Full download ebook at ebookname.

com

Controversies in Environmental Sociology Robert

White

https://ebookname.com/product/controversies-in-
environmental-sociology-robert-white/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWLOAD NOW

Download more ebook from https://ebookname.com

More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

International Handbook of Environmental Sociology

Second Edition M. R. Redclift

https://ebookname.com/product/international-handbook-of-
environmental-sociology-second-edition-m-r-redclift/

Asian Politics in Development Essays in Honour of

Gordon White Robert Benewick

https://ebookname.com/product/asian-politics-in-development-
essays-in-honour-of-gordon-white-robert-benewick/

The Ethics of Surgery Conflicts and Controversies 1st

Edition Robert M. Sade

https://ebookname.com/product/the-ethics-of-surgery-conflicts-
and-controversies-1st-edition-robert-m-sade/

Controversies in Monetary Economics John Smithin

https://ebookname.com/product/controversies-in-monetary-
economics-john-smithin/
Controversies in Queer Theology 1st Edition Cornwall

https://ebookname.com/product/controversies-in-queer-
theology-1st-edition-cornwall/

Environmental Fluid Mechanics 1st Edition Robert D.

Morrison

https://ebookname.com/product/environmental-fluid-mechanics-1st-
edition-robert-d-morrison/

Cultural Sociology of Divorce An Encyclopedia 1st

Edition Robert E. Emery

https://ebookname.com/product/cultural-sociology-of-divorce-an-
encyclopedia-1st-edition-robert-e-emery/

Key Controversies in European Integration 3rd Edition

Zimmermann

https://ebookname.com/product/key-controversies-in-european-
integration-3rd-edition-zimmermann/

Green Criminology An Introduction to the Study of

Environmental Harm 1st Edition Rob White

https://ebookname.com/product/green-criminology-an-introduction-
to-the-study-of-environmental-harm-1st-edition-rob-white/
This page intentionally left blank
CONTROVERSIES IN
E N V I R O N M E N TA L S O C I O L O G Y

This comprehensive textbook deals with the key issues and

controversies in environmental sociology today. Each chapter deals
with discrete issues in a manner that captures the main debates, the
central figures, and the social nature of environment-related trends.
The text reflects international developments in the area, as well as
drawing upon specific case examples and materials. It includes
contributions from leading experts in the field, and is compiled by one
of Australia’s best-known sociologists, Professor Rob White. Written
in accessible language, with further reading lists for students at the
end of each chapter, Controversies in Environmental Sociology provides a
timely introduction to the subject.

Rob White is Professor of Sociology at the University of Tasmania.

CONTROVERSIES IN
E N V I R O N M E N TA L
SOCIOLOGY

Edited by Rob White

  
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge  , UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521601023

© Cambridge University Press 2004

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of

relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place
without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published in print format 2004

- ---- eBook (EBL)

- --- eBook (EBL)

- ---- paperback

- --- paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of s
for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not
guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
CONTENTS

Tables and Figures vii

Author Notes viii
Abbreviations x

Introduction: Sociology, Society and the Environment

ROB WHITE 1

PART I SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES

1 Old Traditions and New Ages: Religions and
Environments DOUGLAS EZZY 8
2 Social Nature: The Environmental Challenge to Mainstream
Social Theory STEWART LOCKIE 26
3 Gender, Eco-Feminism and the Environment
VAL PLUMWOOD 43
4 Animals, ‘Nature’ and Human Interests LYLE MUNRO 61
5 Governing Environmental Harms in a Risk Society
VAUGHAN HIGGINS AND KRISTIN NATALIER 77

PART II SOCIAL TRENDS

6 When the Population Clock Stops Ticking
NATALIE JACKSON 92
7 Inequality, Social Differences and Environmental
Resources ROBERTA JULIAN 113
8 Sustainable Technology: Beyond Fix and Fixation
AIDAN DAVISON 132
9 Think Global, Act Local: Scalar Challenges to
Sustainable Development of Marine Environments
ELAINE STRATFORD 150

V
VI CONTENTS

10 Citizenship and Sustainability: Rights and Responsibilities in the

Global Age JULIE DAVIDSON 168
11 The Environment Movement: Where to from Here?
BRUCE TRANTER 185

PART III SOCIAL ISSUES

12 Moulding and Manipulating the News SHARON BEDER 204
13 Agricultural Production and the Ecological Question
GEOFFREY LAWRENCE, LYNDA CHESHIRE AND CAROL
ACKROYD RICHARDS 221
14 Pathological Environments PETER CURSON AND LINDIE
CLARK 238
15 Assessing the Social Consequences of Planned
Interventions FRANK VANCLAY 257
16 Criminology, Social Regulation and Environmental
Harm ROB WHITE 275

Index 293
TA B L E S

4.1 Mean scores of Australian and American activists’ attitudes

towards the use of animals 64
9.1 Major targets and timetables adopted at the World Summit
on Sustainable Development on Oceans, Coasts
and Islands 160
11.1 Membership of environmental groups 189
11.2 Urgency of environmental issues in Australia 192
11.3 Social bases of environmental new politics 195
14.1 Top ten surgical site infection rates, US contributing
hospitals 246
14.2 Australian air-quality standards for ambient and workplace
environments 250

FIGURES
6.1 Age–sex structures of the less and more developed
countries 96
6.2 Population growth rates (annual %) 99
6.3 Comparing short- and long-run Malthusian cycles
with Cornucopian tech-fix cycles 107

VII
AUTHOR NOTES

Sharon Beder is a Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Media

and Communication at the University of Wollongong.
Lynda Cheshire is a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Social
Science at the University of Queensland.
Lindie Clark is Lecturer in Health Studies at Macquarie University.
Peter Curson is Professorial Fellow in Medical Geography and Head of
the Health Studies Program at Macquarie University.
Julie Davidson is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and prin-
cipal researcher in the Sustainable Communities Research Group in
the School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of
Tasmania.
Aidan Davison is an Australia Research Council Fellow in the Sustain-
able Communities Research Group at the University of Tasmania.
Douglas Ezzy is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of
Tasmania.
Vaughan Higgins is a Lecturer in sociology at the Gippsland Campus
of Monash University, Australia.
Natalie Jackson is a Senior Lecturer in social demography at the
University of Tasmania.
Roberta Julian is Associate Professor and Director of the Tasmanian
Institute of Law Enforcement Studies at the University of Tasmania.
Geoffrey Lawrence is Professor of Sociology, and Head of the School
of Social Science, at the University of Queensland.
Stewart Lockie is Director of the Centre for Social Science Research
and Senior Lecturer in Environmental and Rural Sociology at Central
Queensland University.

VIII
 AUTHOR NOTES IX

Lyle Munro teaches Sociology in the School of Humanities, Com-

munications and Social Sciences at the Gippsland campus of Monash
University in Victoria.
Kristin Natalier is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Sociology
and Social Work, University of Tasmania.
Val Plumwood is an Australia Research Council Fellow at the
Australian National University.
Carol Ackroyd Richards is a PhD candidate in the School of Social
Science at the University of Queensland.
Elaine Stratford is a Senior Lecturer in Geography and Environmental
Studies at the University of Tasmania.
Bruce Tranter is Senior Lecturer in the School of Political Science and
International Studies at the University of Queensland.
Frank Vanclay is a Professorial Research Fellow in rural sociology at
the Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research at the University
of Tasmania in Hobart.
Rob White is Professor of Sociology at the University of Tasmania.
A B B R E V I AT I O N S

AGPS Australian Government Publishing Service

ANU Australian National University
COAG Council of Australian Governments
CQU Central Queensland University
EIA Environmental Impact Assessment
EMO environmental movement organisation
EMS environmental management system(s)
FAIR Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
GEF Global Environment Facility
GMO genetically modified organism
IAIA International Association for Impact Assessment
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
ISO International Standards Organisation
LULUs locally unwanted land uses
NEPA US National Environment Policy Act 1969
NEPC National Environment Protection Council
NH&MRC National Health & Medical Research Council
NIABY Not In Anyone’s Backyard
NIMBY Not In My Backyard
NNIS National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance System
NOHSC National Occupational Health and Safety Commission
NOPE Not On Planet Earth
NSM new social movements
PBS Public Broadcasting Service
PETA People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
SEA strategic environmental assessment
SIA Social Impact Assessment
SIDS small island developing states
SMO social movement organisation
STS science, technology and society
TFR Total Fertility Rate
TWS The Wilderness Society
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
UNSW University of New South Wales
USAID United States Agency for International Development
WSSD World Summit on Sustainable Development

X
INTRODUCTION
Sociology, Society and the Environment

Rob White

Environmental issues, problems and struggles are central to human life

in the 21st century. The relationship between ‘society’ and the ‘environ-
ment’ has generated much in the way of both action and analysis over
the last thirty years. As local and global environments rapidly change,
and as humans modify their behaviour in relation to how and where
they live, the importance of studying the interface between society and
environment has likewise steadily grown.
Different writers have different conceptions as to what constitutes
the most appropriate way to analyse ‘environment and society’, and
indeed what to include as part of such discussions. For some, the impor-
tant thing is to consider particular environmental issues such as soil
degradation, declining biodiversity, solid waste problems, chemical pol-
lution, global climate change, use of fossil fuels – the list goes on. For
others, the approach may be more conceptual, in the sense of locating
debates over and about the environment within the context of social
and political theory, such as analysis of different ways in which ‘nature’
is defined and perceived, theorising the relationship between human
beings and ‘nature’ and human beings and non-human animals, exam-
ining the ways in which industrialisation and globalisation impinge on
environments, and exploring the agency of human beings in relation to
their environments and as part of social movements about the environ-
ment. The complexity and overlap of issues and approaches surrounding
the environment means that there will necessarily be myriad different
ways in which to study the environment–human nexus.
The aim of this book is to provide an introduction to environmental
sociology, and to do so by providing an overview of key controversies
within the field. The book is meant to whet the appetite for sociological
analysis of environmental issues, to raise relevant questions, rather than

1
2 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

to provide definitive answers or one-size-fits-all theoretical models. As

such, the intention is to stimulate further thinking and research in this
area, and to indicate future lines of sociological inquiry. This is evident
in the wide range of issues and approaches discussed in the book. From
demographic changes to unhealthy living environments, perceptions of
technology to assessment of risk, the chapters present insights into the
nature of many different types of environmental issues. They do so by
comparing and contrasting competing and often opposing perspectives,
thus illustrating the tensions and conflicts in how issues are defined, per-
ceived and responded to. Collectively they demonstrate the varieties,
and importance, of environmental sociology.

ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

Sociology is about people, institutions and behaviours. It is about social
interactions and social structures. Ideally, sociology consists in thinking
about the nature of society, and comparing any particular society with
what went before and what it is likely to become. The concern is with
both ‘what is’, and ‘what ought to be’. The task of the sociologist, in
this perspective, is to stand back from commonsense views of the world
to investigate where we are and where we are going. It is about gaining
a sense of historical and global perspective. It is about understanding
the structure and processes of a society as a whole, including global
societies.
Sociology is about issues relating to social inclusion – the ‘insid-
ers’ and participating members of any society. What are the ways in
which people behave, feel, think, and act, and why do they do so in
the ways they do? What binds us together as a social whole? Sociol-
ogy is also about issues relating to social exclusion – the ‘outsiders’ who
are excluded from the mainstream of social life and social opportuni-
ties. How do we explain why it is that some people are privileged in
their lifestyles and choices, while others are disadvantaged? What sep-
arates us from each other? Sociology is thus about the boundaries of the
conventional and the unconventional. It is about the dynamic ways in
which people are brought into and left out of the social order.
Sociology is about understanding and dealing with social problems.
It is concerned with defining whether or not an issue is indeed a
social problem, rather than simply a personal trouble or a natural phe-
nomenon, and why this is the case. It is also concerned with devising
social policies and/or developing practical applied strategies that can be
used to address social problems. In other words, sociology is about acting
on judgements made about the world around us. In my view, sociology
 INTRODUCTION 3

is about putting things into context, about challenging the status quo,
and about making the world a better place. It is essentially about three
important tasks: see, judge, act.
Environmental sociology is about translating these tasks into analy-
sis and action around environmental issues. To illustrate this, we can
consider the matter of drinking water. Sociologically, investigation of
drinking water could proceed by looking at how water is managed
and distributed, historically and in different cultural contexts. It could
examine differences and similarities between societies in which drink-
ing water is freely provided, and those in which it is sold for profit.
It could compare the place of water in societies in which it is scarce,
with those in which it is abundant, from the point of view of control,
access and symbolic importance. Social differences in the use of water
may be apparent within a society. So too, water may represent affluence
for specific classes and castes, or for particular societies compared to
others. Water, therefore, is integrally linked to certain kinds of social
structures, social interactions and social processes of inclusion and
exclusion.
A distinction can also be made between a ‘problem’ (unsafe drink-
ing water) and a ‘sociological problem’ (why or why not unsafe drink-
ing water is considered a social problem). In some towns and cities, for
example, poor-quality drinking water is simply taken for granted, as no
big deal. Residents may respond to the potential ill effects of the water
by boiling it. Over time, they get so used to boiling their water that they
don’t even think twice about it. Thus they may never really challenge
why it is that the water is so bad to begin with. In other places, water
provision means something else. It is taken for granted by residents that
water is, and ought to be, of good quality. Any negative change to water
quality will be met with outrage and concerted public action to clean up
the supply. In each of these cases, there may be unsafe drinking water.
Sociology can help us discern why different people respond differently
to what appears to be much the same problem.
Some questions to ask are:

What is the problem?

To answer this we need to identify the initial problem, such as unsafe
drinking water. In order to do this we have to deal with issues of defi-
nition and evidence of harm. We have to analyse potentially compet-
ing claims as to whether or not the problem exists, and diverse lay and
expert opinion on how the problem is interpreted. Does it pose a risk,
and if so, to whom, and in what ways? Is the initial problem serious
4 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

enough in the public’s eye to warrant a social response in the form of

community action or state intervention?

