1/6 [T]here is a general awareness of the fact that what constitutes environmental sociology and separates it off from other topic areas is almost wholly a matter of convenience, ( #environmentalsociology )
2/6 but at the same time there has been some confusion over whether a sociologically meaningful definition of ‘the environment’ is either possible or desirable. (troping Howard Newby, 1980, 5 on rural sociology - APR)
3/6 …It must be acknowledged, however, that the circumscription of environmental sociology to advanced industrial societies and to a particular research style is ultimately one of expediency and is purely contingent upon the aims of this report. In other words ‘environmental
4/6 sociology’ (and the disinfecting inverted commas are intended to indicate the provisional and arbitrary nature of this label) is in the first instance defined in terms of the primary activities of its practitioners. (replacing rural w/ environmental in Newby, 1980, 7-8)
5/6 As we shall see there has been an ultimately futile search for a sociological definition of ‘environmental’, a reluctance to recognize that the term ‘environmental’ is an empirical category rather than a sociological one, that it is merely a ’geographical expression’.
6/6 As such it can be used as a convenient short-hand label, but in itself it has no sociological meaning.
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