scholarly journals Conservation social science: Understanding and integrating human dimensions to improve conservation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Bennett ◽  
Robin Roth ◽  
Sarah C. Klain ◽  
Kai M. A. Chan ◽  
Patrick Christie ◽  
...  

It has long been claimed that a better understanding of human or social dimensions of environmental issues will improve conservation. The social sciences are one important means through which researchers and practitioners can attain that better understanding. Yet, a lack of awareness of the scope and uncertainty about the purpose of the conservation social sciences impedes the conservation community's effective engagement with the human dimensions. This paper examines the scope and purpose of eighteen subfields of classic, interdisciplinary and applied conservation social sciences and articulates ten distinct contributions that the social sciences can make to understanding and improving conservation. In brief, the conservation social sciences can be valuable to conservation for descriptive, diagnostic, disruptive, reflexive, generative, innovative, or instrumental reasons. This review and supporting materials provides a succinct yet comprehensive reference for conservation scientists and practitioners. We contend that the social sciences can help facilitate conservation policies, actions and outcomes that are more legitimate, salient, robust and effective.

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-28
Author(s):  
Efnan Dervişoğlu

Almanya’ya işçi göçü, neden ve sonuçları, sosyal boyutlarıyla ele alınmış; göç ve devamındaki süreçte yaşanan sorunlar, konunun uzmanlarınca dile getirilmiştir. Fakir Baykurt’un Almanya öyküleri, sunduğu gerçekler açısından, sosyal bilimlerin ortaya koyduğu verilerle bağdaşan edebiyat ürünleri arasındadır. Yirmi yılını geçirdiği Almanya’da, göçmen işçilerle ve aileleriyle birlikte olup işçi çocuklarının eğitimine yönelik çalışmalarda bulunan yazarın gözlem ve deneyimlerinin ürünü olan bu öyküler, kaynağını yaşanmışlıktan alır; çalışmanın ilk kısmında, Fakir Baykurt’un yaşamına ve Almanya yıllarına dair bilgi verilmesi, bununla ilişkilidir. Öykülere yansıyan çocuk yaşamı ise çalışmanın asıl konusunu oluşturmaktadır. “Ev ve aile yaşamı”, “Eğitim yaşamı ve sorunları”, “Sosyal çevre, arkadaşlık ilişkileri ve Türk-Alman ayrılığı” ile “İki kültür arasında” alt başlıklarında, Türkiye’den göç eden işçi ailelerinde yetişen çocukların Almanya’daki yaşamları, karşılaştıkları sorunlar, öykülerin sunduğu veriler ışığında değerlendirilmiş; örneklemeye gidilmiştir. Bu öyküler, edebiyatın toplumsal gerçekleri en iyi yansıtan sanat olduğu görüşünü doğrular niteliktedir ve sosyolojik değerlendirmelere açıktır. ENGLISH ABSTRACTMigration and Children in Fakir Baykurt’s stories from GermanyThe migration of workers to Germany has been taken up with its causes, consequences and social dimensions; the migration and the problems encountered in subsequent phases have been stated by experts in the subject. Fakir Baykurt’s stories from Germany, regarding the reality they represent, are among the literary forms that coincide with the facts supplied by social sciences. These stories take their sources from true life experiences as the products of observations and experiences with migrant workers and their families in Germany where the writer has passed twenty years of his life and worked for the education of the worker’s children; therefore information related to Fakir Baykurt’s life and his years in Germany are provided in the first part of the study.  The life of children reflected in the stories constitutes the main theme of the study.  Under  the subtitles of “Family and Home Life”, “Education Life and related issues”, “Social environment, friendships and Turkish-German disparity” and “Amidst two cultures”, the lives in Germany of children who have been  raised in working class  families and  who have immigrated from Turkey are  evaluated under the light of facts provided by the stories and examples are given. These stories appear to confirm that literature is an art that reflects the social reality and is open to sociological assessments.KEYWORDS: Fakir Baykurt; Germany; labor migration; child; story


2011 ◽  
pp. 97-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Marchak

Summary This paper presents the main approaches and issues of Anglo-canadian sociology of the last forty years, showing their limits and their theoretical inadequacies. It discusses the current practices of sociologists and asks the question: which social dimensions should be taken into account to strenghten sociological theory. It emphasizes the necessity to go beyond the framework of the social sciences to build a proper understanding of humanity and social activity.