Why does the problem occur?

To answer this we need to examine the social context, and to investigate
the actions of key actors involved. In this instance, we might analyse
matters relating to the ownership, control and regulation of drinking
water. Who is responsible for water quality? Whose job is it to manage
the resource and to whom are they accountable and how?

What are the social dynamics that allow the problem to persist?
To answer this we need to tackle issues pertaining to the shaping of
perceptions, interpretation of events, and intervention processes. To
explain why unsafe drinking water persists as a problem, we might ask
the following subset of questions:
r Is the problem socially constructed as a social problem warranting
social action; if so, how? (e.g. the emphasis might be on the financial
costs of clean-up, or charging for water treatment and use, or making
reference to the natural limits of a local environmental resource).
r In what ways is the problem construed from the point of view of
social regulation and what forms of state and private intervention are
mobilised to contain or manage the problem? (e.g. appeal to self-
regulation, or regulation premised on the setting of standards, or
strong state intervention).
r Is the problem itself to be addressed, or is the focus on how best
to avoid, cover up or manage any risk associated with the problem?
(e.g. signs telling the public not to drink water or to boil it first,
installation of water filtration systems).

Regardless of the specific environmental issue or specific social prob-

lem, sociological analysis needs to take into account a wide range of
concerns.
Implementing ‘see, judge, act’ in relation to the environment means:
r being cognisant of how environmental issues are socially con-
structed: how expertise is mobilised and perceptions influenced by a vari-
ety of different actors.
r identifying the social forces and actors involved in portraying, caus-
ing or responding to an environmental issue: the institutions, people
 INTRODUCTION 5

and social structures that are associated with a particular trend, event or
problem.
r examining how perceptions are influenced by various techniques
that affirm or neutralise an issue, how ideas are contested politically
and via legal and other means, and how emotions are intertwined in
and through public discourses: the modes of communication and affec-
tation that shape the construction of social problems.
r investigating how social power is organised in support of particular
social interests, in ways that lead to unequal distributions of actual
risks and perceived risks: the ways in which social inequalities are man-
ifest in environmental matters.
How to comprehend issues and events, and how and on what basis
to engage with institutions and groups, are strong thematic currents
evident throughout this book. Environmental sociology is, more often
than not, about swimming against the tide. In furthering the endeav-
ours of understanding the world, making judgements about it, and act-
ing within it, it is hoped that the book will provide insights into how
best to navigate the sometimes murky waters of environmental issues.
Good sociology is never far from controversy.

ABOUT THE BOOK

And, of course, this book is very much informed by a sense of ‘con-
troversy’. Across a wide diversity of topic areas it is apparent that cer-
tain debates and conflicts, specific differences in approach and opinion,
and opposing as well as complementary viewpoints come to the fore.
The nature, sources and consequences of these controversies provide
a useful and interesting way in which to frame environmental issues,
and ultimately to understand better the dynamic relationship between
society and environment.
The main idea behind the book is to expose the reader to a wide
range of intellectual and environmental issues. Indeed, the book’s
contribution is that it will present ideas and information, and various
authors and types of literature, to a wider audience than perhaps has
been the case hitherto. The book operates at two levels of exposure.
First, it brings together disparate topic areas in a way that allows differ-
ent types of concerns and issues to be considered in the one volume.
These have been grouped under thematic headings: social perspec-
tives, social trends, and social issues. This enables a reasonably cohesive
grouping of topics while still maintaining a sense of diversity. Social
perspectives allude to ways of seeing the world; social trends refer to
6 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

patterns and developments; and social issues make reference to specific

social problems and dilemmas.
Second, each chapter is structured in such a way as to provide a sys-
tematic review of important issues and debates within that particular
topic area. The key to environmental sociology is to consider the specif-
ically social dimensions of environmental issues. This requires analysis
of the social dynamics that shape and allow certain types of activities
pertaining to the environment to take place over time. Each chapter
begins by providing a general background to the issues. This is followed
by explication of the key debates within the particular topic area. The
chapters conclude with a signposting of future directions in the area –
analytically, empirically, and with a view to the challenges that lie
ahead. The book is meant to describe, to expose, and to excite.
Not only are the topic areas diffuse and variable, but so too are those
working on different problems within environmental sociology. As this
book demonstrates, one does not have to be a ‘sociologist’ to do sociol-
ogy, and sociology itself has many different analytical dimensions. Not
surprisingly, we find that much of the debate about environmental issues
is intrinsically sociological and certainly multidisciplinary. The bound-
aries of sociology are not determined by ‘who you are’, but by ‘what you
do’. A social science perspective on environmental issues is what unifies
the contributions to the present volume.

CONCLUSION − THE BEGINNING

The purpose of this introductory chapter has been to give a rationale
for the book, and to provide an analytical context within which the
contents might be situated. While the rendition of ‘what is environ-
mental sociology’ may be somewhat idiosyncratic (reflecting as it does
the author’s personal interpretation of the discipline), the purpose is
not to establish analytical boundaries. Rather, as with the book as a
whole, the intention is to open up further conceptual, empirical and
action-oriented possibilities.
As a sub-field of sociology, environmental sociology has seen con-
siderable growth in recent years, as much as anything reflecting signifi-
cant changes in the environment and in public consciousness of these
changes. Simultaneously, interest in environmental issues and problems
has left no discipline untouched, whether this be economics, politi-
cal science, geography or law. These developments have also generated
extensive cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration. In one sense,
we are increasingly talking the same language. Yet this language gets
ever more complicated and complex.
 INTRODUCTION 7

This book takes its place as a contribution to the diversity of

viewpoints, theories and empirical analyses evident across the broad
spectrum of social science writing. It is hoped that the debates and con-
troversies described in it will provide markers of where environmental
sociology is at today – and where we need to go into the future.

Further Reading
Athanasiou, T. 1996, Divided Planet: The ecology of rich and poor, Boston MA:
Little, Brown & Co.
Barry, J. 1999, Environment and Social Theory, London: Routledge.
Cudworth, E. 2003, Environment and Society, London: Routledge.
Franklin, A. 2002, Nature and Social Theory, London: Sage.
Hannigan, J. 1995, Environmental Sociology, London: Routledge.
Harper, C. 2004, Environment and Society: Human perspectives on environmental
issues, 3rd edn, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Harvey, D. 1996, Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference, Oxford:
Blackwell.
Hay, P. 2002, Main Currents in Western Environmental Thought, Sydney: UNSW
Press.
Macnaghten, P., and J. Urry 1998, Contested Natures, London: Sage.
Wright Mills, C. 1959, The Sociological Imagination, New York: Oxford
University Press.
C H A P T E R O N E

OLD TRADITIONS AND NEW AGES:

RELIGIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS

Douglas Ezzy

Surely religion has little to say of significance about the environment?

That is a central argument of this chapter. However, it is only half the
story, and the opening sentence may not have quite the meaning that
you think. It is the Christian tradition and its secularised descendant
‘consumerist capitalism’ that are the religious traditions that have typ-
ically devalued the natural world by ignoring it. This world is of little
significance if salvation is primarily in the next world and the key
encounter in this world is between an individual’s soul and a transcen-
dent deity seen as Other. Similarly, in consumerist capitalism, talk of
the rights of trees, fish, or mountains seems strange when human plea-
sure and wealth are the criteria by which all actions are judged. I argue
that at the heart of the current environmental crisis is the relegation of
the environment to something of peripheral significance. This relega-
tion derives from the religious traditions of Christianity and consumer
capitalism.
Other religious traditions, such as indigenous traditions, Buddhism,
and contemporary Paganism, have very different approaches to the nat-
ural world. Typically, these traditions regard this earth as important, and
do not consider human pleasure and wealth to be adequate justifications
for large-scale environmental destruction. The effects of these religious
traditions is clearest in their outcomes: they have fostered human soci-
eties that live in a largely ecologically sustainable relationship with the
forests, rivers, and animals around them.
However, it is too simplistic to blame Christianity for the current
environmental crisis and point to other religious traditions as solutions.
Gottlieb (1996a: 9) argues: ‘religions have been neither simple agents
of environment domination nor unmixed repositories of ecological wis-
dom. In complex and variable ways, they have been both.’ Indigenous

8
 RELIGIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS 9

traditions have been involved in ecologically destructive activities

(Flannery 1994). Some Christians have advocated a more sensitive
approach to the environment (Tucker 2003). Further, the social and
cultural formation of contemporary consumerist capitalism has a quasi-
religious dynamism all of its own (Greider 1997; Loy 1997) that has
played a central role in environmental destruction.
Nonetheless, Lynn White (1967: 1204) was surely correct when he
argued in 1967 that: ‘More science and more technology are not going
to get us out of the present ecologic crisis until we find a new religion, or
rethink our old one.’ At the heart of the contemporary ecological cri-
sis is a theological, and sociological, problem. The destruction of huge
sections of the world’s ecosystems is a product of a culture imbued with
theologically derived beliefs about the relationship of humans to the
non-human world.
BACKGROUND TO THE ISSUES
What they [environmentalists] want from religion happens to be, many
would say, the most decisive ingredient in any effective environmen-
tal ethic: the ability to move from an anthropocentric to a biocentric
understanding of the world and our human place in that world. Envi-
ronmentalists have long recognized this shift as essential; recently, many
are also recognizing – some with consternation, others with hope – that
this shift is really ‘a religious question’. (Knitter 2000: 377)

Anthropocentrism is a way of viewing the world, and choosing how to

act in the world, in which human welfare and concerns are the final
arbiter of what should or should not be done. In its strongest form
anthropocentrism argues that the natural world only has value when
it becomes a product for human consumption (Hay 2002). Another,
slightly less arrogant, form of anthropocentrism argues that the non-
human world is valuable when it is instrumental to human purposes
(Hay 2002). Anthropocentrism is characteristic of Christianity and the
Western capitalist worldview.
In contrast ecocentrism, also referred to as biocentrism, is concerned
with sustaining the whole of an ecosystem. Humans are envisaged
as one of a variety of beings with value in an ecosystem. Ecocen-
trism is common among indigenous societies, some forms of Buddhism,
contemporary neo-Paganism, and the deep ecologists. It is often con-
structed as diametrically opposed to anthropocentrism.
Joanna Macy (1991: 32) describes deep ecology as an awareness of how
humans are ‘interwoven threads in the intricate tapestry of life’. From
this ecological perspective all life is part of various open systems that
10 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

are self-organising. Deep ecology and ecocentrism argue that all beings,
not just humans, have rights.
The idea that beings other than humans may not only have rights,
but also be ontologically, and perhaps even metaphysically, integral
parts of what it means to be human is not an easy idea for many peo-
ple raised within the context of a Western philosophical and scientific
worldview. Even if this idea remains marginal to much contemporary
thought, it is increasingly acceptable within academic discussions of
ecology, sociology, theology, and religious studies. It is one of the cen-
tral points of debate in contemporary studies of religion and ecology. It
also reflects a much broader debate about the nature of what it means
to be human and what constitutes ethical action.
Much of Western religious thought, and the philosophical tradition
that has developed alongside it, emphasises transcendent sources of
morality, divine commandments, and logical categories for understand-
ing. Following Descartes’ philosophy, it also begins with isolated indi-
viduals, building the world up and out from the reality and rights of
individuals. This is the dominant anthropocentric individualism of
Christianity and consumerist capitalism.
In contrast, the ecocentrism of the deep ecologists has many similar-
ities with the hermeneutical theory of Gadamer, Charles Taylor and to
a lesser extent, Bauman (Ezzy 1998). In this communitarian tradition,
the starting point is not individuals, but relationships: ‘all real living is
meeting’ (Buber 1958: 11). This is a radically different way of under-
standing the human condition that does not proceed from the individ-
ual out to relationships, but begins with relationships, and views the
individual as arising in and out of these relationships. Buber and the
deep ecologists include humans in these relationships along with trees
and other aspects of nature.
It is important to understand that I am making sociological and his-
torical points, not theological. That is to say, I am not making a the-
ological argument about what Christians should believe. Rather, I am
describing sociologically and historically what most of the people who
have called themselves Christians have believed for approximately the
last 500 years. Most Christians have not defended the rights of nature.
‘Instead people used Scripture to justify the exploitation of nature in
the same way that the defenders of slavery used it to justify ownership
and exploitation of certain classes of humans’ (Nash 1989: 91).
In contrast, indigenous traditions often saw humans as one part of
a broader society that included other non-human beings. Humans had
an ethical responsibility for these other beings:
 RELIGIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS 11

Central to most Indian religions and ethical systems was the idea that
humans and other forms of life constituted a single society. Indians
regarded bears, for example, as the bear people. Plants were also people.
Salmon constituted a nation comparable in stature and rights to human
nations. A complex of rituals and ceremonies reinforced the familiar
bonds between Indians and their environment. (Nash 1989: 102)

The focus in this chapter on Christianity is not a form of ethno-

centrism. Commentary on the ecological orientations of other world
religions is important. However, it is Christianity and its secularised
descendant of consumer capitalism that are the primary influence on
the current ecologically destructive practices that threaten the world’s
ecosystems. For example, Dwivedi (1996) points out that it may be
too simplistic to entirely blame India’s ecological crisis on the cul-
ture and practice of Christian British imperialism that dominated India
for 700 years. The influence of Islam and internal transformations in
Hinduism must also be taken into account. However, the influence
of Christianity and Western secular institutions and values ‘greatly
inhibited . . . the ancient educational system [of Hinduism] which
taught respect for nature and reasons for its preservation’ (Dwivedi
1996: 161).

