Sociology Exposed:

1
Lecture 2

• Sociology Exposed
• A Critical Meta-Analysis

2
Things

• Paper Ideas
• Birth control effects on waterways
• Women/Men of Greenpeace
• Ideas of the goddess
• Where did the term Mother Nature originate?
• Whose stuff is in those containers at the Halifax
  container piers?
• Cosmetics industry.
• Women and property rights over the past 150
  years.
• Gender and the Protestant Work Ethic
• Women who took over farming while their husbands
  went off to world wars
• Origin of the Greek Olympics
• Gender-Mythology-Nature
• Gender and the clothing industry
• Playboy Bunnies naturization of women
• Male soldiers and the environments they fight in
• Tattoos
• Gay eco-tourism
• Barbies body as unnatural

• Sunset in Halifax 453 this evening
• The Beatles - Mother Nature's Son

3
Consider How do you view the world? How does
the rest of the world view YOU?
www.mapsworldwide.com/itm_img/1865001104.gif
4

• Today general refresher of sociology before we
  delve into a specific role it plays in the
  understanding of our gender/sex relationship with
  nature.

5
What is Sociology?What isnt sociology? When
did it begin? In the cave? Some big thinkers
6

• "Sociology is the study of human social life,
  groups and societies. It is a dazzling and
  compelling enterprise, having as its subject
  matter our own behavior as social beings.
• The scope of sociology is extremely wide,
  ranging from the analysis of passing encounters
  between individuals in the street up to the
  investigation of world-wide social processes"
  Anthony Giddens, Sociology (1989).

7
Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (1789
- 1857)

• Comte coined the term Sociology --- Application
  of scientific method on societybased on
  empirical view of science developing since around
  Galileos time, he believed it could be the
  umbrella discipline. What do you think?
  
• 
  (http//etudiant.univ-mlv.fr/dhentry/comte.j
  pe)

8
Know any of these faces of sociology?

• http//www.historyguide.org/intellect/l
• 
  http//www.faculty.rsu.edu
• 
  http//XXXXXXX.itgo.com/
  main.html
• 
  faculty.maxwell.syr.edu
  
• 
  
  www.chinadaily.com
• 
  
  
  
  Li Yinhe, China's first female
• 
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  
  sociologist on sex issues
• 
  

9

• And - What can sociology offer us as we consider
  the language around Gender, Sex and Nature?

10
We all know what these words mean.right?

• Woman Ladylike TomBoy
• Female
• Man A Real Man
• Male
• Working Man
• Human Gender
• Family Love
• Nature

11
But, what about these words?

• Androcentric
• Bisexual
• Gay
• Hermaphrodite
• Homosexual
• Heterosexual
• Lesbian
• Transsexual
• Transvestite

12
And these?

• Serene Nature
• Wild Nature
• Domesticating Nature
• Harvesting Nature

13
And

• Human Nature
• (is there such a thing?)

14
Andwhat about Mother Nature? Where did that
come from?

• Alexander Hogue, Mother Earth Laid Bare, 1938
• http//www.wsu.edu8080/amerstu/ce/summer97/Gend
  er.html

15
This course aims to

• Disrupt Commonsense reasoning about gender, sex
  and nature
• In order to better understand
• 1. How we/society/I/you
• define,
• link, and
• separate those concepts and the consequences
  we face in doing so.
• 2. Artistic representations that merge gender,
  sex, and nature(its not all blah blah blah).
• 3. Gender and sex impacts environmental activism
  and vice-versa.

16
Can sociology handle this?

• Timo Jarvikoski, at University of Oulu in
  Finland, articulated the role of nature in
  sociology very well, and the role is changing
  more rapidly in the past few years.
• (the following primer is adapted from
  Jarvikoskis article published in A. Konttinen
  (ed.), Green Moves, Political Stalemates. Annales
  Universitatis Turkuensis, B 215, 1996, 16-24)

17
What we know for sure is this

• Definitions nature and sociology are difficult
  to define epistemological challenges, then, are
  expected whenever we discuss the human and nature
  relationship

18
Jarvikoski writes that -

• August Comte (1798-1857), the one who coined the
  term sociology in the early1800s, was influenced
  by witnessing the growing human-conquering-nature
  phenomenon of industrialization

19
Comte, and Herbert Spencer, began to
sociologically

• grapple with social issues such as pollution and
  race, issues which soon dropped out of the
  disciplines mainstream ideology.
• But, Spencer claimed that we could not understand
  society until we understood the laws of nature
• The two considered society as a social organism
  very positivist approach to understanding society

20
Along came Durkheim (1858-1917)

• Durkheim, considered the father of sociology I
  wonder what were the mothers of sociology
  doing?, somewhat disagreed with Comte and
  Spencer
• Durkheim believed that social facts were the
  exclusive things necessary to understand and
  define society anything non-social in other
  disciplines were inadequate and irrelevant to
  understanding society.

