|
Research Committee on Environment and Society (RC24) - XVII World Congress of Sociology - International Sociological Association - Gothenburg, Sweden - 11-17 July, 2010.
Please e-mail paper proposals (title, author, abstract) directly to one of the organizers of the session you choose for your presentation by 15 September 2009. The sessions are listed below. Overflow papers that are too numerous for the particular session will be sent by the session organizer to the programme coordinator who will attempt to find another session for the papers.
Any individual may participate on up two sessions, although this may be reduced to one session if there are too many papers submitted. Once your presentation is approved by the session chair, you must then submit an abstract of your paper on-line (instructions will be made available in due course). Abstracts are only accepted from those who are registered for the Congress. The deadline for submission of approved abstracts is May 1, 2010.
Proposed Sessions
Session 1: The pillar of social sustainability in eco-standardisation
Organizer: Magnus Boström, Södertörn University College, Huddinge, Sweden, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Session 2: Global environmental change and the viability of adaptive technologies
Organizers: Matthias Gross, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
> and Filip Alexandrescu, University of Toronto, Canada, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
In an era of global environmental change, discussions on the viability of adaptive strategies of human societies to natural changes become increasingly omnipresent in public discourse. This session will focus on the social relevance of alternate technologies and their political and cultural acceptability to address the viability of different energy systems for the reproduction of human societies.
Session 3: Civil society and environmental governance
Organizer: Dana Fisher, Columbia University, USA, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
In recent years, civil society actors have gotten increasingly involved in environmental politics at all scales of governance. This session encourages submissions that explore the roles that non-state, non-market actors are playing, whether individually or in hybrid collaborations.
Session 4: Green consumption and the tensions between global and local markets
Organizer: Julia Guivant, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Session 5: Social theory, environmental reform, and the new world (dis)order
Organizers: Arthur Mol, Wageningen University, The Netherlands, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
> and David Sonnenfeld, State University of New York at Syracuse, USA, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
This session brings together theory-informed papers that aim to interpret and understand the institutions, actions and authorities for environmental reform in the new world (dis)order. Do we need and see new forms and patterns of environmental reform; how can we understand their emergence and functioning; how do we evaluate them; what does this mean for (environmental) social theory?
Session 6: Environmental attitudes and behavior: What do surveys tell us?
Organizers: Riley Dunlap, Oklahoma State University, USA, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
> and
Luisa Schmidt, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
This session will examine environmental attitudes and public opinion toward environmental issues. Papers examining opinions/attitudes toward climate change and/or cross-national comparisons of environmental opinions/attitudes are especially welcome, as are tests of theoretical models (such as the value-belief-norm model) of environmental behaviors.
Session 7: Market based instruments for the provision of ecosystem services
Organizer: Stewart Lockie, Central Queensland University, Australia, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
From cap-and-trade systems for greenhouse gas abatement to biodiversity auctions, eco-labeling and trade reform, market mechanisms are increasingly seen by governments and other agencies as the most efficient, effective and politically feasible means to secure the provision of ecosystem services. This session will examine the assumptions underlying environmental governance through 'the market', the contribution of sociological theory to our understanding of market-based governance, empirical experience in the application of market-based instruments, and possibilities to extend, supplement and/or challenge the market paradigm.
Session 8: The human management of the ‘natural order’’: invasive/endangered species, flood/drought, salty/fresh water, …
Organizer: Cecilia Claeys-Mekdade, Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
This session focuses on the paradox constituted by the human management of the ‘natural order’. What does ‘natural order’ actually mean? For whom (scientists, activists, stakeholders, …)? What for (nature itself, humankind survival, God accomplishment, …)? How is this issue handled in concrete cases like the management of invasive/endangered species, flood/drought, salty/fresh water, …?
Session 9: The shaping of public environmental risk perceptions
Organizer: Leonardas Rinkevicius, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Session 10: Environmental issues and people's voice in Asia
Organizer: Koichi Hasegawa, Tohoku University, Japan, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
> and KU Do-Wan, Environment and Society Research Institute, Korea, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Focusing on environmental issues and civil activities in Asia. Under rapid modernization and industrialization, people suffer from serious environmental disruption. How do they react and raise their voice? Or how do they hope in their silence.
Session 11: Sustainability: addressing the Earth in peril
Organizer: Eugene Rosa, Washington State University, USA, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
The ecological foundation of human societies has all but been ignored by sociology. Perilous threats to those ecosystems over the past century have made that inattention ever more difficult to maintain. Sustainability is the broad rubric comprising the many actions for addressing those perils.
Session 12: Culture/climate change: migration, adaptation, and re-settlement in an age of change
Organizers: Steven Yearley, University of Edinburgh, UK, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
> and Laura Jeffrey, University of Edinburgh, UK, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Sociologists are now very aware of climate change, but to date there have been few studies of the migrations and re-settlements that are expected to be an aspect of cultural adaptation to this phenomenon. This session invites empirical and theoretical analyses offering insights into this topic.