ILUMINURAS ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (41) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Luis Abalos Junior

Este relato é fruto de reflexões que tive na graduação em Ciências Sociais e no Mestrado Acadêmico em Antropologia Social (PPGAS/UFRGS) nos quais me deparei inúmeras vezes com a reflexão da questão das políticas que envolvem a temática ambiental. Entendendo estas experiências como significativas para o desenvolvimento dos estudos ambientais dentro de perspectivas antropológicas, faço uma síntese sobre os principais conceitos a serem tratados em propostas como a de um currículo de estudo. Entre estes conceitos se inserem o de responsabilidade social e ambiental entrando no debate da conferência da ONU sobre “o futuro que queremos”. Riscos ambientais e contaminação também são categorias de importante discursão num programa desse tipo. O debate sobre políticas e democracia traz a tona a análise de políticas ambientais como a de Belo Monte. A contextualização de novos tipos de cidadania, como a ecológica, desperta atenção para novos conceitos como o de sustentabilidade e desenvolvimento sustentável. Esse modelo de trânsitos na política instiga novos debates como o de Conflitos e Justiça Ambientais. Assim como a política em transito adentra a discursão sobre o que são populações tradicionais. A Educação Ambiental aparece nesse sentido como uma dimensão político-pedagógica importante para o desenvolvimento de novos sujeitos capazes de pensar a “política do eu” e as “políticas da natureza”. Por fim, faço uma breve reflexão sobre a produção de uma antropologia vitalista em Tim Ingold relacionando com o rompimento de uma disciplinaridade, empreitada importante ao dialogarmos sobre políticas ambientais.Palavras-Chaves: Ambientalismo. Natureza. Currículo.Environmental Policies : A chance of curriculumAbstract This report is the result of reflections from the period of my undergraduated studies on Social Sciences to masters on Social Anthropology (PPGAS/UFRGS) during which I deal many times with the issue about policies that involve environmental issues. Understanding these experiences as significant for the development of environmental studies within anthropological perspectives, I make a synthesis of the main concepts would be treated in proposals such as a study curriculum. These concepts include the social and environmental responsibility add in the UN conference debate about "the future we want". Environmental risks and contamination are also important categories to discussion in this kind of program. Debate on policies and democracy brings out the analysis of environmental policies such as Belo Monte. Contextualization of new types of citizenship, such as ecological citizenship, arouses attention to new concepts such as sustainability and sustainable development. This model of transits in politics instigates new debates as Conflicts and Environmental Justice. Likewise, the policies in transit enter the discussion about what are traditional populations. In this sense, environmental education appears as an important political and pedagogical dimension to the development of new subjects able to think the “policy of self” and the "policy of nature”. Finally, I make a brief reflection on the production of a vitalist anthropology at Tim Ingold connected to a break of a disciplinary, important approach to dialogue on environmental policies.Keywords: Environmentalism. Nature. Curriculum. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher F. Labosier

A firm definition of geography is often elusive and at times, the field is criticized for borrowing heavily from other disciplines. However, this article argues that the real strength of geography is its integrative nature. The purpose of this article is to discuss geography's integrative nature and how this strength can be integrated into the undergraduate environmental science curriculum. Two brief examples are provided from the author's own teaching and research experiences. Concept mapping in an introductory environmental science class allows students to visualize the complexity and integrative nature of environmental issues. In the atmospheric science classroom, students are introduced not only to the physical processes of weather hazards, but to the social dimensions as well. It is imperative that future scientists, advocates, and decision makers learn to critically integrate across disciplines to solve the world's most pressing environmental issues.


