Sources ecosociology. Series: «Ecosociology». I. P. Kulyasov

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СКАЧАТЬ approach was enhanced by the fact that such socio-ecological methods as zoning and social mapping were successfully used for identifying and verifying the correlation between various social variables, which at first glance were not interrelated. Moreover, the use of these methods and conceptual approaches made possible generalized descriptions of various multi-variable cases, giving at least an understanding of functional, if not causal dependence.

      An effective use of the socio-ecological method can be also explained by the level-based approach, which is similar to the principle used in system analysis when the phenomenon of a local community (social organism) being examined is analyzed in its interrelation with its higher (macro) and lower (micro) level. The lower level is the individual and the higher level is represented by social “compositions” consisting of various communities united into municipalities.

      However, causal links of social organisms with their habitat and issues relating to optimal life support were not yet studied by ecosociology. Therefore, beginning with the mid-1930s, the abstract character of the ecosociology’s space-temporal functionalism came under criticism from representatives of the socio-cultural school, who emphasized the dependence of natural resource use on cultural traditions, values, symbols and norms.

      Milla Aissa Alihan proposed a new vision of society and started working on a methodology for analyzing the social sphere within the framework of the already existing discipline – urban sociology. Three main variables – social standing (status), urbanization level (population density) and degree of segregation (multiplicity of social groups) – were identified. A city was described as a subsystem comprising greater territories and larger communities. In doing so, researchers were using data obtained from a census of urban population. On the one hand, this allowed analysis of cities rather than urban communities. On the other hand, this made possible, based on the statistical data received, a classification of subsystems (local communities). The result obtained could be rechecked some time later (sociological monitoring) to see social dynamics. This also enabled researchers to reasonably theorize on social organization as the main result of evolution19.

      Amos Henry Hawley (1910—2009), further developing the socio-ecological concept, was of the opinion that a community is an ecosystem (a territorial local system of interrelations between its functionally differentiated parts). Ecosociology may view a community as a population united by the similarity of its component organisms (commensalism). Human population is included into the ecosystem due to a mutually useful interaction with dissimilar organisms (symbiosis).

      The focus of attention of the researcher-sociologist now turns to the functional socio-ecological system that develops in the process of interaction with an abiotic environment and other biotic communities. During such interaction, a specific social organization with specific characteristics is formed20. Despite the fact that a civilized man prefers adapting nature to his needs rather than adapts to nature, and tries to irreversibly change nature’s characteristics and processes for his benefit, nature has resilience and is capable of influencing humans. It also can perform irreversible acts on humans.

      Finally, as the socio-ecological theories, approaches and methods are developed, social atomism is substituted with organizational functionalism; attention is focused more on the functioning of a social organization rather than on the driving forces and causes of this process or space-temporal forms of its manifestation. A description of this mechanism was made by Otis Dudley Duncan (1921—2004) and Leo Francis Schnore, who used the socio-ecological complex theory. The socio-ecological complex comprises four components:

      1) Population (local human population);

      2) Nature environment (abiota + biota + human populations);

      3) Technology (things + means of production + culture of production);

      4) Organization (social institutes and structures)21.

      Schema: Social ecological complex

      Park proposed an analogous structure of the socio-ecological process and studies of movement in time and space (communication and migration) as well as unique events (artefacts) determined by culture. Duncan and Schnore focused on the functioning of social organization, believing that this component was of most importance for their research. Making a social organization the subject of their analysis within the framework of ecosociology, they used quantitative methods and, based on the data obtained, proposed a thesis that it is a collective adaptation of the human population to the environment.

      This approach was also different from that proposed by Park, where the population of a city, state, country and planet represented the macro level. A new understanding of the socio-ecological process as the functioning of a social organization allowed ecosociologists to conclude that samples of interactions that provide an ecological niche for the community, are the analytical unit. Therefore, society was viewed as a human population that was trying to use the environment’s resources to preserve itself (survive) through adaptation.

      However, understanding the importance of the space-temporal linking of the social organization’s interactions being described and analyzed, ecosociologists were yet unwilling to use physical characteristics of the natural environment for their analysis. This was due to an observation that the physical environment in cities is much technologized and designed to suit the needs of humans rather than the biota.

      Accordingly, in cities, the main impact on human population is made by the social environment, which replaces the natural environment. Ecosociologists then described and interpreted social phenomena using biological terms as “predatory”, “parasitic”, “dominating” and “symbiotic” relationships. This method was to socialize and defend the independence of their discipline.

      The approach taken by Duncan and Schnore was perceived as oppositional to other approaches to studying the social organization, namely, the culturological and behaviorist approaches. However, this was an opposition to the constructivist approach that used new but already proven tools and methods of research that were getting closer to an explanation of social reality.

      Sociologists-culturologists tended to make descriptions or analyses, starting and ending with social sphere, without any space-temporal linkage. Sometimes, they did use the word “nature”, not in the sense of nature proper but intending to emphasize an unconditional, inborn, natural quality of a social objects or subject.

      For ecosociology, explanations offered by behaviorists were considered unacceptable at the macro level because no individual and collective human behavior existed at this level. At the macro level, interaction was limited to social institutes and structures (consisting of organizations) in the context of climatic zones, continents and other major space-temporal natural formations.

      There was no way of determining social organization via neither existing cultural conditions nor social-psychological behavior-related affirmations. The new methodology proposed by ecosociologists enabled a breakthrough in studying the phenomena of human behavior and culture. The principle of functional interaction of the environment and social organization, as well as the well-developed conceptual framework of biology made ecosociology popular but could not be used for getting closer to explaining many causes of human interactions.

      However, sociology and other humanitarian disciplines recognized that the physical environment can and does influence society СКАЧАТЬ