Session 13: Environmental organization and natural resource sustainability in the developing world
Organizers: Lotsmart Fonjong, University of Buea, Cameroon, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
> and William Markham, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
The session will discuss the role and participation of indigenous and international environmental organisations on environmental protections and ecological movements in developing countries and question existing frameworks for analysing environmental issues by these organisations.
Session 14: Water crisis and governance: social learning and political-institutional challenges - experiences of the North and the South
Organizer: Pedro Roberto Jacobi, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
The session proposes an interchange of different experiences in dealing with water governance through the implementation of stakeholder participation to improve cooperation and improve resource management problems.
Session 15: Biodiversity regulation and institutionalization of global-local linkages
Organizer: Karunamay Subuddhi, Indian Institute of Technology, India, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Conceptually, biodiversity is multilayered with various meanings. With the adoption of Brundtland Report in 1989 and subsequently the decision of the General Assembly to convene the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, diversity regulation has become the hottest environmental issue. This convention became the medium of considerable controversy with respect to the question of access to genetic resources in southern nations. With the emergent legal and organizational infrastructure supported by the United Nations, and through involvement of NGOs and supplemented by number of regional measures, environmental politics, involving biodiversity regulation, has become a part of global capitalist competition and regional and national competition. As increasingly, biodiversity discourse relates to broader content of the regulation of societal relationship with nature, we need to have an adequate understanding of such networks of international regulation.
Session 16: New trends in environmental sociology
Organizer: Mikael Klintman, University of Lund, Sweden, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Session 17: Sustainability transitions and environmental sociology
Additional session on the Congress theme.
Organizers: Joan David Tabara, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain , <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
> and Ernest Garcia, Universitat de València, Spain, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
This session will provide examples and review the state of the art about the social research on sustainability transitions. While it will concentrate on the specific contribution of environmental sociology to the understanding of the constraints and opportunities for transitions in diverse natural resource and environmental risk regimes, we will deal with these issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. Papers showing empirical evidence of sustainability transitions and containing specific lessons learnt about the best possible tools, mechanisms and procedures which supported those positive transformations in specific social-ecological systems are encouraged. A debate on different models of transition and confronting visions (sustainable development, steady state, degrowth, postdevelopment, prosperous or chaotic way-down...) can also be expected.
Session 18: Sustainability and quality of life: concordant or conflicting goals of societal development?
Joint Session of RC24 Environment and Society and RC55 Social Indicators [host committee]
Organizers: Heinz-Herbert Noll, Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
> and Mercedes Pardo, University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
In recent years the discourses about sustainability and quality of life have been more
and more converging, although it still remains unsettled how the two concepts and goals actually are related to each other. This joint session invites first of all papers addressing explicitly such a relationship. The session also welcomes papers presenting empirical evidence on the link between sustainability and quality of life and/or discussing related measurement issues.
Session 19: Leisure and Tourism: Environmental dimensions
Joint Session of RC24 Environment and Society and RC13 Sociology of Leisure [host committee]
Organizers: Ishwar Modi, India International Institute of Social Sciences, India, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
> and Ralph Matthews, University of British Columbia, Canada, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
The tourism industry has gained a momentum that is perhaps out of all proportion among other leisure related activities. Commercial concerns often override the overall individual and social benefits that might accrue from this activity. One of the casualties in the race for ‘reaching’ more places and attracting larger ‘numbers’ of persons is the natural and cultural environment. Culture is often ‘performed’ rather than lived for the benefit of the tourist. The impact on the natural environment may be ignored as tour mangers look for more facilities in areas that hitherto have maintained a pristine and clean environment.
Integrative Session
RC24 together with two associations: Korean Association of Environmental Sociology, and Chinese Sociological Association Committee of Population and Environment will also submit a proposal to organize an Integrative Session on:
Environmental problems of the emerging powers of China and Korea
Organizers: Seejae Lee, RC24, Catholic University of Korea, South Korea, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
> and Dayong Hong, Renmin University, China, President of Chinese Sociological Association Committee of Population and Environment, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
This session deals with various environmental issues, movements and policies in and with respect to their impacts on people’s living and global environment. Sustainability and quality of life are two popular concepts playing a major role in defining goals for the development of societies at different levels. As normative concepts they are also widely used as yardsticks to assess - e.g. based on empirical measures - the realities of current societies and their changes over time. In recent years the discourses about sustainability and quality of life have been more and more converging, although it still remains unsettled how the two concepts and goals actually are related to each other. While some consider quality of life as a dimension of sustainability, others consider sustainability as a component of quality of life. On the other hand there is good reason to believe that sustainability and quality of life are conflicting rather than concordant goals of societal development. This joint session invites first of all papers addressing explicitly the relationship between sustainability and quality of life and discussing whether respective goals are concordant or in conflict. The session also welcomes papers presenting empirical evidence on the link between sustainability and quality of life and/or discussing related measurement issues.
***
RC 24 Programme Coordinator
Raymond Murphy, University of Ottawa, Canada, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
RC 24 Organizing Committee Members
Matthias Gross, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Magnus Boström, Södertörn University College, Huddinge, Sweden, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Mikael Klintman, University of Lund, Sweden, <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Website
http://www.isa-sociology.org/rc24.htm |