KEY DEBATES
An environmental crisis?
Is there an environmental crisis? That there is an environmental cri-
sis, and that it is very serious, is an almost taken-for-granted fact by all
authors in the various anthologies available on religion and the envi-
ronment (Gottlieb 1996a; Hessel & Ruether 2000; Grim 2001b; Foltz
2003a). This may reflect the assumptions and beliefs of the editors of
these collections. More probably, however, it reflects the social distri-
bution of understandings about the environment.
The 1995 Report to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change was passed by 2500 scientists with no dissenting or minority
report (McFague 2000). This report warned of the potentially devas-
tating ecological, economic and social consequences of climate change
and recommended immediate action. Big business, however, still tries
to create a public perception that there is disagreement among scientists
over the reality and consequences of global climate change. McFague
(2000: 39) observes: ‘Climate change challenges the fossil fuel industry,
as well as America’s love affair with the car. Hence, denial and resis-
tance are high.’
12 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

The denial by big business of the current ecological crisis has deeper
cultural roots than short or medium-term economic interests – there
is no such thing as long-term economic planning as almost no busi-
ness plans beyond fifteen years (Weizsäcker et al. 1977). Specifically, as
Weiskel puts it: ‘Without any exaggeration . . . it is fair to say that in
practical terms the most pervasive form of this religiously held belief
in our day is that of growthism founded upon a doctrine of techno-
scientific salvation’ (Weiskel quoted in Knitter 2000: 371). The leaders
of big business seem convinced, by and large, that scientific advances
and new technology will solve any environmental problems that may
arise in the future (Ezzy 2001). This is why big business still refuses to be
concerned about environmental issues, as evidenced by the fact that no
piece of environmental legislation in the United States has ever been
supported by the big business lobby (Barry 1999).

The role of Christianity

What is the contribution of Christianity to the Western attitude
towards the environment? Although earlier forms of Christianity
retained some interest in the natural world, most commentators agree
with Johnson’s (2000: 4) assessment that ‘for the last five hundred
years the religious value of the earth has not been a subject of theol-
ogy, preaching, or religious education’. If anything, the natural world,
including the human body, was seen as dangerous and a thing to be dis-
ciplined. In the modern period Christianity saw nature as something
that people were rescued from. Haught (1996: 270) argues that most
Christians continue to see this world as little more than a ‘soul school’,
a background to the real journey of salvation in the next world.
The clearest illustration of the anthropocentric individualism of
Christianity comes from the Protestant Reformation’s emphasis on
‘faith alone’. Protestantism emphasised that individuals had to have a
personal encounter with God. Through Christ alone and through cog-
nitive understanding of scripture the individual came to an individual
relationship with God (Johnson 2000). As a consequence Christianity
has ignored ecological concerns. McFague (2000: 39), who is a Chris-
tian, puts it succinctly: ‘For the past several hundred years, Christians
have not had a practice of loving nature; we have not practised jus-
tice toward nature, nor cared for it. We have lacked a well-informed,
respectful, unsentimental concern for nature similar to that which we
have tried to develop toward other human beings.’
However, as I have already indicated, Christianity on its own cannot
be blamed for the current ecological crisis. Anthropocentrism is also
 RELIGIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS 13

deeply rooted in the social and economic organisation of contemporary

Western societies. Cowdin (2000) argues that the main sources of the
current ecological crisis lie with philosophical and scientific develop-
ments during the 15th and 16th centuries, and not with Christianity.
Descartes’ understanding of the self separated the mind from the body.
Newtonian physics turned the material world into an inert mechanical
process devoid of spirit or value. ‘Bacon’s manipulative scientific dom-
ination of nature . . . combined to form the uniquely modern view of
nonhuman nature as simply a valueless field to be exploited for human
benefit’ (Cowdin 2000: 265). Similarly, Kantian philosophy divorced
the knowing active subject from an external passive nature.
Alongside these philosophical changes were changes in social life
and the economy that worked hand in hand with the new philosophies.
Industrial capitalism moved people off the land and into cities, break-
ing up traditional communities and traditional relationships with the
cycles of the land. Berry (2000: 130) argues that one major source of
humans’ loss of intimacy with the natural world ‘occurred at the end
of the nineteenth century when we abandoned our role in an ever-
renewing organic agricultural economy in favor of an industrial non-
renewing extractive economy’.
On the other hand Hallman (2000: 458) observes that the Protestant
Reformation played a key role in the development and spread of the
scientific worldview and philosophy: ‘In emphasizing the distinction
between the Creator and the creature, the Reformers desacralized the
natural world. This made it possible for the budding sciences to study
and manipulate it.’
On balance it is probably accurate to say that both the Reformation
and the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries represent
key transitions in the way Westerners have understood their relation-
ship to nature. ‘For Calvinism, nature was totally depraved . . . Saving
knowledge of God descends from on high, beyond nature, in the
revealed World available only in Scripture, as preached by the Reform-
ers’ (Ruether 1996: 328). Similarly, ‘in Cartesian dualism and New-
tonian physics nature becomes matter in motion, dead stuff moving
obediently, according to mathematical laws knowable to a new male
elite of scientists’ (Ruether 1996: 328). Both these movements made
an anthropocentric world possible in which nature could be exploited
and destroyed with few moral concerns.
The centrality of consumerist capitalism to contemporary West-
ern lives makes it extremely difficult to change. As Cobb (2000:
497) observes: ‘Even Christians who cease to be anthropocentric and
14 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

dualistic, and recognize the intrinsic value of nonhuman creatures,

often remain committed to the technology that drives the progressive
deterioration of the natural world.’ The majority of Christians in Europe
and the United States are blind to how closely bound up their version of
Christianity is with contemporary consumer capitalism (Robra 2000).
Christians in these countries often speak disparagingly of syncretism
between Christianity and other cultural traditions in countries from
the South, but fail to see precisely the same processes in operation in
their own Christian culture. Or put more bluntly, ‘Christians share with
[Western] society as a whole the short-term selfishness that we deplore’
(Cobb 2000: 497).
Is it possible to develop an ecologically sensitive Christianity?
Although there are other developments (see Hessel & Ruether 2000),
eco-feminism is probably the most widely recognised. ‘The basic
assumption of eco-feminist theology . . . is that the dualism of soul and
body must be rejected, as well as the assumptions of the priority and
controlling role of male-identified mind over female-identified body’
(Ruether 2000). There is a substantial eco-feminist literature that draws
on nature imagery in the Bible and that reclaims an ecocentric model
of the spirit in nature. These new theologies lead to a more this-worldly
orientation.
While eco-feminists and eco-theologians work hard to theorise and
theologise alternatives, these are not widely accepted in Christian cul-
tures. Berling (2003) makes precisely this point in her response to Mary
Tucker’s call for religions to become more ecologically oriented. It may
be true that there is a pressing need for religions to focus on ecological
concerns. However, Berling (2003: 59) admits, ‘I have a hard time envi-
sioning how this issue will move front and centre in the thinking of any
of the religions: that is to say, we may worry about our “primary” issues
within each of the religions while the planet dies around us.’ Further, a
number of Christian theologians have condemned the this-worldly ori-
entations of the eco-feminists and eco-theologians as Paganism (Jones
1999). Clearly there is considerable resistance within the Christian tra-
dition for a move away from the Protestant emphasis on salvation to an
ecocentric theology.
In contrast to indigenous understandings of forests and animals as
having voices and rights, materialist modernist science silenced these
voices. This is not simply a philosophical and metaphysical silencing.
The unparalleled rate of species extinctions that is currently occurring
(Brown & Flavin 1999) is a very concrete and literal silencing of the
animals and plants. As Walsh and associates (1996: 423) write, ‘Rivers
 RELIGIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS 15

are muted when they are dammed; prairies are silenced when they are
stripped for coal; mountains become torpid when they are logged.’

Indigenous responses to environmental problems

Indigenous understandings of their ecological environment typically
stand in sharp contrast to a Western worldview. Indigenous societies
tend to see humans as one part of a larger community that includes
animals, plants, and local geographical features. Further, indigenous
societies tend to interpret these relationships in mythological terms.
Plants and animals are viewed as spiritual beings who should be treated
with respect, and who have power to shape the lives and prosperity of
humans. As Grim (2001b: lv) so elegantly puts it, indigenous cultures
have ‘imagined themselves more intimately into their worlds’. Indige-
nous cultures often represent a sophisticated ecological understanding
of local ecosystems and how to manage them sustainably.
It is important to underline that indigenous worldviews are no
less legitimate than the mythology of Western scientific humanism.
Garfield (2002) has shown that it requires a particular form of ethno-
centric post-colonial racism to deny that the philosophical practices
of Buddhists are indeed philosophy. Similarly, the presumption that
indigenous worldviews are by definition inferior, and that the European
Western scientific worldview is in some fundamental way superior rep-
resents ethnocentric hubris. I am not arguing that all indigenous world-
views are always superior. Rather, I argue that indigenous worldviews
and ecological practices should be given the same respect and critical
scrutiny as the Western scientific worldview and associated practices of
economic development.
Virtually all indigenous societies around the world are shaped by a
history of conquest and exploitation. Cultural imperialism, through the
efforts of Christian missionaries, and economic exploitation, encour-
aged by multinationals, are the two primary influences. Indigenous soci-
eties are typically numerically small, politically weak, economically
poor, and with a history of cultural degradation through the impact
of Christian or Islamic missionaries. Surrounding societies are typi-
cally numerically large, politically strong and economically wealthy,
and with a deeply held view that indigenous cultures are intrinsically
inferior to their own (Greaves 2001).
Fried (2001), for example, provides an extended account of the Ben-
tian indigenous society in Borneo. Christian missionaries attempted
to destroy the longhouses, which were the cultural centres of Bentian
community, and stop the celebration of agricultural and forest-based
16 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

indigenous Kaharingan religious ceremonies. Further, a logging com-

pany sought Christian blessing for a logging road, the construction of
which was prevented by ancestral indigenous demons who were haunt-
ing the area.

Opposition to Bentian forms of worship moved from the ideological basis

of the missionaries to the commercial needs of the logging companies
and their desire to manipulate Christian and Kaharingan rituals alike, in
order to maximize profits. Most of these attempts, in one way or another,
made life more complicated and stressful for the Bentian, but – as they
continued to battle logging and plantation company encroachment on
their forests and continued, more or less, to celebrate the new harvest
and old weekly belian healing ceremonies – the strenuous efforts made
to influence Bentian cosmology did not necessarily achieve the goals of
either church or logging company. (Fried 2001: 97)

Similarly, Sharma’s (1996) speech to the Earth Summit in Rio, Brazil,

in 1992, provides an incisive account of an indigenous Indian commu-
nity attempting to resist state-sponsored logging of the forests that have
historically sustained their community. Sharma makes a sustained argu-
ment that the logic of contemporary global capitalism serves to impov-
erish, rather than enrich, indigenous communities. He argues that the
pleasure of consumerist delicacies does not justify the destruction of the
foundations of the livelihood of his local community. ‘Look again at
your world. The community has already been sacrificed on the altar of
productivity’ (Sharma 1996: 561). Sharma’s point is not that all devel-
opment is wrong, or that progress is not possible, but that development
as it is currently implemented typically results in the impoverishment of
indigenous communities: ‘What we insist on is that development must
have a human face, or else it is tantamount to destruction’ (Sharma
1996: 564).
Western cultures have typically assumed that indigenous cultures are
‘backward’ or in some fundamental way inferior. This assumption has
been driven by the resistance in indigenous cultures to economic, tech-
nological, and agricultural developments. This has often led Westerners
to assume that it is in the best interests of indigenous societies to aban-
don their indigenous religious traditions, which are often animistic and
antithetical to Western individualism. This view remains dominant in
many Western organisations, including governments and global multi-
nationals. However, it has some serious flaws. In particular, it is clear
that in most cases in which ‘development’ has been forced on indige-
nous communities it has resulted in significant impoverishment of these
communities (Grim 2001b).
 RELIGIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS 17

Indigenous peoples have typically not separated cosmology from

economy. Their mythologies and religious practices were, and in some
cases still are, integral to sustainable agricultural and ecosystem man-
agement strategies. As such, the economically driven destruction of the
local habitats of indigenous communities is fundamentally a religious
issue. To see it in any other way is to adopt the imperialistic exploita-
tive worldview of Western capitalism which is at the heart of the
current ecological crisis.
The globalisation of contemporary consumerist capitalism has placed
indigenous societies under enormous pressure to assimilate into main-
stream Western cultures and to make their lands available for the
exploitatively destructive practices of forestry, mineral extraction, fish-
ing, or tourism. According to this view the destructive practices of
Western-style development are simply normal and rational. Against
this is a more sophisticated, and less ideologically driven, understand-
ing that ‘indigenous peoples have alternative development models that
value homelands differently . . . [that involve the] use of those lands [for]
living for food, habitat, and trade’. By so doing, ‘they embody alterna-
tive models of sustainable life’ (Grim 2001b: xl).