21
Our course most often uses examples of social
facts in an attempt to understand the human and
nature relationship regarding gender and sex.

• Every individual drinks, sleeps, eats, or employs
  his reason, and society has every interest in
  seeing that these functions are regularly
  exercised. If therefore these facts were social
  ones, sociology would possess no subject matter
  peculiarly its own, and its domain would be
  confused with that of biology and psychology.
  However, in reality there is in every society a
  clearly determined group of phenomena separable,
  because of their distinct characteristics, from
  those that form the subject matter of other
  sciences of nature. 

• Durkheim (from Rules of the Sociological Method,
  edited by Steven Lukes trans. by W.D. Halls, New
  York Free Press, 1982, pp. 50-59 ) Before
  beginning the search for the method appropriate
  to the study of social facts it is important to
  know what are the facts termed 'social'. The
  question is all the more necessary because the
  term is used without much precision. It is
  commonly used to designate almost all the
  phenomena that occur within society, however
  little social interest of some generality they
  present. Yet under this heading there is, so to
  speak, no human occurrence that cannot be called
  social.

22
What are some examples of a social fact which
relate to our course?

• Durkheim goes on When I perform my duties as a
  brother, a husband or a citizen and carry out the
  commitments I have entered into, I fulfil
  obligations which are defined in law and custom
  and which are external to myself and my actions.
  Even when they conform to my own sentiments and
  when I feel their reality within me, that reality
  does not cease to be objective, for it is not I
  who have prescribed these duties I have received
  them through education. Moreover, how often does
  it happen that we are ignorant of the details of
  the obligations that we must assume, and that, to
  know them, we must consult the legal code and its
  authorised interpreters!
• IMP Thus there are ways of acting, thinking and
  feeling which possess the remarkable property of
  existing outside the consciousness of the
  individual. Not only are these types of behaviour
  and thinking external to the individual, but they
  are endued with a compelling and coercive power
  by virtue of which, whether he wishes it or not,
  they impose themselves upon him. Undoubtedly when
  I conform to them of my own free will, this
  coercion is not felt or felt hardly at all, since
  it is unnecessary. None the less it is
  intrinsically a characteristic of these facts
  the proof of this is that it asserts itself as
  soon as I try to resist. If I attempt to violate
  the rules of law they react against me so as to
  forestall my action, if there is still time.
  Alternatively, they annul it or make my action
  conform to the norm if it is already accomplished
  but capable of being reversed or they cause me
  to pay the penalty for it if it is irreparable.

23
Durkheim did contribute to what we now call
environmental sociologythough it was a minimal
contribution

• by examining how things (non-social) are mediated
  socially. for example, how we use natural
  materials based on the social gaze can be
  problematic for the natural domain
• (duh dont some early sociological statements
  seem commonsense knowledge to us today?!!!
  paradigm shifts in society follow all cultures
  over time some shifts are more rapid than
  others some cultures shift more rapidly than
  others.)

24
Around this time, Karl Marx (1818-1883), in his
examination of the industrialized world around
him,

• included the natural world in his sociological
  writings
• Jarvisoski writes Mans relation to nature does
  not begin by philosophising but by eating,
  drinking and doing, by satisfying needs. Marx
  understood nature also (but not only) as a social
  category. Physical nature does not emerge into
  world history as such, but through human and
  social activity, and formed by it. Marx noted,
  e.g., that such plants as the potato, or the
  cherry tree are not natural to modern
  Europeans, because they had been brought to
  Europe just a few hundred years previously. The
  relation between human society and nature is
  always changing, and Marx pointed out the keen
  connection between this change and material
  production.

