Catching up with things? Environmental sociology and the material turn in social theory

Abstract

Environmental sociology was born to study the interaction of human societies with the material world, yet the concept of matter has been neglected. Possibly for this reason, the material (or ontological) ‘turn’ taking place in social theory hasinvolved the discipline more marginally than other fields. The relevance of new materialist positions to environmental sociology is addressed. On one side, the realism/constructionism diatribe is sidestepped by an understanding of knowledge and materiality as mutually constituted and incessantly remoulded, and of agency as distributed among human and nonhuman entities, hence humble and non-dominative. On the other, the traditional idea of critique is replaced by a case for affirmative, embodied practices, arguably exemplified by emergent environmental mobilizations. At a closer look, however, new materialist standpoints result embroiled with the Western metaphysical tradition, neglecting how today non-dualist modalities may end up supporting, rather than opposing, exploitative orientations like those emergent in biotech and climate policy. Environmental sociology should address the new theoretical tide with care, working on and with non-dualist standpoints without forgetting the unbridgeable gap between matter and its ontologies. To this purpose the theoretical\ud heritage of the discipline, and namely Adorno’s negative dialectics, may turn out valuable

Guarding crops from monkey troops: farmer-monkey interaction near a nature reserve in Guangxi, China

“…Ontology in social science has recently gone through the wave of post-humanism, which rejects the exceptionalism of Homo Sapiens. Several paradigm shifts, such as the 'animal turn' (Ritvo 2007), 'multispecies turn' (Kirksey and Helmreich 2010) and 'material turn' (Pellizzoni 2016), call for a reconsideration of animals, living organisms and materials -in short, the agency of 'nature' in the broad sense. These shifts can be understood in two ways: from essentialism to relationality, and from (human) agency to material affectivity (Fox and Alldred 2020).…”

“…Though frequently used in relations between human and companion animals (Haraway 2010; Brown and Dilley 2012), this is highly relevant for relations between human and wildlife. Pellizzoni (2016) observes that as part of a new materialism turn in environmental studies, the generative capacities of landscape and natural resources are foregrounded, and the role of language and social construction, which have long occupied human-wildlife studies in particular, takes a backseat. We agree with Pellizzoni that the material matters.…”

Sustainability, feminist posthumanism and the unusual capacities of (post)humans

“…New materialist ontology is monistic, rejecting dualisms of nature/culture, human/nonhuman, structure/agency, reason/emotion, animate/ inanimate and mind/matter. The increased recent interest in materialist perspectives among feminists and others has been seen as a reaction against social constructionism and textual approaches in social theory (Coole and Frost 2010, 2) though critics have also linked it to neoliberalisation (Braun 2015;Pellizzoni 2016). The other principal criticisms of the new materialisms are that they de-politicise social justice struggles by sidelining essentialist models of identity; that the absence of any conception of social structures, mechanisms or systems undermines capacity to analyse power, resistance and inequalities; and that their 'newness' is only in relation to Western and Eurocentric ontology.…”

Geographical and Level of Local Government Variation on the Phenomenon of Ecological Footprint in Indonesia: Descriptive Analysis

“…Ecological footprint in cities on all islands in Indonesia is always higher than the ecological footprint in the countryside. Following the thinking of Pellizzoni [14] which states that the concept of matter of environmental sociology is allegedly still in a dormant state, the ecological footprint can contribute to clarifying the concept of matter of environmental sociology. The phenomenon of ecological footprint in city countries like Taiwan can be a mirror for reflection.…”