Magnus Boström & Debra J. Davidson 
Environment and Society [PDF ebook] 
Concepts and Challenges

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.  

Table of Content

Ch 1. Introduction: Conceptualizing environment-society relations – Magnus Boström and Debra J. Davidson.- Ch. 2. The Anthropocene: A Narrative in the Making – Rolf Lidskog and Claire Waterton.- Ch. 3. Metabolism – Debra J. Davidson.- Ch. 4. Risk and Resilience – Marja Ylönen.- Ch. 5. Global Environmental Networks and Flows addressing Global Environmental Change – Peter Oosterveer.- Ch. 6. The environmental state and environmental governance – Arthur P.J. Mol.- Ch. 7. Economic Valuation of the Environment – Steve Yearley.- Ch. 8. Environmental Expertise – Rolf Lidskog and Göran Sundqvist.- Ch. 9. The Practice of Green Consumption – Emily Huddart Kennedy and Darcy Hauslik.- Ch. 10. Minding the mundane: Everyday practices as central pillar of sustainability thinking and research – Henrike Rau.- Ch. 11. Environmental Justice – J. Timmons Roberts, David Pellow and Paul Mohai .- Ch. 12. Environmental Democracy: Participation, Deliberation and Citizenship – Frank Fisher.- Ch. 13. Joining people with things. The commons and environmental sociology – Luigi Pellizzoni.- Ch. 14. Spatial frames and the quest for institutional fit – C.S.A. (Kris) Van Koppen and Simon R. Bush.- Ch. 15. Conflicting temporalities of social and environmental change? – Stewart Lockie and Catherine Mei Ling Wong.- Ch. 16. Conclusion – A proposal for a brave new world of conceptual reflexivity – Magnus Boström, Debra J. Davidson, and Stewart Lockie.- Afterword: Irony and Contrarian Imaginations – Matthias Gross.

About the author

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.