Buddhism and Islam

Buddhism is often described as one of the more environmentally ori-
ented religious traditions. Buddhism has been drawn on by a number
of ecological thinkers to provide intellectual and practical resources
to counter the environmental destruction of modernity (Snyder 1990;
Macy 1991). In the Chinese version of Buddhism there is a tradition
of a close connection between humans and nature where nature is seen
as healing and supportive. According to one interpreter the Chinese
Buddhist tradition teaches that:
Everything has a Buddha-nature . . . [and] every person has a Buddha-
nature, but what was of such importance to the Chinese was the teaching
that insentient objects also have it. The rocks, trees, lotuses, streams,
mountains – all have Buddha-nature. Therefore, one’s mind, which
has Buddha-nature as its essence, shares a common aspect with every
part of insentient nature, which also possess this same Buddha-nature.
(Lancaster 1997: 13)

Compared to Christianity, Buddhism has a different understanding of

how humans should respond to the dangers and difficulties of life.
Rather than seeking to escape these dangers by destroying them or over-
coming them, ‘in the Buddhist texts and teachings we hear the hard
truth that none of these perceived dangers will remain unchanged or
18 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

permanent, and we must learn how to survive in a natural state of

constant change’ (Lancaster 1997: 13). In contrast to Christianity’s
attempt to transcend this world and death, some traditions of Buddhism
seek to live with the flux of life and death in the world.
However, the practice of the Buddhist traditions varies considerably
in their understanding of nature. Buddhism is a complex and culturally
diverse religious tradition. For example, the Japanese Buddhist philoso-
pher Nishida Kitaro developed a doctrine of ‘pure nondual experience’
that embodies a vision of spirituality as nature-transcending subjectiv-
ity (Harris 1997: 385). This approach does not lead to a close connec-
tion to nature.
Muslim intellectuals are also beginning to examine the environmen-
tal crisis. The Qur’an contains many references to nature, encourag-
ing the careful use of resources such as air, water, and agricultural land.
‘Yet the articulation of an Islamic environmental ethic in contemporary
terms . . . is all quite new’ (Foltz 2003b: xxxviii).
Muslim scholars have emphasised the social justice aspect of the
consequences of environmental degradation, as many Muslims live in
poorer countries. Environmental harm shapes the lives of the poor more
than the rich, who are able to insulate themselves from its effects (Foltz
2003b: xxxix). Both Islamic and indigenous thinkers emphasise that
ecology cannot be separated from economy, and that to do so repre-
sents a particularly ethnocentric view of the world that has developed
out of the Christian West.
While Muslim thinkers typically recognise the serious nature of envi-
ronmental degradation, they have argued that this is not the primary
problem. Rather, environmental degradation is a symptom of a deeper
moral and religious evil in which contemporary societies have turned
away from God. ‘A just society, one in which humans relate to each
other and to God as they should, will be one in which environmental
problems simply will not exist’ (Foltz 2003b: xxxix).
This argument has more plausibility than it may at first seem. It points
to the centrality of consumer capitalism to current environmental prob-
lems. Dutton (2003) argues that environmental destruction is largely
a consequence of greedy profit-driven exploitation of resources to the
detriment of human communities. ‘What people have not been told is
that it is usury that underpins this whole economy . . . and usury . . . is
totally forbidden in Islam’ (Dutton 2003: 331). Usury is the practice of
charging interest on monetary loans.
Ecological degradation is often described in Western mass media
as solely a technological or scientific problem. This is a particularly
ethnocentric view. There is still room for debate about the solutions
 RELIGIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS 19

recommended by Muslims, eco-feminists, Buddhist and indigenous

thinkers. However, they all agree that the source of the problem lies
as much in cultural and religious understandings as it does in techno-
logical problems.

The New Age and contemporary Paganism

The New Age is not really a religious movement so much as a general
trend in spirituality in Western societies. The attitude towards nature
of most of these New Age spiritualities mirrors the Western attitude
towards nature. They tend towards an anthropocentric individualism.
New Age spirituality has typically involved transforming the lives of
individual people through a search for inner harmony and bliss or em-
powering prosperity (Heelas 1996). Some New Age spiritualities that
seek change through counter-cultural living have developed a different,
more ecocentric approach to ecological problems (Sutcliffe 2003).
The contemporary Witchcraft movement is one part of a more gen-
eral explosion of Pagan religions in the Western world (Hume 1997).
Although the numbers are small, this religious tradition has become
very attractive to young people, in part because of its explicitly nature-
based spirituality. Witchcraft involves the celebration of religious fes-
tivals dictated by the seasons of the sun and the moon. It also treats
forests, animals, mountains and rivers as sacred. Some Witchcraft tradi-
tions are explicitly ecologically activist, and involved in protests against
nuclear power and the destruction of forests (Harvey 1997). How-
ever, other Witchcraft traditions are not environmentally activist and
reflect a New Age focus on self-transformation through spiritual prac-
tices (Greenwood 2000).
The key debate here is whether spiritual practices that transform
self-understandings are an adequate response to environmental degra-
dation. The focus on the self of New Age spiritualities and Witchcraft
could be seen as simply managing the individual consequences of the
environmental crisis rather than addressing its cultural and structural
sources. Perhaps New Age and Pagan spirituality is another form of
short-term selfishness (Letcher 2000). I have argued elsewhere that the
more Witchcraft becomes incorporated into the goal of making money
the more it tends to focus on selfish individualism and lose its potential
for social transformation (Ezzy 2003).

Religion, the environment, and ethics

The most important debate is whether the current rapid and severe
degradation of the environment matters. The leaders of big business,
politicians, and most Christians seem to think that environmental
20 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

degradation is not a problem that demands immediate action. In con-

trast, scientists and some religious leaders are in agreement that there
is a serious problem and something needs to be done about it urgently.
In 1992 over sixteen hundred senior scientists from seventy-one
countries signed a document titled ‘World Scientists’ Warning to
Humanity’. The document begins: ‘Human activities inflict harsh and
often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources.
If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the
future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal
kingdoms’ (Suzuki 1997: 4). The release of this document was not
covered at all in the North American mass media. Instead, one of the
main North American newspapers, in one of the most Christian coun-
tries in the world, had a large photograph of cars forming an image
of Mickey Mouse (Suzuki 1997: 5). Do Christianity and consumerist
capitalism still have nothing significant to contribute to the solution to
environmental degradation?
Lynn White (1967: 1206) suggested in 1967 that ‘we are not going
to get us out of the present ecologic crisis until we find a new religion,
or rethink our old one’. The Christian tradition has a strong history
of saving and valuing human life. Similarly, consumerist capitalism is
focused on enriching the pleasure of the lives of the wealthy. However,
these are of questionable relevance to a world that is overpopulated
with humans who consume too much of the earth’s resources. It could
be argued that Christianity and consumerist capitalism are no longer
useful, but rather extremely harmful religious traditions.
As I have already argued, it is too simplistic to dismiss Christian-
ity. Religion has historically played a central role in democracy. This is
clearest in its role in limiting self-interest and requiring society to take
care of the poor and less well off. Schools, hospitals, aged care facilities,
and a variety of other welfare organisations, all began in Western soci-
eties under the auspices of various churches. Cobb (2000) argues that
the failure, until recently, of Christianity to address the social and eco-
nomic structures that lead to ecological degradation is not an inherent
result of the Christian faith. Instead he believes, along with a small
proportion of other Christian thinkers, that the Christian tradition
offers important resources for addressing current ecological problems.
It remains to be seen whether the ideas of this vanguard of Christian
thinkers are translated into real changes in practice.
Much of the ecological literature, and some Christian writings about
the ‘end time’, seem to suggest the earth is heading for ecological catas-
trophe (Ezzy 2001). However, other ecological activists and religious
 RELIGIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS 21

leaders have tried to be more positive and to imagine alternative ways

of living that are ecologically sustainable. Indigenous communities with
nature-based mythologies may provide a much more sophisticated way
of living with local ecosystems. Buddhist traditions that emphasise the
shared Buddha-nature of humans and other beings suggest a different
way of understanding the relationship of humans to the rest of nature.
Christians and Muslims have pointed out that social justice is an inte-
gral part of a sophisticated response to ecological degradation. Deep
ecologists and some contemporary Pagans have begun to develop a
mythology that reimagines non-human beings into an ecocentric world
in which these beings have value in and of their own right alongside
humans.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
At the heart of the current massive environmental degradation is a cul-
turally and economically entrenched Western practice of ignoring the
environmental consequences of human actions. Western culture and
Western economic practices are also powerfully subversive of any alter-
native culture and practices that challenge their dominance. From this
perspective it is difficult to see how an effective social transformation is
possible. However, as the classical sociologist Max Weber argued, reli-
gion provides one of the few sources of charismatic authority that can
motivate resistance to the iron cage of capitalist rationality (Weber
1947). As such, the key debates of the future will focus around the
tensions between, on the one hand, religiously inspired evaluations of
the environment that will be increasingly ecocentric and, on the other
hand, consumerist capitalism that is integrally anthropocentric, arro-
gant, aggressive, and powerful.

Discussion Questions
1. Why is it important that religious traditions address ecological degrada-
tion?
2. What is the difference between a theological analysis and a sociological
analysis of the orientations of religions to nature?
3. Compare the influence of Christianity and capitalism on current environ-
mental practices.
4. What is eco-feminism?
5. What are the key characteristics of indigenous approaches to ecological
management?
6. Explain how indigenous traditions do not separate spirituality from econ-
omy.
22 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

7. Does Buddhism provide intellectual and practical resources that are more
ecologically sensitive?
8. How have Muslim thinkers responded to ecological concerns?
9. Are the New Age and contemporary Paganism just a spiritual form of
selfish individualism?
10. Big business is largely unconcerned about ecological degradation. How is
this related to religious understandings of ecology?

Glossary
Anthropocentrism: the view that humans are the centre of the universe, and
that things only become valuable when they can be used by humans.
Biocentric or ecocentrism: the view that humans are just one of a number of
beings on the earth and that all have rights and values.
Consumer capitalism: refers to contemporary societies in which purchasing
and consuming are central to most people’s lives. For example, in consumer
capitalism a person’s status is more influenced by what they wear, eat, or
drive, than by what they consume, what sort of job they have, or their family
connections.
Deep ecology: the view that sees humans as one part of an intricate web of
life. This is linked to the idea that plants, animals, mountains, and rivers have
rights of their own and are not merely there for human pleasure.
Eco-feminist theology: a recent development within Christianity that seeks to
reclaim biblical images of women and of nature, seeking to move beyond the
patriarchal and otherworldly focus of traditional Christianity.
Paganism: a variety of contemporary religious traditions including Witch-
craft, Druidry and Heathenism that focus on celebrating the natural world.
This typically involves religious festivals linked to the seasons of the Sun, such
as solstices and equinoxes, and the seasons of the Moon, such as full and dark
moons. These traditions usually focus on experience rather than belief, and
this-worldly pleasure rather than salvation in the other world.
Religion: a set of symbols and beliefs embodied in a social institution, such as
a church, providing a set of ritual practices for maintaining contact between
this world and a system of transcendent meaning and experience (Hanegraaf
1999).
Spirituality: an individual’s set of symbols and beliefs that provide that indi-
vidual with rituals to maintain contact between this world and a system of
transcendent meaning and experience (Hanegraaf 1999).

References
Barry, J. 1999, Environment and Social Theory, New York: Routledge.
Berling, J. 2003, ‘Commentary’. In M.E. Tucker, Worldly Wonder: Religions enter
their ecological phase, Chicago: Open Court.
 RELIGIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS 23

Berry, T. 2000, ‘Christianity’s role in the earth project’. In Hessel and Ruether,
Christianity and Ecology.
Brown, L., and C. Flavin (eds) 1999, State of the World 1999, London:
Earthscan.
Buber, M. 1958, I and Thou, transl. R. Smith, New York: Collier Books.
Cobb, J. 2000, ‘Christianity, economics, and ecology’. In Hessel and Ruether,
Christianity and Ecology.
Cowdin, D. 2000, ‘The moral status of otherkind in Christian ethics’. In Hessel
and Ruether, Christianity and Ecology.
Dutton Y. 2003, ‘The Environmental crisis of our time: a Muslim response’. In
R. Foltz, F. Denny and A. Baharuddin (eds) Islam and Ecology, Cambridge
MA: Harvard University Press.
Dwivedi, O. 1996, ‘Satyagraha for conservation: awakening the spirit of
Hinduism’. In Gottlieb, This Sacred Earth.
Ezzy, D. 1998, ‘Theorizing narrative-identity: symbolic interactionism and
hermeneutics’, Sociological Quarterly 39(2): 239–52.
Ezzy, D. 2001, ‘Reading for the plot, and not hearing the story: ecological
tragedy and heroic capitalism’. In A. Mills and J. Smith (eds) Utter Silence,
New York: Peter Lang.
Ezzy, D. 2003, ‘New age witchcraft?’ Culture and Religion 4(1): 47–66.
Flannery, T. 1994, The Future Eaters, Sydney: Reed New Holland.
Foltz, R. 2003a, Worldviews, Religion, and the Environment, Melbourne:
Thomson.
Foltz, R. 2003b, ‘Introduction’. In R. Foltz, F. Denny and A. Baharuddin (eds)
Islam and Ecology, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Fox, M. 1991, Creation Spirituality, San Francisco CA: Harper.
Fried, S. 2001, ‘Shoot the horse get the rider: religion and forest politics
in Bentian Borneo’. In J. Grim (ed.) Indigenous Traditions and Ecology:
The interbeing of cosmology and community, Cambridge MA: Harvard
University Press.
Garfield, J. 2002, ‘Philosophy, religion, and the hermeneutic imperative’.
In J. Malpas, U. Arnswald and J. Kerscher (eds) Gadamer’s Century,
Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Gottlieb, R. 1996a, ‘Religion in an Age of Environmental Crisis’. In Gottlieb,
This Sacred Earth.
Gottlieb, R. (ed.) 1996b, This Sacred Earth: Religion, nature, environment, New
York: Routledge.
Greaves, T. 2001, ‘Contextualizing the Environmental Struggle’. In Grim,
Indigenous Traditions and Ecology.
Greenwood, S. 2000, Magic, Witchcraft and the Otherworld, Oxford: Berg.
Greider, W. 1997, One World, Ready or Not: The manic logic of global capitalism,
Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
Grim, J. (ed.) 2001a, Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The interbeing
of cosmology and community, Cambridge MA: Harvard University
Press
Grim, J. 2001b, ‘Introduction’. In Grim, Indigenous Traditions and Ecology.
Hallman, D. 2000, ‘Climate change: ethics, justice and sustainable commu-
nity’. In Hessel and Ruether, Christianity and Ecology.
24 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

