Presentation

Environmental sociology studies the interactions between "society" and "nature" in the context of the current ecological crisis. The different dimensions of this crisis (climate change, changes in biodiversity, pollution, depletion of resources) will undoubtedly disrupt the functioning of societies in the coming decades, in both the South and the North. This class aims to examine some of these developments. Environmental inequalities, "green" finance, climate wars, energy transition and its effects on the labor market, for example, are among the issues addressed. The origins of the ecological crisis, which date back to the emergence of industrial capitalism at the end of the 18th century, are also examined. It is the very foundations of modern societies that the ecological crisis calls into question.

Bibliography

• Bonneuil C. et Fressoz J.B., L’événement anthropocène. La Terre, l’histoire et nous, Paris, Seuil, 2013.
• Bourg D. et Whiteside K., Vers une démocratie écologique. Le citoyen, le savant et le politique, Paris, Seuil, 2010.
• Gould Kenneth A. et Tammy L. Lewis, Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Harribey J.M., La richesse, la valeur et l’inestimable. Fondements d’une critique socio-écologique de l’économie capitaliste, Paris, Les Liens qui libèrent, 2013.
• Radkau J., Nature and Power. A Global History of the Environment, Cambridge, Cambridge University press, 2008.

Additional information

Class delivered by Razmig Keucheyan.