25
1920s the Human Ecology School emerged out of the
physical sciences (of plants and animals in this
case) in Chicago

• Mainly from Robert Ezra Park in two domains
• Symbiotic relationships between all things
  based on competition
• Cultural relationships within specific groups
  based on communication and consensus
• Eventually, this became what is now known as
  sociology of spacerelated to human geography and
  other sub-disciplines.

26
Then, fifty years later, it is suggested that a
bunch of sociologists were hanging out together,
talking over the problems of place

• And the story has it that thats how
  environmental sociology was born
• (insert Jarvikoskys skepticism here because of
  the strong westernized view of the birth of this
  specialized discipline when there is much to show
  that environmental sociology emerged before this
  in many other cultures)

27
Michael Mayerfield Bellwill guide us with his
take on environmental sociology refer to
handout on Bells ecological dialogue.

• http//www.michaelmbell.net/

28
Regardless of how environmental perspectives
formed within sociological thought,

• environmental sociology has come into its own in
  the past thirty years, given the good scientific
  data we now have on climate change.
• Consider the infinite possibilities of our
  relationships with nature

29
HUMANS ARE PART OF NATURE

• Humans are part of nature, always and completely.
• There is proof, in all forms, or in some form,
  that humans are part of nature.
• There is no proof, in any form, that humans are
  not part of nature.
• Sometimes, to some degree, humans are part of
  nature.
• Some features of humans are sometimes always and
  completely part of nature.
• Humans are part of nature, and have their own
  human nature as a subset to nature.
• Humans have a human nature which can be sought,
  measured, and interpreted
• Humans are part of nature, and are in charge of
  nature/ourselves.
• Humans are part of nature, and are not in charge
  of nature/ourselves.
• Humans are part of nature, and are in charge of
  some features and members of nature/ourselves at
  all times or some times.
• God or another supreme being is in charge of
  humans/nature always and completely.
• Humans are part of nature, affecting nature
• Humans are part of nature, not affecting nature
  (is this possible?)
• Humans are part of nature, affecting nature, but
  not affected by nature
• Humans are part of nature, affecting nature, and
  affected by nature
• Humans are part of nature, affected by nature,
  but not affecting nature. infinity

30
HUMANS ARE SEPARATE FROM NATURE

• Humans are separate from nature, always and
  completely.
• There is proof, in all forms, or in some form,
  that humans are not part of nature.
• There is no proof, in any form, that humans are
  not separate from nature.
• Sometimes, to some degree, humans are not part of
  nature.
• Some features of humans are separate from nature,
  always and completely.
• Because humans are separate from nature, there is
  no such thing as human nature.
• Therefore, no thing called human nature can be
  sought, measured, and interpreted.
• Humans are separate from nature, and are in
  charge of ourselves, but not of nature.
• Humans are separate from nature, and are in
  charge of nature, but not of ourselves.
• Humans are separate from nature, and are in
  charge of some features and members of nature
  and/or ourselves at all times or some times.
• There is no such thing as a god or other supreme
  being in charge of humans and/or Nature at no
  time, or sometimes, to no degree or some degree.
• Humans are separate from nature, affecting
  nature.
• Humans are separate from nature, not affecting
  nature (is this possible?)
• Humans are separate from nature, affecting and
  affected by nature. infinity

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ARBITRARY, RELATIVE, AND/OR NECESSARY
RELATIONSHIP(S)

• Arbitrary, relative, or necessary relationships
  between humans and nature may be
• constructed and/or believed according to social
  need.
• Humans may decide to consider themselves as part
  of nature.
• Humans may decide to consider others as part of
  nature or closer to nature.
• Humans may judge levels to which humans
  should/are considered part of nature.
• Humans may or may not ever understand our
  relationship with nature. infinity

32

• In order to understand how we construct and merge
  the concepts gender, sex, and nature it is
  useful to apply sociology.
• here, environmental sociology

• SEE WHY WERE NOT SEEKING ANY TRUTHS ABOUT
  NATURE IN THIS COURSE?

33
What do you think?

• Can/Should a study of society include the natural
  environment?

34
Reading Towards a Sociology of Nature

• MacNaghten and Urry 1995

35
To understand sociologys absence in
environmental research

• MacNaghten and Urry first address the context in
  which sociology was discovered and how it was
  used to understand societys place in the natural
  world.