Hanegraaf, W. 1999, ‘New age spiritualities as secular religion’, Social Compass

46(2): 145–60.
Harris, I. 1997, ‘Buddhism and the discourse of environmental concern’. In
M. Tucker and D. Williams (eds) Buddhism and Ecology, Cambridge MA:
Harvard University Press.
Harvey, G. 1997, Listening People, Speaking Earth: Contemporary paganism, Ade-
laide: Wakefield Press.
Haught, J. 1996, ‘“Christianity and Ecology” from The Promise of Nature’. In
Gottlieb, This Sacred Earth.
Hay, P. 2002, Main Currents in Western Environmental Thought, Sydney: UNSW
Press.
Heelas, P. 1996, The New Age Movement, Oxford: Blackwell.
Hessel, D., and R. Ruether (eds) 2000, Christianity and Ecology, Cambridge
MA: Harvard University Press.
Hume, L. 1997, Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia, Melbourne University
Press.
Johnson, E. 2000, ‘Losing and finding creation in the Christian tradition’. In
Hessel and Ruether, Christianity and Ecology.
Jones, P. 1999, Gospel Truth, Pagan Lies, Enumclaw, WA: Winepress Publishing.
Knitter, P. 2000, ‘Deep ecumenicity versus incommensurability: finding com-
mon ground on a common earth’. In Hessel and Ruether, Christianity and
Ecology.
Lancaster, L. 1997, ‘Buddhism and ecology: collective cultural perceptions’. In
M. Tucker and D. Williams (eds) Buddhism and Ecology, Cambridge MA:
Harvard University Press.
Letcher, A. 2000, ‘“Virtual paganism” or direct action?’ Diskus 6,
http://www.uni-marburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus.
Loy, D. 1997, ‘The religion of the market’, Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 65(2): 275–89.
Macy, J. 1991, World as Lover, World as Self, Berkeley CA: Parallax Press.
McFague, S. 2000, ‘An ecological Christology: does Christianity have it?’ In
Hessel and Ruether, Christianity and Ecology.
Namunu, S. 2001, ‘Melanesian religion, ecology and modernization in Papua
New Guinea’. In Grim, Indigenous Traditions and Ecology.
Nash, R. 1989, The Rights of Nature: A history of environmental ethics, Madison
WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Posey, D. 2001, ‘Intellectual Property Rights and the Sacred Balance’. In Grim,
Indigenous Traditions and Ecology.
Robra, M. 2000, ‘Response to Marthinus Daneel’. In Hessel and Ruether, Chris-
tianity and Ecology.
Ruether, R.R. 1996, ‘Ecofeminism: Symbolic and social connections of the
oppression of women and the domination of nature’. In Gottlieb, This
Sacred Earth.
Ruether, R.R. 2000, ‘Conclusion: eco-justice at the centre of the Church’s
Mission’. In Hessel and Ruether, Christianity and Ecology.
Sharma, B. 1996, ‘On sustainability’. In Gottlieb, This Sacred Earth.
Snyder, G. 1990, The Practice of the Wild, San Francisco CA: North Point Press.
Sutcliffe, S. 2003, Children of the New Age, New York: Routledge.
 RELIGIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS 25

Suzuki, D. 1997, This Sacred Balance, Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Tucker, Mary 2003, Worldly Wonder: Religions enter their ecological phase,
Chicago: Open Court.
Walsh, B., M. Karsh and N. Ansell 1996, ‘Trees, forestry, and the responsive-
ness of creation’. In Gottlieb, This Sacred Earth.
Weber, M. 1947, Max Weber: The theory of social and economic organization,
transl. T. Parsons, New York: Free Press.
Weizsäcker, E., A. Lovins and L. Lovins 1997, Factor 4, London: Earthscan.
White, L. 1967, ‘The historical roots of our ecological crisis’, Science,
155(3767): 1203–7.
C H A P T E R T W O

S O C I A L N AT U R E
The Environmental Challenge to Mainstream
Social Theory

Stewart Lockie

Until recently, sociological theory has had little to say about nature or
the environment. Reflecting its origins in the social transformations of
the Industrial and French Revolutions, sociological theory adopted the
modernist ideology that through the application of labour and creativ-
ity humankind could emancipate itself from the animalistic fight for
survival characteristic of other species (Latour 1993). The blowtorch
of sociological analysis was turned towards a host of institutions rang-
ing from religion and art to education and class relations in order to
illuminate and confront relationships of domination and control. But
nature, and the multitude of organisms, substances and patterns that
comprise it, were taken for granted as passive participants in this great
human drama. Under the sway of modern science and technology, the
environment had lost its mystical and autonomous status and become
a blank canvas onto which human aspirations and projects could be
painted.
With hindsight, the naivety, if not arrogance, of modernist ideology
seems obvious. Social struggles over genetic engineering, nuclear prolif-
eration, toxic waste, food safety, environmental justice, and so on, blur
the false distinction between social and environmental issues (Latour
1993). These struggles refuse to comply with neat divisions of labour
between the social and the natural sciences and force environmen-
tal movements to extend their concerns beyond traditional issues of
‘wilderness’ preservation and species conservation (see Pepper 1984) to
include indigenous peoples’ rights, rural livelihoods, public health and
the use of urban space (Lockie 2004). Social theory that cannot find a
place for the non-human organisms, substances and patterns of nature
is social theory that is inadequate for understanding key dimensions of
our contemporary world.

26
 SOCIAL THEORY 27

Bringing nature back into social theory requires us to do much more

than simply apply existing sociological concepts to a new topic – ‘the
environment’. Instead, it requires us to rethink many of the basic
assumptions on which sociological theory rests and in this way repre-
sents a major theoretical challenge to mainstream sociology. To many,
this will sound a big, if not ludicrous, claim. How can a minor sub-
discipline such as environmental sociology mount such a significant
challenge to the core assumptions of its parent discipline? The answer to
this question lies partly in the allies environmental sociology finds in a
small number of other recently emergent sub-disciplines that also force
us to revisit our understanding of sociological theory and method – in
particular the sociology of the body (see Turner 1996) and branches of
feminism such as eco-feminism. The answer can also be found in exist-
ing sociological theory.
This chapter reviews some of the most prominent attempts to bring
nature into social theory. In this sense it does not offer a comprehensive
overview of all relevant social theory but is structured around four major
perspectives that correspond with the major theoretical controversies
characteristic of environmental social theory. It argues that the most
convincing of these perspectives are those that abandon dichotomies
(or polemical, dualistic ways of thinking) between the social and the
natural. Such approaches have a great deal to offer mainstream sociol-
ogy because, at the same time that they reformulate basic sociological
concepts such as power and agency, they incorporate a range of con-
ceptual and methodological tools with which to examine the ways in
which people, technologies, plants, animals and other entities interact
to shape ‘social nature’.

BACKGROUND TO THE ISSUES

Sociological theories may be understood as the main schools of thought
within the discipline of sociology (Jary & Jary 1991). Theoretical
perspectives within sociology provide researchers and students with
guidance as to what sorts of problems and questions may be in need
of investigation, the concepts and hypotheses that might guide that
investigation or explain its outcomes, and the methods appropriate to
undertake it. While there are diverse theoretical perspectives within
sociology, they have in common an assumption that the root cause of all
social phenomena is social relationships. Durkheim (1966) expressed
this with the aphorism that social facts must always be explained with
other social facts. C. Wright Mills (1959) expressed it in a slightly dif-
ferent manner in suggesting that the ‘sociological imagination’ had a
28 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

particular concern with relationships between the individual and the

social groups to which they belong. By adopting this perspective, soci-
ologists have challenged arguments that human behaviour or beliefs are
natural or inevitable and in so doing have provided a means by which
disadvantaged groups have been able to question dominant power
relationships.
There is no doubting the theoretical and political importance of
sociology’s emphasis on the causative influence of social relationships.
When applied to environmental issues, this emphasis generates consid-
erable insight into a host of questions ranging from why particular issues
are considered important, while others are not, to how environmen-
tal change reflects institutional, political and economic arrangements.
However, it is also an emphasis that is problematic in the sense that,
at best, it can blind sociologists to the roles played by non-human pro-
cesses and entities in environmental change and, at worst, treats human
beings as if they exist somehow outside nature.
As stated in the introduction to this chapter, nature and the envi-
ronment have largely been untheorised in sociology because their pas-
sive status and role have been taken for granted. This is not to say that
they have been ignored altogether. The sociology of social movements
may be considered the major sociological response to the surge of envi-
ronmental activism in the 1960s and 1970s (Lockie 2004). An impor-
tant feature of the sociology of social movements, however, was that
the particular issues around which movements mobilised were seen as
more or less irrelevant, and the causes of mobilisation were concep-
tualised in terms of exclusively social processes including macro-social
structural change, contradictions within the capitalist mode of produc-
tion, the inability of existing political institutions to adapt to change,
conflict over access to resources, newly emerging political opportuni-
ties, and individual motives (Lockie 2004; see also Della Porta & Diani
1999). Rural sociologists, confronted with problems such as the impact
of agricultural land degradation on farm livelihoods and productiv-
ity, have similarly been forced to confront environmental issues, but
have done so by accepting scientific definitions of ‘the problem’ and
getting on with the apparently more sociological task of working out
how social factors – such as the imperatives of capitalist accumulation
and the cultural milieu of farming practice – caused it (see Vanclay
& Lawrence 1995). Rethinking our approach to environmental social
theory in terms that do not rest on such a distinction between human
society as the centre of agency and nature as the passive ‘other’ offers
considerable opportunity to move beyond these approaches and engage
 SOCIAL THEORY 29

more productively with contemporary biopolitical struggle (Goodman

1999).
The following section examines attempts to theorise nature and the
environment from an explicitly sociological perspective. As it does so,
it will look at the assumptions each attempt makes, either explicitly
or implicitly, about: the fundamental nature of social life and the rela-
tionships between people and ‘the environment’; how to develop valid
‘knowledge’ about these relationships; and the key features of social-
environmental phenomena with which they are concerned and the
research problems believed to be important.

KEY DEBATES
This section will be structured around four key questions that corre-
spond to the main emphases of the variants of environmental social the-
ory to be discussed here. The first concerns what we understand nature,
the environment and environmental problems to be; the second, the
causes of these environmental problems; the third, the role of science
and technology in the production of nature, environmental problems
and environmental knowledge; and the fourth, how we might go about
addressing environmental problems and developing more ‘ecologically
rational’ societies.

What is ‘the environment’? Constructivism and materialism

Perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts within environmen-
tal sociology is the idea that ‘the environment’ is socially constructed
(Hannigan 1995). This concept does not refer to the transformation
of ‘pristine’ nature by humans into ‘artificial’ or ‘built’ environments,
but to the ways in which our understandings of nature, the environ-
ment, and environmental problems are shaped by intrinsically social
processes of knowledge generation and communication. This requires
us to recognise that the terms we use to describe our environments
(such as those used above) do not refer to universally applicable objec-
tive features of those environments but to socially valued categories
and understandings that are liable to change across space, time and
social groups. This can be illustrated by asking some simple questions.
Why, for example, are ‘wilderness values’ so highly prized by Western
environmental movements and seen to provide a scientific baseline on
environmental condition by natural resource management agencies?
Following from this, why is the state of ecosystems immediately before
European colonisation in Australia, the United States and elsewhere
in the ‘New World’ considered ‘natural’ despite millennia of ecological
30 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

transformation at the hands of indigenous peoples? These values are not

the reflection of absolute truths but of social conventions; that is, they
are the result of a consensus between environmental groups, manage-
ment agencies and scientists that the state of the pre-European ecosys-
tem offers a convenient baseline against which to measure environmen-
tal degradation.
To the constructivist, there is no socially unmediated position from
which to apprehend material reality. In its most extreme form (what is
known as the ‘strong program’), social constructivism argues that there
is no reality whatsoever outside the symbolic world-building activities
of humans and no way of knowing about that reality that is, in principle,
any better or worse than any other way of knowing (Hannigan 1995).
Science is simply more powerful than other ways of knowing. Rather
than moving us ever and ever closer to ‘the truth’, science merely rep-
resents the perceived interests of dominant groups. Not surprisingly, the
‘strong program’ in social constructivism has been subjected to consid-
erable criticism from the perspective of materialism (Mariyani-Squire
1999). From the materialist perspective, nature is attributed a pre-given
objective reality that exists quite independently of human knowledge
or action. Humans may learn about nature, and our interference may
upset its balance to the detriment of particular species (including our
own), but the basic material reality of nature is seen as something that
cannot be changed. Those researchers taking a materialist perspective
often accept ‘scientific’ statements about the state of environments and
thence investigate why people damage them even though we ‘know’
the dangerous long-term consequences of this activity and, quite likely,
have a number of solutions. Acting otherwise to the prescriptions of
‘enlightened’ scientists appears either irrational or impossible (Dunlap
& Catton 1994).
The majority of social constructivists, however, accept the seemingly
less extreme proposition that there is a pre-given and objective material
reality that exists independently of humans, but that our knowledge of
that reality is necessarily shaped by human categories, theories, projects,
interests and power relationships (Greider & Garkovich 1994; Han-
nigan 1995). The relevance of this perspective is plainly evident in
the example given above. Social constructivism does not suggest that
imposing the category of ‘wilderness’ on landscapes that have been
transformed by indigenous people provides a scientifically invalid base-
line for measuring environmental change (although there may well be
more useful baselines). What it does do is highlight the manner in
which these categories deny any active role that may have been taken
 SOCIAL THEORY 31

by indigenous people in transforming and managing those landscapes

and the consequences this denial may have for contemporary struggles
over cultural heritage, land rights, natural resource management, and
so on (L’Oste-Brown et al. 2002). Social constructivism reminds us that
the language we use to categorise and understand even the apparently
‘objective’ material reality of nature has political and cultural conse-
quences for real people. We will return again to what this means for our
understanding of science in later sections.
While the ‘weak program’ in social constructivism appears widely
accepted, there is a degree of pragmatism in its response to the criticisms
of materialism that might be considered unsatisfactory. The ‘weak pro-
gram’ accepts the premises of materialism but offers no clear articulation
of how the two perspectives may be accommodated. Instead, it simply
focuses on those aspects of environmental issues amenable to semiotic
analysis such as how issues are conceptualised by different groups, how
the issues are represented in the mass media, and so on. The theoreti-
cal perspectives discussed in the following sections all attempt, in some
way, to deal simultaneously with the insights of both the constructivist
and materialist perspectives.

