Environment and Society

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxxiii

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2. Introduction: Conceptualizing Environment-Society Relations

   • Magnus Boström, Debra J. Davidson

   Pages 1-24

3. The Anthropocene: A Narrative in the Making

   • Rolf Lidskog, Claire Waterton

   Pages 25-46

4. Metabolism

   • Debra J. Davidson

   Pages 47-70

5. Risk and Resilience

   • Marja Ylönen

   Pages 71-94

6. Global Environmental Networks and Flows Addressing Global Environmental Change

   • Peter Oosterveer

   Pages 95-118

7. The Environmental State and Environmental Governance

   • Arthur P. J. Mol

   Pages 119-142

8. Economic Valuation of the Environment

   • Steve Yearley

   Pages 143-165

9. Environmental Expertise

   • Rolf Lidskog, Göran Sundqvist

   Pages 167-186

10. The Practice of Green Consumption

    • Emily Huddart Kennedy, Darcy Hauslik

    Pages 187-206

11. Minding the Mundane: Everyday Practices as Central Pillar of Sustainability Thinking and Research

    • Henrike Rau

    Pages 207-232

12. Environmental Justice

    • J. Timmons Roberts, David Pellow, Paul Mohai

    Pages 233-255

13. Environmental Democracy: Participation, Deliberation and Citizenship

    • Frank Fischer

    Pages 257-279

14. Joining People with Things. The Commons and Environmental Sociology

    • Luigi Pellizzoni

    Pages 281-304

15. Spatial Frames and the Quest for Institutional Fit

    • C. S. A. (Kris) van Koppen, Simon R. Bush

    Pages 305-326

16. Conflicting Temporalities of Social and Environmental Change?

    • Stewart Lockie, Catherine Mei Ling Wong

    Pages 327-350

17. Conclusions: A Proposal for a Brave New World of Conceptual Reflexivity

    • Magnus Boström, Debra J. Davidson, Stewart Lockie

    Pages 351-373

18. Back Matter

    Pages 375-394

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This book offers a critical analysis of core concepts that have influenced contemporary conversations about environment-society relations in academic, political, and civil circles. Considering these conceptualizations are currently shaping responses to environmental crises in fundamental ways, critical reflections on concepts such as the Anthropocene, metabolism, risk, resilience, environmental governance, environmental justice and others, are well-warranted. Contributors to this volume, working across a multitude of areas within environmental social science, scrutinize underlying worldviews and assumptions, asking a common set of key questions: What are the different concepts able to explain? How do they take into account society-environment relations? What social, cultural, or geo-political biases and blinders are inherent? What actions or practices do the concepts inspire? 


The transdisciplinary engagement and reflexivity regarding concepts ofenvironment-society relations represented in these chapters is needed in all spheres of society—in academia, policy and practice—not the least to confront current tendencies of anti-reflexivity and denialism.  

• Social practices theory
• Environment and Society
• environmental justice
• sustainability
• Socio-ecological relations
• Anthropocene
• ANT/actor-network theory
• Capitalocene
• carbon markets
• Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
• deliberative environmental democracy
• eco-democracy
• Environmental racism
• locally unwanted land uses (LULUs)
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• Environmental Geography

“Bringing together some of the leading researchers in the field, Environment & Society poses the fundamental question of what it means to live in the Anthropocene and how our concepts and approaches across the social sciences must respond. The volume heralds a call for a more reflexive approach to policy and practice, capable of opening up the discussion of how society is configuring environmental change and how in turn social futures are being made. The book is both a guide and a provocation to rethink the concepts we use and their implications for achieving the kinds of futures we want and will be a valuable reference for students, researchers and practitioners alike.” (Professor Harriet Bulkeley, Durham University, UK)

• School of Humanities Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden

  Magnus Boström

• Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

  Debra J. Davidson

Magnus Boström is Professor of Sociology at Örebro University, Sweden, with a theoretical interest and research profile in environmental sociology. His research interest generally concerns politics, representation, consumption and action in relation to a broad variety of transnational environmental and sustainability issues.


Debra J. Davidson is Professor of Environmental Sociology in the Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology at the University of Alberta, USA. Her key areas of teaching and research include social responses to climate change, and crises and transitions in food and energy systems.

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