverage of the violence against women abroad, particularly in Islamic nations, has provided more racializing discourse, which juxtaposes “progressive” Western cultures with “backward” Eastern ones. On the domestic front, news focusing on indigenous communities replicates some of the racism inherent in the orientalist gaze applied to domestic violence abroad. Generally, the media do a poor job of cultivating a sophisticated understanding of domestic violence among the public. Thus, many researchers argue such media representations constitute a hegemonic patriarchal ideology, which obfuscates the issue of domestic violence, as well as the underlying social relations that create the phenomenon.

scholarly journals Does public outreach impede research performance? Exploring the ‘researcher’s dilemma’ in a sustainability research center

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 710-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Kassab
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Evaluation System ◽  
Career Advancement ◽  
Sustainability Science ◽  
Research Performance ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Research Center ◽  
Public Outreach ◽  
Sustainability Research ◽  
Broad Consensus

Abstract Researchers and universities are increasingly urged to communicate their findings to the general public. Despite the broad consensus about the necessity of this task, researchers are still reluctant to engage in public outreach activities. One major reason is that while being somewhat time consuming, engagement in public outreach is not adequately reflected in the metrics that are relevant for career advancement. The study at hand examines to what extent this dilemma is empirically justified. A series of statistical analyses are carried out on the basis of data from a sustainability science research center in Switzerland. The study comes to the conclusion that research performance is overall positively associated to engagement in public outreach activities. This insight has implications for the academic incentive and evaluation system.

The Influence of Dynamic Perspectives on Poverty Analysis and Anti-Poverty Policy in the UK

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETE ALCOCK
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Analysis ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Policy Intervention ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Dynamic Perspective ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Academic Debate

This article provides an overview of the academic debates and recent research on the dynamic perspective on poverty and anti-poverty policy. Renewed theoretical interest in dynamic analysis is discussed in the context of the more general debate about the roles of structure and agency in social relations. This is followed by a brief outline of some of the new empirical datasets now available for longitudinal research, in particular in the UK. The implications of dynamic analysis for our understanding of poverty are summarised, followed by a discussion of the impact of this on anti-poverty policy, again drawing largely on the UK, and some specifically English, developments. The article concludes that dynamic analysis and the role of agency has had a significant impact on both academic debate and policy intervention on poverty, but that this should not be interpreted as leading to an abandonment of policies for structural reform aimed at redistributing resources to the poor.

scholarly journals Actual Trends and Features of Organizational Models of Providing Innovative Development of Regions Application

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Innovation Policy ◽  
Innovation Management ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Organizational Models ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Market Opportunities ◽  
Smart Specialization

The importance of the research, science and innovation as the key factors in prosperity is becoming increasingly relevant because humanity is on the verge of a new wave of transformational innovations, a new era in which digital technology is ever closer to the physical world. There is an urgent need to prioritize investments and to fill the gap with breakthrough innovations. It is important to formulate regulatory frameworks that will encourage, but not interfere innovation, and promote business innovation and business environments. A better understanding of the changes in the dynamics of science, research and innovation and their impact on the country will strengthen the response to a rapidly changing world, providing timely interference in the formation of innovation policy. The article presents the main features of nature of innovation changing: speed, complexity, concentration of benefits, consumers, costs. Identified and noted the most influential problems that hamper innovation development: hardware frameworks, blocked problems, inefficient multilevel governance. The advantages of introducing the concept of smart specialization in the regions are highlighted: the study of new market opportunities, the formation of easy knowledge sharing between different fields of knowledge, the use of appropriate diversity in the fields of knowledge, incentives for structural adjustment of the economy through the introduction of innovative practices in the economy and society. The innovation management model based on the interaction of Triple Helix, as synergy between all the innovation-related areas of social activity: research institutions, business, and government on regional level is presented. Social innovations as an instrument for implementing complex inter-sectorial interactions within the framework of strategies for sustainable development and economic growth of the region are noted.

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