What causes ‘environmental problems’? Capitalism and the

production of nature
This section does not deal comprehensively with the possible causes
of ‘environmental problems’ but, rather, introduces the theoretical per-
spective within environmental sociology – Ecological Marxism – that
is most concerned with the identification of such causal relationships.
The approach that Marxists have traditionally taken to dealing with
a conceptual dilemma such as whether ‘the environment’ should be
treated as a material reality or a social construct is to employ a method
known as dialectics. Essentially, this means that instead of choosing one
position in the debate between materialism and constructivism over the
other, both are seen as characteristic of nature depending on the per-
spective from which it is viewed. In practical terms, taking a dialectical
approach is not so different from the pragmatism of the ‘weak program’
in social constructivism. Both approaches acknowledge that ‘the envi-
ronment’ is both a material reality and a symbolic construct. This has
enabled Ecological Marxists, eco-feminists and others to analyse the
ways in which the binary opposition of ‘society’ and ‘nature’ has been
used to legitimate the subordination of groups – such as women and
slaves – that have been defined as ‘closer to nature’ and thereby less
human (Merchant 1987; Dickens 1996). However, thinking about the
32 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

environment in dialectical terms points us towards a number of addi-

tional theoretical and empirical emphases.
Ecological Marxists, or political ecologists, use dialectical method
to incorporate questions of agency (the capacity to make a difference)
in human–environment relationships. Where classical Marxist theory
adopts the modernist ideology of humanity liberating itself from ‘brute
nature’ through the application of labour, Ecological Marxism argues
that the lives of humans are conducted in relation to a nature that is
both subject, and resistant, to transformation through human labour
(Dickens 1996). Thus the dialectic is shifted from a concern with the
relationship between the materiality of nature and its symbolic repre-
sentation in human culture to a concern with the relationship between
pre-existing ‘laws’ and potentialities of nature and the material produc-
tion of nature through human labour. This leads Ecological Marxists to
explain the alienation of humanity from nature through the capitalist
labour process.
Capitalism, it is argued, provides powerful incentives for capitalist
enterprises to discount or externalise social and environmental costs of
production such as pollution (Schnaiberg & Gould 1994; O’Connor
1998). According to O’Connor, there are two basic contradictions
within capitalist systems that ultimately undermine their economic and
ecological sustainability:

1. Demand crises: the first ‘contradiction of capitalism’, as discussed

in classical Marxist theory, is based on the tendency for individual
enterprises to seek increased market share by increasing produc-
tivity and lowering costs. This they pursue by adopting techno-
logical innovations and shedding labour. However, when multiple
enterprises do this the result is overproduction relative to consumer
demand and declining prices.
2. Cost crises: the second ‘contradiction of capitalism’, derived from
Ecological Marxism, is based on the need for individual enterprises
to reduce costs so as to maintain competitiveness relative to other
enterprises. Where social and environmental costs of production
can be externalised, there is no incentive for individual enterprises
to pay them, even though the long-term effect may be to undermine
the resource base on which production depends and thus to raise
average costs.

While capitalist enterprises are not bound by any inherent structural

logic to externalise the environmental costs of production, they face
 SOCIAL THEORY 33

the very real proposition that if they do not do so they will reduce their
competitiveness and be replaced eventually by enterprises more pre-
pared to do so. Strategies to avoid this situation include both state reg-
ulation and the development of markets for ‘green’ products, although
both have been criticised by Ecological Marxists for adding a veneer of
environmental responsibility to capitalist production while doing little
to address the fundamental problems of resource overuse and pollution
(Beder 1997).
Taking a dialectical approach and analysing problems from multiple
perspectives makes good sense when confronted with difficult concep-
tual choices. But it is also an approach that risks, in relation to the
conceptual dilemmas discussed here, paying lip service to the active
and material role of nature while continuing to emphasise the causative
role of classical macro-sociological abstractions such as ‘society’, ‘capi-
talism’ and ‘the state’ (Haraway 1991; FitzSimmons & Goodman 1998).
In this sense, despite the value of their insights, many supposedly dialec-
tical analyses may better be described as materialist in the simpler terms
described in the previous section. Taking dialectical approaches to a
more satisfactory conclusion requires incorporation of ideas such as the
concept of a ‘coevolutionary sociology’ developed by Norgaard (1994)
to examine the ways in which environments, knowledge, technology,
values, and forms of organisation adapt to each other in unpredictable
and potentially destructive ways. This will not be discussed in detail
here. Instead, the chapter will move to consider a theoretical approach
that dissolves altogether dichotomies between the social and natural,
material and symbolic.

How do we know that ‘environmental problems’ exist? The

sociology of scientific knowledge
As an enormously influential means for the generation of knowledge
about ‘the environment’, science is an obvious target for sociological
analysis. According to the ‘strong program’ in social constructivism,
as stated above, science is no more objective than any other form of
knowledge (e.g. indigenous or traditional knowledge), but it makes
knowledge claims that reflect the interests and values of dominant
groups. This sort of argument is regarded as deeply problematic by mate-
rialists, who counter that deconstructing the scientific basis on which
knowledge of environmental problems is based potentially distracts our
attention from what they argue are, in fact, ‘real’ and serious problems
(e.g. Dunlap & Catton 1994). A compromise position might argue that
34 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

while scientific work is as objective as possible, the priorities established

for that research by governments and industry are likely to be those that
accord with the interests of these groups. Yet there are good sociological
and philosophical reasons to regard the claims of science to objectivity
with some scepticism.
Numerous studies may now be found in the sociological literature
of conflicting scientific findings in relation to environmental issues; of
lay people being forced, in the face of scientific indifference, to con-
duct their own studies of environmental hazards; of scientifically devel-
oped environmental management strategies being proved ineffective;
and so on. It is important, however, not simply to dismiss science on
the basis of these examples but to consider, in more detail, why scientific
observation is not a neutral but a theory-laden and political act. When
choosing what to observe, scientists are influenced by what they believe
already to be theoretically and socially relevant. When collecting data,
they filter the infinite range of things that potentially could be observed
through existing theory and experience. Patterns are observed in the
data with which scientists are already familiar, and therefore scien-
tific observation tends to support existing theory and existing solutions
to social and environmental ‘problems’ (see Kuhn 1962; Feyerabend
1988).
Scientific knowledge is thus most accurately described not as invalid,
but as partial and provisional. The question is, how then does scientific
knowledge maintain its privileged position in the identification and
management of environmental problems relative to other partial and
provisional knowledges such as local and traditional knowledges?
According to Latour (1987), the answer to this question lies in the
ability of science to transform the world in its own image. What Latour
means is that despite the generation of scientific knowledge through
very localised research practices, that knowledge is recorded and com-
municated in a manner that facilitates its application outside the labo-
ratory. Represented as universal, or generalisable, scientific knowledge
is used to exert influence on people and landscapes, often at consid-
erable spatial and temporal remove from the research sites at which
that knowledge was generated, and in the process defining, monitoring
and modifying the key attributes of those people and landscapes. This
demonstrates that the distinction between the social construction and
the material reality of ‘the environment’ is in fact a false one. At the
same time that scientific knowledge of nature is embedded in human
systems of language and symbols, that knowledge is developed through
relationships with the organisms, substances and patterns of nature that
 SOCIAL THEORY 35

contribute to the transformation of both science and the phenomena

under investigation in the process.
Further to this, the sociology of scientific knowledge demonstrates
that the expression of human agency, or influence, is enabled by tech-
nologies that capture, preserve and transfer knowledge and materials
through space and time. The networks of the social are thus not exclu-
sively human, but hybrids of people, nature and technologies, all of
which may, intentionally or otherwise, resist their enrolment. In an era
of so-called ‘globalisation’, such a conclusion appears almost common-
sense. At the same time that the spatial and temporal extension of social
relationships characteristic of globalisation is enabled only by develop-
ments in transport, telecommunications and computing (Latour 1999),
the environmental implications of global capitalism are also becoming
increasingly clear (Beck 1992). But this is also a conclusion that appears
scandalous in light of sociology’s traditional refusal to countenance a
causal role for anything other than ‘social facts’ in the explanation of
social phenomena.
The sociology of scientific knowledge is often criticised for trying
to apply concepts such as power and agency – traditionally applied by
sociologists only to people and social groups – to non-human nature and
technologies. Hacking (1999), for example, argues that clear distinc-
tions must be drawn between humans and non-humans on the basis of
human capacity for language, consciousness, reflection and intentional
resistance. This is not contested by the sociology of scientific knowl-
edge. Instead, agency and power are conceptualised not as properties
of individuals (human or otherwise) but as the outcomes of interac-
tions within a network. Conceptualising power and agency as proper-
ties of relationships and not of the individuals involved is, in fact, a
widely accepted proposition among social theorists (e.g. Giddens 1984;
Foucault 1986; Hindess 1996). For Foucault (1980, 1986), power is
unstable, reversible, pervasive and, as often as not, accompanied by
resistance and evasion. It follows that power may take many forms, at
times concentrated and hierarchical and at times dispersed (Hindess
1996). Sociologists of scientific knowledge thus argue that rather than
attempting to define power and agency, or to whom or what they should
be attributed, in theoretical terms, they should be treated as empirical
research questions (Callon & Law 1995; Latour 1999).
The theoretical challenge of the sociology of scientific knowledge to
mainstream sociology may be seen to lie not so much in its injunc-
tion to consider the roles played by non-human nature and tech-
nologies in the networks of the social, but in the injunction shared
36 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

with other branches of sociological theory to conceptualise key soci-

ological concepts in more relational terms (Latour 2000; Murdoch
2001). In this respect, the sociology of scientific knowledge has a great
deal to offer mainstream sociology in terms of the analytical tools
and concepts it has developed with which to conduct research into
the material manifestations of power and agency. These have been
illustrated in this section through discussion of the universalisation of
scientific knowledge (for more detail see Latour 1993; Law 1994; or for
more introductory material Murdoch 1995, 1997).
The main weakness in the sociology of scientific knowledge for the
purposes of this chapter is the lack of guidance it might offer in terms
of practical interventions in natural resource management. While this
perspective is very well placed to analyse the ways in which power and
agency are enabled and constrained by social environmental networks,
and always presupposes that things could be otherwise, it has very little
to say regarding how social networks ought to be arranged (Latour 2000).
For this reason, the final perspective outlined in this chapter is one that
deals explicitly with such questions.

What do we do about ‘environmental problems’? Deliberation

and democracy
Deliberative theory is concerned with the integration of empirical,
moral and critical aspects of research into mechanisms for making
collective choices (Dryzek 1996). As such, it provides a rationale for
the trend in natural resource management over the last two decades
to adopt a discourse of citizen participation and democratisation, and
guidance as to how the social sciences may support these processes.
Deliberative theory certainly does not go as far as the sociology of scien-
tific knowledge in its theoretical challenge to dichotomies between the
social and the natural, the symbolic and the material, but it does focus in
quite a practical way on the relationships between the construction of
environmental knowledge and material intervention in environmental
management.
Deliberative theory is concerned with the promotion of commu-
nicatively rational deliberation; that is, with negotiation over social
and environmental issues that is oriented towards the attainment of
consensus through free and unconstrained debate among communica-
tively competent equals, and thus founded solely on the merits of argu-
ments rather than on the defence of particular interests or points of
view (Habermas 1984; Dryzek 1990). The role of deliberation is not to
establish universal standards of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, or to find the one
‘correct’ answer to a dispute or problem, but to arrive at decisions that
 SOCIAL THEORY 37

participants believe fair and reasonable (Miller 1992). Decisions may

be based as much on participants’ assessments of appropriate procedures
or norms as on their assessment of empirical ‘facts’. Communicatively
rational deliberation is based on the assumption that while it is not pos-
sible in many circumstances for all claims to be satisfied (e.g. in use of
a resource), it is possible for people’s views ‘to be swayed by rational
arguments and to lay aside particular interests and opinions in defer-
ence to overall fairness and the common interest of the collectivity’
(Miller 1992: 56).
Communicatively rational deliberation is not, of course, the princi-
pal collective choice mechanism in Western societies, which are dom-
inated instead by instrumental rationality. Instrumental, or means–
end, rationality promotes the manipulation of objects for short-term
human gain, the discounting of future benefits and of intrinsic value in
nature, and a reductionist outlook that ignores complexity and interde-
pendence. By contrast, according to Dryzek (1987), communicatively
rational deliberation has real potential to promote more ‘ecologically
rational’ decision-making by encouraging decision-makers to consider
options holistically and look beyond self-interest to collective and eco-
logical well-being, by decentralising decision-making and making social
choice processes more sensitive to ecological feedback signals, and by
involving more participants in what appear to be supra-local issues
(Dryzek 1987, 1992).
An obvious question to ask here is what makes deliberative theory
anything more than wishful thinking? The answer, according to Dryzek
(1996), lies in empirical examples of the differences between situations
where natural resources have been managed sustainably over long peri-
ods and those that have not. In relation to sustainable resource man-
agement situations, he argues, it is evident that those involved have
developed ways to communicate and interact with each other. They
also have developed the ability to learn about whom to trust and the
effects that their actions have on each other and on the resource; and
they have developed norms, patterns of reciprocity, institutions, and so
on to solve problems and conflicts. Individuals are not constituted in
such cases as either rational individualists or rational ecologists, but as
members of a web of relationships from which identity and coordina-
tion are drawn. Situations characterised by instrumental rationality, by
contrast, are subject to the same imperatives towards resource degrada-
tion discussed earlier in this chapter in relation to capitalism.
The social sciences may contribute to communicatively rational
deliberation in a number of ways. The principles of free and uncon-
strained debate may be used to evaluate and critique existing collective
38 CONTROVERSIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