36
Sociology has fallen downpaying little
attention to environmental change and nature
until only recentlyWhy?
37
Authors Sociology was a product of European
Industrialization --- a response to the socially
oppressed and degradation of the countryside and
cities.
38

• Was the Industrial Revolution in Europe good for
  society or bad? A puzzle. Remember, it depended
  entirely on raw natural materials and societys
  progressive (?) machinery.
• And --- consider the dichotomous (extremely
  opposite) histories in the video clips below. How
  can sociology cope with such different sets of
  social facts?
• Also, look for gender and sex implicationsfamily,
  health, religion
• You might understand why there was a need to
  develop a discipline of society for society
• The Wealth of Nations - 3 of 18 -Industrial
  Revolution
• (link not viable, but type in wealth of nations
  industrial revolution)
• George Orwell History of Britain
• (stop at 444 or so re religion)

39
Sowhich version of his story can we
trust?Would her story be any different?Or,
are they the same?What are some other examples
of questionable histories?
40
A meta-analysis of sociologyan
embarrassingly oversimplified look back.
41
(No Transcript)
42
More bad news

• Sociology, itself, has led to the contradictory
  and problematic human-nature relationships
• by the way it has constructed those relationships
  in its definitions.

43
How sociologists have led to mis-constructions
nature what was going on in society at large
had enormous impact on this new science

• It was well-formulated by the 1800s (another
  broken promise of modernity?)
• Remember modernity was the paradigm based on
• progressive domination/harnessing/control of
  nature
• Human exemptionalism (well, arent were
  special?)
• This led to individualism
• e.g., property rights, slavery

44
By 1700, it was well-established that nature was
separate from two main features of the global
world

• i. Society
• Ii. God remember, Christianity was/is strongly
  embedded in the epistemology of Europe
• This resulted from two major transformative
  features of a budding industrializing society

45
First, through scientific empiricism.Second,
through the accepted assumption that nature
existed prior to society/people.

• How did each of these play out?

46
1. Scientific empiricism

• Turned nature into an abundance of facts on
  materialism
• Nature was a set of laws to be measured and
  discovered
• Parts of nature were specifically studied and
  treated independent from the rest of the natural
  environment

47
2. Assumption that nature existed prior to
society/people

• This made nature abstract --- complicated, beyond
  the grasp of the progressive worldview in both
  negative and positive terms so, it had to be
  explained somehow, given that science was
  producing new knowledge at an unprecedented rate
• Hobbes before modern society came along,
  people-nature relationship was solitary, poor,
  nasty, brutish and short nature must be
  dominated in order for civilization to progress.
• Locke it was peaceful and co-operative society
  should look to nature as an example and adopt its
  natural laws.
• 
  (http//www.philosophypag
  es.com)

48
So, this strong worldview that nature is separate
from society

• became functional
• That is, it served society in how new (and old)
  social rules and norms could be justified.
• Especially in how it became a triangulated norm
  (?Or.a tautological circle?)

49
But, there were a few bright sparks

• People began to notice the environmental
  degradation in cities and country-sides due to
  the new and booming production lines (by now,
  farm technology was destroying topsoil at an
  unprecedented rate).
• Butthe market (economy) bones connected to the
  wealth bone, and the wealth bones connected to
  the progress bone, and the progress bones
  connected to the nature bone
• so, society didnt want to attack its own
  economic institutions the very ones theyd
  worked so hard for!

50
Sowhat else could they do but give the market
its own set of natural laws!
51
Another construction of nature occurred when

• Nature became female
• Feminists of the 1900s to the present claim that
  the domination of nature reflects the domination
  of women so, no wonder nature was considered
  female?
• Are women closer to nature than men or other
  sexes/genders? Why/why not?

52
Another construction

• Colonialization of nature
• Remember Canadian story according to First
  Nations people? Canada was the new,
  un-industrialized land with un-civilized people
  ---- just waiting to be rescued and civilized by
  Europeans.(they really thought/think this.)