Author(s):  
Mark Fedyk

This chapter defines descriptive moral psychology as any psychological research that investigates the cognitive and emotional foundations of the patterns of behaviour that are described by an example of hard-question social theory. Descriptive moral psychology therefore studies the psychological dimensions of the patterns of behaviour which have their social dimensions described by research in the social sciences and humanities.


Author(s):  
Dietmar Neufeld

Social-scientific criticism is the stage in the exegetical process that brings scrutiny to bear on the religious, geographical, historical, economic, social codes, and cultural values operative within the world of early Christianity. It does so by utilizing the perspectives, theories, and models generated by the social sciences. Broadly defined, social-scientific criticism approaches the texts of the New Testament from the viewpoint that meaning in language is embedded in a social system that is shared and understood by speakers, hearers, and readers in the communication process. It investigates the social features of the form and content of the texts along with the factors that gave shape to them. It seeks to discover the intended consequences of the communication process. It looks for complementary relationships between the texts linguistic, literary, ideological, and social dimensions—each of which contributes to a proper analysis and understanding of the texts of the New Testament. Social-scientific criticism investigates the manner of textual communication—that texts were strategically designed for effective social interaction that had social, literary, and theological consequence. Most significantly, it seeks to isolate the social data embedded in texts and constructs models that simplify and systematize the data for comparative purposes. Models of social phenomena such as kinship and family, honor and shame, patronage and clientage, collectivism, social status, limited good, evil eye, purity and pollution, ritual, gender and sexuality, landscape and spatiality, ancient economies, healing and health, and social memory permit the careful examination of these issues in biblical texts in socially significant ways.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 5031 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Barreiro-Gen ◽  
Rodrigo Lozano ◽  
Afnan Zafar

The COVID-19 outbreak has affected societies and organisations in an unprecedented way. This has resulted in negative impacts to economic and social issues, but it is a “blessing in disguise” for environmental issues. This paper analyses how the outbreak has affected organisations’ sustainability priorities. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, such priorities were on the economic dimension followed by the environmental and social dimensions. A survey was sent to 11,657 organisations to analyse such changes, with a 5.60% response rate. The results show that for organisations, the main priority is now on the social dimension, followed by the economic one; however, the environmental dimension has suffered a negative impact in prioritisation, regardless of organisation type, country where they are based, organisation size, or the time they have been working on sustainability. We are currently facing an environmental conundrum, where air quality has improved and pollution has decreased in societies, but organisations are starting to neglect such environmental issues. The COVID-19 outbreak is an opportunity for organisations to better contribute to sustainability by ensuring that the efforts that have been undertaken in the last three decades are not forgotten, and that societies and organisations are better coupled to face such crises and avert rebound effects.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-45
Author(s):  
Daniel Benamouzig ◽  
Olivier Borraz ◽  
Jean-Noël Jouzel ◽  
Danielle Salomon

The contribution of social sciences to risk assessment has often been confined to dimensions of risk perception and communication. This article relates an effort to promote knowledge from the social sciences that addresses other dimensions of risk issues. A sociological checklist produced for ANSES in France helps to identify and analyse social dimensions that should be given attention during the process of risk assessment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-494
Author(s):  
Joana C. Pereira ◽  
Eduardo Viola

AbstractThis commentary examines the challenge of sustainable development in the Amazon, arguing that global efforts to mitigate climate change and current Amazonian policies are clearly inadequate to prevent global warming and deforestation from tipping the forest into a savanna. It analyses the growing climate pressures jeopardising the Amazon's resilience; the erratic Brazilian, Bolivian, Colombian, Ecuadorian and Peruvian governance of the forest; and the failure of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) to establish long-term forest conservation policies in the region. The research demonstrates that the ‘savannisation hypothesis’ is potentially closer to reality than most debates in the social sciences assume and should be considered seriously. The commentary concludes by suggesting possible pathways for preventing the dieback of the Amazon. These are based on three strategic axes: the strengthening of the ACTO, the promotion of a technological revolution in the forest, and a progressive environmental diplomacy by the Amazonian countries.


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