Beate Littig - Feminist Perspectives on Environment and Society

Series Editors:

Professor Pamela Abbott, University of Teesside
Professor Claire Wallace, Institute for Advanced Studies, Austria
and University of Derby, UK

Published Titles:

Feminist perspectives on the body
Barbara Brook

Feminist perspectives on politics
Chris Corrin

Feminist perspectives on disability
Barbara Fawcett

Feminist perspectives on language
Margaret Gibbon

Feminist perspectives on ethics
Elizabeth Porter

Forthcoming Titles:

Feminist perspectives on postcolonialism
Maryanne Dever and Denise Cuthbert

Feminist perspectives on domestic violence
Lama Goldsack and Jill Radford

FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES SERIES

Feminist Perspectives on Environment and Society

Beate Littig

First published 2001 by Pearson Education Limited

Published 2013 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Copyright 2001, Taylor & Francis.

The right of Beate Littig to be identified
as author of this Work has been asserted by
her in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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ISBN 13: 978-0-582-36942-9 (pbk)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Littig, Beate.
Feminist perspectives on environment and society / Beate Littig.
p. cm. (Feminist perspectives series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-582-36942-8 (pbk.)
1. Ecofeminism. 2. Feminist theory. 3. Human ecology.
4. Sustainable development. 5. Women in development.
I. Tide. II. Series.
HQ1233.L598 2001
305.4201dc21 00-053751

Typese t by 35 in 10/12pt New Baskerville

We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

Table 1.1 from First Program Outline of the Environmental Sociology Section of the German Sociological Association, unpublished English manuscript, published in German in Soziologie No. 2 (Reusswig, F. et al. 1997); Figure 2.1 from Fischer-Kowalski, M. (1997b) in The International Handbook of Environmental Sociology, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited (Redclift, M. and Woodgate, G. (eds) 1997), adapted from Sieferle, R.P. (1997) in Gesellschaftlicher Stoffweschel und Kolonisierung von Natur, G+B Verlag Fakultas, OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) Berlin GmbH (Fischer-Kowalski et al. (eds) 1997); Tables 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4 from Mobilittsberater-Handbuch, Schriftenreihe des VC, Verkehrsclub sterreich (VC 1996b); Table 4.5 from Frauen in der Technologischen Zivilisation, Profil Verlag (Wchter, C. (ed.) 2001).

Blackwell Publishers for an abridged extract from MODERNITY AND SELF-IDENTTTY by Anthony Giddens published by Polity Press; Edward Elgar Publishing Limited and the author, Marina Fischer-Kowalski, for 2 extracts from Society's Metabolism: On the Childhood and Adolescence of a Rising Conceptual Star in THE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY edited by Michael Redclift and Graham Woodgate; and United Nations Publications for an abridged extract from Platform of Action Beijing 1995 Women's Conference and an extract from United Nations Agenda 21, Chapter 24.

While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material, in a few cases this has proved impossible and we take this opportunity to offer our apologies to any copyright holders whose rights we have unwittingly infringed.

I am indebted to all those who assisted me in writing this book. My primary debt of gratitude is to Claire Wallace, Margit Leuthold, and Uli Linauer not only for their valuable suggestions, corrections and critical comments, but also for their kind approval. I would also like to thank Hilde Jawad-Estrak, Greta Adolf-Wiesner and Christine Goldberg for their inspiration and encouragement and, especially, Sieglinde Fekhrer, who reliably and patiently provided her extensive knowledge of the English language.

This chapter includes the following:

During the past 2025 years, the sociological analysis of the relationship between the people and the environment, as well as that of specific topics (e.g. environmental consciousness and environmental behaviour, mobility that is consistent with the environment and society, ecological modernisation), was predominantly referred to as environmental sociology, even though some authors preferred other terms according to their own points of emphasis (e.g. social ecology, Fischer-Kowalski et al. 1997; see also Catton and Dunlap 1978a, 1978b; Dunlap and Catton 1994; Nelissen et al. 1997; Redelift and Woodgate 1997). Since its beginning in the early 1970s, environmental sociology developed rather slowly towards becoming an established branch of sociology. This was often explained by theoretical problems arising from the relationship between the environment and society (e.g. Dunlap and Catton 1994; Redelift and Woodgate 1995). The fact that sociology traditionally sees itself as the science of society, of social facts (Emile Durkheim) or of social action (Max Weber), produces problems for the conceptual consideration of nature and environment. The debates on this topic are further complicated by the fact that they span very divergent disciplines technology, science, philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc. which create various problems of interdisciplinary research.