choice mechanisms and to suggest alternatives. In this respect, the

social sciences can go beyond advocating wider citizen participation
as an end in itself and help to uncover the way in which instrumental
rationality is embedded in institutions and decision-making processes
in ways that are taken for granted but which yet undermine commu-
nicative rationality. The social sciences can also be used to clarify the
impacts of proposed courses of action on different social groups, and to
document and represent the interests and aspirations of groups affected
by those proposals. The aim here is not to adopt the objectifying gaze of
the ‘expert’ social scientist but to use the methods of the social sciences
to support deliberation over the goals, impacts and management of
proposed change.
Despite the clear identification of roles for the social sciences in
the promotion of communicative rationality, deliberative theory offers
little by way of specific methods or conceptual tools with which to do
this. Despite some major theoretical differences, it can be seen that
the ability of the sociology of scientific knowledge to examine the
ways in which particular rationalities (instrumental, communicative
or ecological) are represented as universal, and hence made to appear
inevitable through their inscription in technologies and ways of doing
things, offers opportunities to add considerable empirical depth to this
analysis.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Reflecting its title – social nature – this chapter has argued that resolu-
tion of the key theoretical debates in environmental sociology requires
abandonment of dichotomies between nature and society, the mate-
rial and the symbolic, as embedded within mainstream social theory
(see also Braun & Castree 1998). Further, following the most overt
attempts to do this leads us to a reformulation of basic sociological con-
cepts such as power and agency in terms that see these conceptualised as
the outcome of relationships within networks rather than as the prop-
erties of individuals. By shifting the focus of sociological analysis from
a search for the centre of power to exploration of the multiple ways in
which power and agency may be expressed and contested, it becomes
possible to consider more seriously the active roles played by nature and
technology in the networks of the social.
Reviewing a number of key theoretical perspectives in environmen-
tal sociology has, however, also highlighted considerable scope for
dialogue and integration across these perspectives. While it is pos-
sible to suggest that communicatively rational deliberation offers an
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Igumper Patience.
Igur You, thou.
Il A bone.
In The stomach.
Iōr To cry.
Iya It is that; yes, just so.

K
Kaargon From the beginning.
Kabai To have.
Kabai len̄ ḡen Married.
Kabul To-morrow morning (a salutation on parting for the
night).
Kad To bite.
Kaërin To steal.
Kafel Good, well, all right.
Kaforombots Not long ago.
Kainep Night time.
Kaiuk Enough, sufficient.
Kakadai Old.
Kakail To pinch.
Kakarom Before, formerly.
Kakatabụl Early morning.
Kakatabụl-ni- Daybreak.
kakatabụl
Kakei A fruit tree.
Kakolin Raw.
Kalakal ei The thigh.
Kalemulang A cloud.
Kamagar Thank you.
Kamot Taro, kaladium.
Kanakalei Muscle.
Kaniloi To dash.
Kanin̄ ḡgek Four days hence (see Grammar).
Karagufin An ember, red hot.
Kareb Bad.
Keb-e-nū It rains.
Kebụtsen Sad.
Këei Low tide.
Këek To count.
Kef A net.
Kefalaiefu Calm.
Kei Hungry.
Keiru Back.
Kel To get.
Ken̄ ḡuin The trunk of a tree.
Kenikaiak To bury.
Kensuk A crowd.
Keptsa-n̄ ḡa-but Dropped to the ground.
Kerek Crystal.
Kerker A scratch.
Kerū A husk.
Kesigiri To turn to one side.
Keṯẖik Fallen stretched on the ground.
Ketibūli On the contrary.
Ketsop A crackling, a slight noise.
Ketugul Straight.
Kinei This piece of.
Kinem That piece of.
Kinir That piece yonder of.
Kiots Dawn.
Kirifel Perfectly.
Ko To (used before personal pronouns or names in the
indirect objective case; ex.: Munon ko Tomak—tell it
to Tomak. Also used in comparisons).
Kōbrë Iron, metal.
Koi To eat.
Kōkal-n̄ ḡa-nug Repentance.
Kol A handle.
Kong lūgūnai The inside of the throat.
Koruf To bore.
Kū Of.
Kụf To bloom, to blossom.
Kufanu For us two only.
Kūyūn̄ ḡun Value.

L
La An abscess.
Laguen-e-ṯẖuṯẖ Human milk.
Lai A portion, a part.
Lai A sail.
Lam A fish-hook (wooden).
Lamen To taste.
Lanei-ūtei The eye.
Lāng To enclose, to twist.
Lān̄ ḡat Wild pepper.
Lān̄ ḡei The mouth.
Lān̄ ḡgin Within, the interior.
Lān̄ ḡilat Day after to-morrow.
Lanilii Hole in lobe of ear.
Lanipei Palm of hand.
Lanimit The eye.
Laninii Memory.
Lanuautan-e-ṯẖuṯẖ A nipple.
L’dou A corpse.
Lë Shell of coconut.
Lebuk Knuckles.
Lëek To steal.
Len̄ ḡin Wife, or husband.
Li To wound.
Lifith To weave.
Ligil To boil.
Ligin The neck.
Liguin A close necklace, a collar.
Likai Dreams.
Liken̄ ḡin A root.
Lili Sick.
Lin̄ ḡau To rob.
Lin̄ ḡilin̄ ḡi The cheek.
Lin̄ ḡir Coconut milk.
Liok Light with flint and steel.
Lō The skull.
Lod A tumor.
Logoru Two.
Lok To lower from the level of the ground.
Lōkar To belch.
Lol A fly.
Lolūgei The head.
Lou A pit, a hole.
L’ra A ditch.
Lū To lower from a place above the level of the ground.
Lu Tears.
Lụgụd A cigarette.
Lụgunei, Lụngei The mouth.
Lul A stream, a brook.
Lūmor Darkness.
Lūmots To drown.
Lun̄ ḡei, Lugūnei The mouth.
Lun̄ ḡụn The voice.
Lüou A ring.

M
Māāb A door, a gate.
Māāi Foolish, a fool.
Māāp To stretch.
Machuri Take away.
Mad Clothing.
Madan̄ ḡadan̄ ḡ-kō- Valiant.
mal
Madthu To spit.
Madụs A tumor.
Mafeng To meet, to encounter.
Magagan Ugly.
Magal Fire-light, lamp-light.
Magar To become tired.
Magilao A bat.
Mak To tie, to fasten.
Makadkad A sharp taste.
Makef Inside the reefs, the lagoon.
Makil Sweet, sugar-cane.
Mal A wall.
Malabots Wild, savage.
Malad A wound.
Malaf Distance.
Malamal Idle, lazy.
Malamit Blind.
Malāng A stone, coral.
Maluk To bathe.
Man To go.
Manāng To know.
Mān̄ ḡā What?
Mān̄ ḡāfan Why?
Mān̄ ḡial When? At what time?
Mānigil Excellent, precious.
Marafā Neck-cord worn by adult women.
Mases Matches.
Matau Right hand.
Mathil Limit.
Matsalabok Clean, clear, pure.
Matsei To paint.
Matsem To become accustomed, a custom.
Matsitsi Mean, penurious.
Matsūri Hold up! Stop!
Mederek Separate, separable.
Meiōgō Wet.
Melik Dried, parsimonious.
Meloi To carve, to engrave.
Meluol An order, a command.
Merau Ripe cocoanuts.
Merup A shell for scraping taro.
Methir To burn, to light with fire.
Metsaf Money, riches.
Michibii To stand up.
Ming To break.
Min̄ ḡieng To chew.
Mil To flee, to escape.
Mini Who? Which?
Minimin Laughter.
Mininum By-and-by, wait a little.
Misilipik Corrhyza, a cold object.
Mispil A woman of the Failu.
Mit Class, form, manner.
Miṯẖ To hide.
Miṯẖemiṯẖ To move.
Mitri Lateness, delay.
Mitsibitsi Lashing tying together.
Mōgotrul Dark yellow.
Mōkụf A flower.
Mol To sleep, to lie down.
Mom Easy.
Mōmā Difficult.
Momau Difficult.
Momok A charm, incantation.
Mon First.
Mon̄ ḡol A woman of the Failu.
Mor Grass, bamboo.
Moriar To die.
Mororei Dry, crisp, arid.
Mororo A robber, thief.
Moruel Work, toil.
Mosul Mucus.
Mot A pit, a well, a hole.
Mu A canoe.
Mū To finish.
Mūfaned For you (plural).
Mūfanei For thee.
Mūfanū For you two.
Mūgūnin Bitter, sour.
Mụl To lose.
Mūrūbidi Dry, crisp.
Mūrūgil A dagger (of bamboo).
Mụs End, finish, conclusion.
Mụth A cut by a knife or axe.
Mūtrūbil A bachelor, unmarried person.

N
Nag To drag.
Nak To pardon.
Naun A house.
Ne (ni, nu) Of.
Nei Belly.
Neng Mosquito.
Nep Night.
Ν̄ḡa To (motion towards).
Ν̄ḡabut Toward below.
Ν̄ḡadafaned For us.
Ν̄ḡadafanou For us two.
Ν̄ḡak Him, her, it (acc.).
Ν̄ḡālāng Above (motion upwards).
Ν̄ḡālān̄ ḡin Toward the inside.
Ν̄ḡālen niga Molar teeth.
Ν̄ḡārā Thither.
Ν̄ḡārai Hither, toward here.
Ν̄ḡāram Toward yonder.
Ν̄ḡauen Toward the outside.
Ν̄ḡë To (infinitive mood), for the purpose of.
Ν̄ḡe dii Wherefore.
Ν̄ḡibots Spittle.
Ν̄ḡigak The elder; Ν̄ḡijik, the younger (of persons).
Ν̄ḡirin̄ ḡir Food which Yalafath provides in Falraman; it lasts
forever.
Ν̄ḡōdad Us, to us (acc. or dat.).
Ν̄ḡōdou Us two.
Ν̄ḡok Me, to me (acc. or dat.).
Ν̄ḡol A shark.
Ν̄ḡom Thee, to thee (acc. or dat.).
Ν̄ḡōmad Us only, to us only (acc. or dat.).
Ν̄ḡōmed You, to you (plur. acc. or dat.).
Ν̄ḡōmou Us two only.
Ν̄ḡōmu You two, to you two (acc. or dat.).
Ν̄ḡon̄ ḡor Pineapple.
Ν̄ḡōrad Them, to them (acc. or dat.).
Ν̄ḡōrok To vomit.
Ν̄ḡōrou Them (two), to them (two) (acc. or dat.).
Ν̄ḡualen, Ν̄ḡuol A tooth.
Ν̄ḡūaleng A point.
Ν̄ḡūrụng-e-rek The chest.
Ν̄ḡụtsei A vein.
Ni If.
Nifel Good.
Nifeng The wind.
Nifi Fire, flint and steel.
Nigup Tobacco.
Nik Fish.
Ning To ask, to beg, to close.
Niu-u-keiru The backbone.
Niụng To plant.
Non To speak, to talk.
Non̄ ḡ To swim.
Nū Rain.
Nụf A sprout of a plant.
Nụm To drink.
Nụmen A fowl.

O
Oagon Home.
Oburei Hill.
Od To waken.
Ok To talk, to speak.
Olagui To sweep.
Olak Brother, friend, cousin.
Olum Cold.
Ong Woman’s skirt.
Orōporōpek Weak.
Orụr Rotten.
Oth To jump.
Otōfin Coal, charcoal.
Otōrel Far off.
Otsen Skein of thread, lock of hair.
Otsụp Coconut (soft).
Oụdi To squeeze out.
Ouol Centipede.
Outsen Seed.

P
Pabai Bachelor’s house (inland).
Pachijik Small.
Pak To leave.
Pan Grass.
Pān̄ ḡin A branch.
Papai Quick.
Patak Diligent.
Pau Banana.
Pei (or paei) The arm.
Pelis A dog.
Peluon Price, recompence.
Peluon kō, or n̄ ḡa. Point at.
Pemon The chest.
Per To be.
Përë Forehead.
Pes To float.
Petan̄ ḡai To meet.
Pethụn̄ ḡui The nose.
Petsok Scissors.
Pi To give.
Pidōrang Beautiful (woman).
Pih Hair of head.
Pilun A chief.
Pimlin̄ ḡai A slave.
Pin A woman.
Pinfi Kitchen, house where women cook.
Pin̄ ḡek To turn around.
Pinning Call, summon.
Pir To sit.
Pirdi To pound, to break.
Piri Very, much.
Pirieiai Often.
Piṯẖik Untie.
Pitsanei These persons.
Pitsanem They, those persons yonder.
Pitsanir Those persons (near).
Pitsoai Handsome (man).
Poi Shoulder.
Pon Wing of a bird.
Pōok To flow, to spill.
Potson A tail.
Pụfeṯẖin An oath.
Pụl The moon.
Pụlo Entire.
Pumawn Man, male.
Pūpūan To argue, to dispute.
Purpur A hat.
Pụū Bamboo.

R
Raau To exceed, abundant.
Rabun̄ ḡek A cancer, a large sore.
Rafaned For them.
Rafanou For them (two).
Raiok Possible.
Rak Of me, my.
Ran Water (fresh).
Raurau Red.
Reb Also.
Rëen Colour.
Refun̄ ḡirich Knots used in lashing beams together.
Ren A tree, wood.
Ren̄ ḡren̄ ḡ Yellow, saffron used as cosmetic.
Ren̄ ḡren̄ ḡ malalai. Dark yellow, orange.
Rif-e-rif The width of the hand, used in measurements.
Riul Truly, really.
Riul-ni-riul Positively.
Rob The beard.
Rōdad Of us, with us.
Rōdou Of us two.
Rōgobụg To kneel.
Rok Of him, his, her, its.
Rom Thy, thine, yours, of thee.
Rōmad Of us, or with us only.
Rōmed Of you, or with you.
Rōmou Of us, or with us.
Rōmu Of you (two), or with you (two).
Run̄ ḡak To hear.
Run̄ ḡidu Black, blue, green.
Run̄ ḡiu To love.
Rus Panic, to fear much.

