Environmental Sociology, Climate, and Green Transition

This course introduces students to the key insights, concepts, and debates of environmental sociology, with a particular emphasis on climate change, biodiversity, and other major ecological risks at stake in the so-called green transition. In doing so, the course provides students with the conceptual tools needed to understand, analyze, and critically-constructively engage with key questions of society-wide change towards sustainability: how much of it is currently happening across societal sectors and levels; how has it or is it currently being brought about; what shapes, conditions, or hampers more of it? To frame these questions sociologically, the course starts by reviewing debates on two contrasting diagnoses: the risk society diagnosis of Ulrich Beck and the ecological modernization diagnosis of Arthur Mol, John Dryzek and others. At stake is the questions of the place of environmental concern, policy, and practice in late-modern social change. From here, the course delves into the main institutional vectors of environmental social change, covering in turn questions of:

a) socio-technical change (green technological innovation, changing infrastructures);

b) political-economic change (shifting modes of governance and politics, new circular market models);

c) activism-driven change (environmental social movements, urban green communities);

d) changing North-South relations (new globalized inequalities, climate justice activism);

e) everyday practice change (emerging consumptions habits, new social distinctions and divisions);

f) cultural value change (continuity and change in moral valuations of ‘nature’ in the Anthropocene).

Throughout, focus is on understanding present-day environmental social change in light of historical experience, empirical findings, and key sociological theories (as well as, to some extent, insights from neighboring disciplines). This will enable students to take stock of what near-future changes lie ahead. Alongside examining the various substantive dimensions of green transition, we will also discuss adequate methodological strategies affiliated with the different problem complexes and vectors of social change. Throughout, students work on aligning theoretical and empirical insights via their own case analyses.