53
Yet another construction

• Racial connections to nature
• Related to colonialization of First Nations
  people and slavery
• Scientific measurements of the day were assumed
  to be a norm of society,
• Such as some races assumed to be closer to nature
• This is closely related to an Ablist connection
  to nature with people who were labeled insane
  being killed, chained, and/or institutionalized
• Helen Keller was considered wild
• People with epilepsy were considered freaks of
  nature

54
But, like most disciplines today, sociology is
becoming more inclusive, and is now turning its
attention to the environmental situation, adding
to debating dialogue on the problem of nature
from five main areas of study
55

• Sustainability in the real world Rich
  sociological studies add to the wider findings
  that nature is not without its limits they even
  challenge scientific studies, bridging proposed
  theories and the practical fallout from those
  theories
• (For example
• In whose interest are scientific findings in
  certain studies?
• Why are unrepresentative ethnic groups abused in
  scientific studies on pesticides?
• Some scientific reports claim landfill sites,
  nuclear power plants, toxic waste dumping, or
  electric generating stations are safe, but
  sociologically, these are often found in close
  proximity to specific, segregated cultures).
• This is beneficial regarding policy-making or
  un-making.
• Wal-Mart CEO talks sustainability and
  transformation (Lee Scott, CEO)

56

• 2. A reading of society
• - sociology is good at articulating countless
  variables across time and space to paint the
  character and zeitgeist of a society at any given
  time. This is useful to understand the specific
  beliefs, attitudes, and actions a society now
  or then has or had about nature.
• For example (1954) sociology can examine the
  idea that altering nature is permissible if it
  enhances capitalism and urbanization Let the
  flooding begin

57

• 3. Non-naïve Operationalization
• Sociology, though guilty of the pleasures of
  assumptions itself in many cases, no longer
  relies on science for definitions of nature or
  environment.
• Instead, while often taking scientific
  definitions into consideration, sociologists seek
  cultural and political definitions of those
  constructs.
• More importantly, perhaps, sociologists can flesh
  out the otherwise hidden environmental
  implications in those cultural and political
  definitions --- becoming sort of a voice or
  presence for nature. Conversely, they can take
  an environmental activism event, for example, and
  unpack otherwise hidden political and cultural
  undertones.
• Sociology has grown big shoulders in the past
  200 years --- it is now inclusive of its own
  sub-sociology definitions of nature and
  environment a good example is eco-feminisms
  take on birth control and eugenics sociologist
  Donna Harroway genderenviroexample

58

• 4. Contradictory-Friendly
• Sociology is a predator of contradictions!!!
• Instead of throwing modernity out with the
  environmental degradation bathwater, sociologists
  have decided to seek the positive effects
  modernity has had on the swelling environmental
  movement.
• Traveling - first-person knowledge of
  degradation, though we like to travel (?Carbon)
• Institutions, such as Greenpeace, are
  significant, but challenged and undervalued by
  the status quo
• Media portrays nature as
• 1. threatened, and 2. aesthetically
  beautiful/divine
• David Suzuki Takes on John Baird (we use
  modernitys media and modernization theories to
  improve environmental situation, but are these
  effective ---- in whose interest are the Green
  bills of governments?)

59

• 5. Discovering trends of how society damages
  nature
• Consumerism mass scale commodification is China
  getting bad rap recently bye-bye Wal-Mart and
  Dollar Stores?
• Pleasure-seeking seduction of the marketplace
  is going strong
• Environmentalism even environmentally
  justified practices can damage nature examples?
  Is it easy to be environmentally minded?
• War (consider that war is not made problematic
  in this video clip instead, a downed Japanese
  warship contextualized as a stroke of luck for
  sea organisms) - NATURE War Wrecks of the Coral
  Seas Lease on Life PBS

60
Other ways sociologists (YOU) can contribute to
environmental studies

• MacNaghten and Urry (1995)
• Risk studies on Risk Society (U. Beck 1992) who
  gets the goods and who gets the bads? Who gets to
  decide?
• Trust Can we trust governance to identify the
  risks? If not, how do we shake down that
  structure?
• Relationships How are institutions connected
  with one another in such ways that allow or
  prevent environmentally-sound practices? In other
  words In whose interest are those
  relationships?

61
Next Class group work bring sketch notes on

• (1) CP or NET Doing gender. http//web.clas.ufl.e
  du/users/kjoos/spring03/ syg2000/0226_doinggendern
  otes.html
• (2) SMUO Dozier, R. (2005). Beards, breasts, and
  bodies Doing sex in a gendered world. Gender and
  Society, 19 (3), 297-316.
• Go Find Out.