S
Saban-e-ban Fraud, swindler.
Sabaut Light, not heavy.
Saṯẖaoṯẖ Slow.
Sawl Salt.
Seinian To take a walk.
Sesei To tear in strips.
Sōath Slowly.
Sōlap Skilful, intelligent.
Sōmening A lobster.
Sōrom You are right, that’s right.
Sūksụk dao Fat, corpulent.
Sul To return.
Sulun̄ ḡai Again, to repeat.
Sụmrūmōr Slanted, inclined.
Sunogōr Disgust, nausea.
Sụon Master.
Sūsụn Equally.

T
Tab One, the one.
Tabang Mixed.
Taban̄ ḡūin End, extremity.
Tabeṯẖung A right angle.
Tafen Property, kingdom.
Tafenai The soul, to think.
Taflai Doctor.
Tagalụl Shade.
Tagil Village.
Tagūil Place, position.
Tai To put, to place.
Tal A string.
Tali The ear.
Talibei Arm-pit, axilla.
Taliginai Throat, neck.
Taliu Burying ground.
Tam Funeral chant.
Tamadak To fear.
Tamako Tobacco.
Tamara Shame.
Tamaṯẖaṯẖ One or another, seldom.
Tamilang Smooth, flat.
Tan̄ ḡin Under, below.
Taoreng Love.
Taoromrom Flames.
Tapal Woman’s house.
Tapiung Low, low position.
Tar Excrement.
Tareb One.
Tareb arragon Like, as.
Tebil A sour fruit.
Ted Home.
Teliau A fillet of flowers.
Tẖam An out-rigger.
Tẖang To extinguish.
Tẖap Cut with a knife.
Tẖarami The sky.
Tẖauei Red shell necklace.
Tẖei The navel.
Tẖoath Slow.
Tẖik To throw down, to tumble.
Tẖinbots Order, command.
Tẖoi To blow.
Tẖū Waist cloth.
Tẖūak To take out of the mouth.
Tẖugal Bamboo fish weir.
Tẖuṯẖ The breast.
Tinei These (animals or things).
Tinem Those (animals or things) yonder.
Tinin̄ ḡan Which ones (animals or inanimate objects).
Tinir Those (animals or things).
Tinning To suspend.
Tir-ū-moro Pupil of eye, eyeball.
Tob Young coconut.
Tōgar Enemy.
Toi To chop, to strike.
Tōlolobei Butterfly.
Tolōmol The jungle.
Tolụk Centre, middle.
Tolul To scream, to cry.
Tōmal Heavy.
Tōmunemūn Food.
Tōmūr Last.
Tou Hatchet.
Tsabok A grave.
Tsagal A war-belt.
Tsam A wall, a combat.
Tsanem That, he, she, it.
Tsan̄ ḡar To see.
Tsanei This.
Tseb-e-tseb Curious.
Tsediri To-day.
Tseltsel Take a walk, to revolve, to roll.
Tsidiri Now, instantly.
Tsigii Roof.
Tsikinega This very large piece of.
Tsikinei This very small piece of.
Tsine Now.
Tsōgou Hot.
Tsop Mat of palm leaf.
Tsotsol A cough.
Tsrua Necklace.
Tsum Pig-sty, a filthy place.
Tsūrū A dance.
Tsūtsū To doze.
Tụf A star.
Tūgūi To hit with the fist.
Tūgūpiai Woman’s dancing belt.
Tūguru A bigamist.
Tūlāng To stand, to rise.
Tun̄ ḡin Grandfather, grandson.
Tun̄ ḡui To begin.
Tungun-e-ei Calf of leg.

U
Ū In.
Ūaman̄ ḡin Fruit.
Ūara There.
Ūaram Yonder.
Ūargon How, in what manner.
Ūathun̄ ḡin Eyebrow.
Ụb To come.
Ūbụt Below.
Ūbụtsia About to die.
Ūed Equally.
Ūeldụk A vegetable, a sown field.
Ūen Outside.
Ūerialen-e-ei The heel.
Ūerūer Separate, to separate.
Ūetch Lime.
Ūetsuma Brother-in-law.
Ūfin Flesh, meat.
Ūfūf Vain, a dandy.
Ūin When (past time).
Ụl A feather, leaf of cocoanut palm.
Ūlāng Above.
Ūlian Captain of a ship.
Ūlūlūpei The wrist, a doll.
Ūlūm Chilliness, internal cold.
Ūlụts A ray of light.
Ūlūūlek Order, discipline.
Ụmbụl Banana fibre mat.
Ụn To dress up.
Ūonū Long.
Ūots Dawn.
Ūotsrei The chin.
Ụp To sew.
Ụrgot A girl before puberty.
Ūriel The last.
Ūroi Here.
Ūrụkrụk To balance with the hand.
Ūrūn̄ ḡin Everywhere.
Ūūrn̄ ḡin-e-ran Every day.
Ụṯẖ White, like foam.
Ūtōlụk In the middle.
Ūū Where.
Ūūa A path.
Ūubụt From below.
Ūubụtōrel From far.
Ūubụtsūgụr From near.
Ūuen From outside.
Ūulāng From above.
Ūulān̄ ḡin From inside.
Ūurō Thence.
Ūuroi From here.
Ūurom From yonder.

V
Vetch-vetch White (like paper).

W
Wai Old fashioned betel basket of semi-circular shape.
Witandawei The skin.
Wū Betel nut.

Y
Ya Because.
Yad Those (yonder) persons.
Yai A tune.
Yalafath God of Creation.
Yan A soul.
Yap A paddle.
Yar Shell (mother-of-pearl).
Yār-ne-matsif Shell knife.
Yār-nu-betchrek Large shell money.
Yenen̄ ḡin Sister-in-law.
Yōmon ulun̄ ḡai The tongue.
Yū A palm tree.
Yūentali The ear (the outside ear).
Who art thou?—Igur Mini?
I am a man of Uap—Igak pumawn nu Uap.
What is thy name?—Mini fithin̄ ḡam igur?
My name is Lemet—Fithin̄ ḡak e Lemet.
Who is that man who is coming?—Mini e tsanir ni keb?
He is one of my brothers—Tareb Ōlakek.
What is your brother’s name?—Mini e fithin̄ ḡan ōlakem?
He is named Ronoboi—Fithin̄ ḡan e Ronoboi.
Whence dost thou come?—Mụb ūū?
Where do you (plural) come from?—M’bad ūū?
Where do you two come from?—M’bou ūū?
Where is that one coming from?—Keb ūū tsanem?
Where are they coming from?—R’bad ūū pitsanem?
I am coming from my house—-Gụp ū naun rak.
We are coming (or come) from Rul—Gụpad ū Rul.
We (two) come from the stream—Gụpou ū lul.
He is coming from the sea—Keb ū madai.
They come from a little island which is near—R’bad u tareb e
don̄ ḡots ni kabai bōtsugur.
Where art thou going alone?—Ν̄ḡa man e n̄ ḡan gōgūr?
Where are you going?—Ν̄ḡa maned e n̄ ḡan?
Where is he going?—Ν̄ḡa yane n̄ ḡan e tsanem?
Where are they going?—Ν̄ḡa ranöd n̄ ḡan e pitsanem?
I have come from the house and I go to Goror—Kōgụp ū naun, n̄ ḡe
gwan n̄ ḡa Goror.
We are going to the cemetery—Gwanad n̄ ḡa taliu.
He is going to fish—Tsanem këan kō fita.
Those people are going to see the plants—Pitsanem karanöd n̄ ḡe
kibots e ūelduk.
This one is not going because he is afraid—Tsanei dabiyan ya
tamadak.
Of whom art thou afraid?—Tatamadak kō mini?
I am very much afraid of the dead—Gūtamadak e piri ko iam.
What dost thou want?—Man̄ ḡa gadak?
I want nothing—Dāri Dāri!
I want water because I am thirsty—Gedak e ran ya kōgum n’ran.
What does he say?—Mān̄ ḡā baiok e tsanir?
What is the name of that?—Mān̄ ḡā fithin̄ ḡan tinei?
What is this for?—Mān̄ ḡā kaflak ka tinei?
Art thou alone or with others?—Gōgūr fa gūmed e boör?
Art thou alone or are there two?—Gōgūr fa gumou e bë?
We are many—Gōmad e boör.
We are two—Gōmou e bë.
I am going to sleep—Gwan n̄ ḡe gụtsūtsū.
Come thou—Moi n̄ ḡarai.
Come you two—Marrou n̄ ḡarai.
Come you—Marred n̄ ḡarai.
I do not know—Dakōnāng.
Call all the people—Pinning awning e gidi.
When wilt thou return?—Dain baimusūl?
UAP ISLAND. ENTRANCE ROCK, LAT. 9° 28′ 3″ N., LONG. 138° 4′ 46″ E.
 INDEX
PAGE
Adoption 33
Armlets 66
Athegiths or ghosts 148
Bachelors’ Houses, Construction of 36
Banana-leaf mats 104, 151
“Bei” leaves 130
Bracelets 66
Burial position 176
Burial rites 162
Burying grounds 171
Cat’s-cradle 107, 112
Causes of illness 148
Colour perception 155
Combs 57
Copra 27
Costume 56
Counting 140
Creation legend 142
Dances 82
Drift of canoes 41
Ear-lobes, Slitting of 59
Ear-protectors 110
Ear-rings 61
Epileptics 148
European music, Appreciation of 70
Failu, A 36
Failu after a fishing expedition 43
Falraman (Heaven) 68, 147
Fatumak 126
Fatumak’s writing 139
Fei 93
Fire, Origin of 151
Fishing in open sea 38
Forbidden song of Failu 75
Fortune tellers 137
Fortune telling 130, 133
Funeral, A 164
Gods and Demons 149
Grave digging 172
Heaven (Falraman) 68, 147
High-born nobles 49
History of the Carolines 16
Houses, Construction of 22
Importation of Fei 100
Incantations 152
Inifel of Magachpa 63
Introduction of tattooing 159
Japanese poetry 80
Kakofel, daughter of Lian 108
Kitchens 110
Language of songs and incantations 77
Legend of creation 142
Lemet, a mispil 51
Lost Fei, The 96
Mach-mach or sorcery 152
Marafa,—a badge of puberty 123
Migiul, a mispil 124
Mispils 46
Mispils, Capture of 50
Money and currency 92
Moving pictures 83
Mutilations 59
Naming a child 153
Necklaces 62
New fire 37
Omens from Bei leaves 132
Origin of fire 151
Out-rigger canoes, Management of 40
Pabai, A 36
Paths, Native made 31
Payment of a fine 98
Perception of colour 155
Phonographic records 69
Pimlingai, Slave class 49, 158, 168
Pooguroo 29, 33
Population 17
Posture songs 82, 85
Presents to a corpse 166
Religion 142
Return of a fishing party 42
Ronoboi, The mach-mach 64, 106
Sacred mats or Umbul 104, 151
Shell money 102, 103
Shell necklaces as money 105
Sitting down posture song 86
Slave class, Pimlingai 49, 158, 168
Soul, The 147, 149
Spells 79
Standard of beauty 124
Standing-up dance 88
Stone money 93
Sunken wealth 97
Superstitions 39, 43, 45, 120, 137, 165
Taboo over fishermen 38
Tacking with an out-rigger canoe 40
Tafenai, The soul 147, 149
Tattooing 157
Tattooing of a mispil 54
Thauei, Shell necklaces 105
Trading value of Fei 101
Uaap, Meaning of 16
Umbul, Sacred mats 104
Women’s skirts 121
Words of songs 78
Yalafath, The Supreme Deity 149
Yap, Meaning of 16
 FOOTNOTES:
[1] Christian, (The Caroline Islands, p. 350) says that it is a
variety of Morinda citrifolia.
[2] “Almost the oldest specimen of Latin which we now
possess is the Song of the Salii, the priests of Mars, handed on
from generation to generation, and repeated with scrupulous
care, even though the priests themselves, as Quintilian assures
us, had not the least notion what it meant.”—Bailey Religion of
Ancient Rome, 1907, p. 24.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected

silently.

2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the original.

3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have

been retained as in the original.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISLAND OF
STONE MONEY ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S.

copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in
these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it
in the United States without permission and without paying
copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of
Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything
for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is
very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as
creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research.
Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given
away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with
eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject
to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
 PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree
to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund
from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in
paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people
who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a
few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic
works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.
See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with
Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the
collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law
in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do
not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing,
performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the
work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of
course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™
mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely
sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated
with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this
agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached
full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge
with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the
United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the
terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying,
performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this
work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes
no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in
any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must
appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™
work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears,
or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is
accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived

from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a
notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright
holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the
United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must
comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through
1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted

with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted
with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning
of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project

Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a
part of this work or any other work associated with Project
Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1
with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you
provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work
in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in
the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or
expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or
a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original
“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must
include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in
paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive
from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
 about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt
that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project
Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in
the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90
days of receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™

electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe
and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating
the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may
be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to,
incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a
copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or
damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for

the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3,
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the
Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR
NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR
BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH
1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK
OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL
NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT,
CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF
YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you

discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving
it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by
sending a written explanation to the person you received the work
from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must
return the medium with your written explanation. The person or
entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide
a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work
electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to
give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in
lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may
demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the
problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,