Environmental Sociology (MSOS 1703)


(SOS: 1725)      ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY         Credits:4

Objectives of the Course

  • Understand the perspectives on our contemporary ecological circumstances and also to look at ecological regimes in our and other societies
  • Review the history of resource use, wilderness preservation, pollution, various environmental movements, and other developments with significant ecological implications
  • Understand the sociological modes of analysis of environmental issues
  • Exhibit informed, critical approach to the contemporary environmental issues in society

Module-I

1. Definitions, Issues, Debates: Defining Ecological Issues; Social theory and ecological issues; population, food and hunger; human progress versus ecological collapse

2. The Economic Factor: Industrialisation or capitalism?; the modern economy and its ecological implication; consumer society

Module-II

1. Environmentalism: Ecological issues in historic perspective, the origins of modern environmentalism, Environmentalism as part of a larger social critique

2. Social Justice and Environmental Issues: Gender, Social Class, Social Justice and Environmental Issues; Ecological issues as social issues

Module-III

1. Cultural & Religious Factors: Ecology and “Postmodern” relation, ecological ethic in religions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism; ecological ethic in ethnic communities, culture, rationality and modernity

Module-IV

1. Environmentalism in India: Perspectives from a developing world

2. Democracy, Civil society and ecology: local, international and global Eco-social movements, ecology and global civil society, alternative economics, a second look at consumption