A New Ecological Paradigm for Post-Exuberant Sociology

Abstract

The changed ecological conditions confronting human societies seriously challenge sociology, for the discipline developed in an era when humans seemed exempt from ecological constraints. Disciplinary traditions and assumptions that evolved during the age of exuberant growth imbued sociology with a worldview or paradigm which impedes recognition of the societal significance of current ecological realities. Thus, sociology stands in need of a fundamental alteration in its disciplinary paradigm. The objectives of this article are to make explicit the &dquo;Human Exemptionalism Paradigm&dquo; implicit in traditional sociological thought, and to develop an alternative &dquo;New Ecological Paradigm&dquo; which may better serve the field in a post-exuberant age.

Evaluation of the evolution of green management with a Kuhnian perspective

“…Cotgrove (1982) identifies three core values of the dominant social paradigm in modern Western societies: economic growth, nature valued primarily as a resource for humans, and domination over nature. In addition, Catton and Dunlap (1980) state the characteristics of this worldview more widely as follows;…”

Toward conservational anthropology: addressing anthropocentric bias in anthropology

“…William Catton and Riley Dunlap wrote a series of articles defined environmental sociology (Catton and Dunlap 1978a, 1978b, 1980Catton 1979, 1983). Traditional sociology emerged out of the Dominant Western Worldview (DWW) defined by anthropocentrism and hence shared a set of related background assumptions, the Human Exceptionalism Paradigm (HEP), based on a shared anthropocentrism that led sociologists to treat modern societies as 'exempt' from ecological constraints.…”

Towards interdisciplinary rural research – theorizing nature-society relations

“…It may be seen as part of environmental sociology developing since the 1970s in Western countries with a variety of themes, approaches and methods. Catton and Dunlap (1980) formulated a still influential variant of environmental sociology that was also part of the renewal of human ecology in the 1970s. This sociology is critical towards the sociological tradition where nature and the physical environment are seen as separate from society.…”