Society-nature Relations Research Articles

Oedipal Humanity: Helplessness, Castration and the Society-Nature Neurosis

The essay aims to present the interpretation of the society-nature relationship as a reworking of the Oedipal complex and neuroses in the psyche. With the support of psychoanalysis and philosophy readings, I discuss the human feeling of continuation or discontinuation with nature and the impacts of the interdictions against instinctual desires between the erotic and destructive actions of the human being. I present two possible interpretations of the neurosis triggered in the collective superego with the transferential relations of the mother and father figures: Mother-Nature and Father-Nature. I analyze some examples derived from castration traumas in contemporary society: the fear of nature and the fear of death. Finally, I signal the I signal the need for continued research on the Oedipus derivations of the society-nature relationship, in order to relate geography and psychoanalysis to understand human neuroses in the world and time in which we live. Keywords: Eros; anguish; Oedipus; psychoanalysis; society.

Next stop carbon dioxide removal? German climate policies and the risky road to negative emission technologies

Both the global and the German climate targets are ambitious given recent emission reduction rates. In addition to emission reduction measures, carbon dioxide removal has been increasingly discussed recently and initial measures have been developed to potentially scale-up carbon removals in order to meet net zero targets. In this article, we undertake a political economy-based analysis of the historical development and structural conditions of German climate policy measures and their enabling role for the emergence and strengthening of carbon dioxide removal policy options. We refer to regulation theory and the Modell Deutschland approach and argue that within this model the concept of ecological modernization has been established as the dominant approach to regulate society-nature relations. In light of the ambitious climate policy goals, such as net zero by 2045, ecological modernization reaches its current limits and must be recalibrated. Against this background, we conclude by discussing the risk of mitigation deterrence associated with carbon dioxide removals and considering alternative pathways, such as degrowth, to social ecological transformation.

Natures instead of nature—plural perceptions and representations of nature and its challenges for ecological transition: a systematic review of the scientific production

BackgroundRecognizing nature and the environment as sociocultural constructions is critical to enhancing a transformational ecological change. This involves understanding their diverse sociocultural meanings and societal approaches and how these understandings affect equitable ecological transitions. We reviewed empirical studies and essays, categorizing 161 studies into three main categories: opposition, domination, and interdependencies, reflecting varying knowledge, power dynamics, cultures, and contexts. These studies aim to uncover how societies conceptualize, explain, and engage with nature and the environment, shaping society–nature relationships and influencing ecological transitions.ResultsThis study underscores the diverse perceptions and representations of nature, from a controllable resource to an integrated web of life. Three main categories emerged: (i) nature against society, in a logic of opposition; (ii) nature subordinated to society, in a logic of domination, although integrated into society; and (iii) nature united with society, in a logic of interdependence. Thus, this study advocates discussing “natures” as sociocultural constructs, highlighting the plurality of social perceptions and representations, which can inform policies and challenge socio-political and socio-economic systems.ConclusionsThis review may pave the way to, first, give visibility and value that diversity and plurality as an instrument that can enrich policies and defy socio-political and socio-economic systems to change and, second, identify the main drivers and resistances that the implementation of an ecological transformation change may face in different sociocultural contexts.

The evolution and future of research on Nature-based Solutions to address societal challenges

Nature-based Solutions are recognised for their potential to address the biodiversity and climate crises, and less extensively, other societal challenges. However, this nature-society relationship is becoming more important as available food and water resources, income, and human health, are increasingly impacted by environmental changes. Here, we utilise the seven major societal challenges addressed by Nature-based Solutions according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, to identify the primary themes of the Nature-based Solutions research landscape from 1990-2021. We evaluate how these themes, with respect to the societal challenges, evolved over time, and where. Our findings highlight the under-representation of four societal challenges across the research landscape: economic and social development, human health, food security, and water security. We propose six research pathways to advance the evidence for Nature-based Solutions in these societal challenges, and present opportunities for future research programs to prioritise the needs of society, the environment, and the economy.

Transition conflicts: A Gramscian political ecology perspective on the contested nature of sustainability transitions

Despite a broad consensus on sustainability, conflicts are increasingly prevalent in sustainability transitions. Although these conflicts significantly influence transition dynamics and socio-ecological futures, the role of conflicts in sustainability transitions remains insufficiently addressed. This paper aims to elucidate the contested dynamics of sustainability transitions by merging political ecology's emphasis on conflicts, nature, power, and justice with Gramscian hegemony theory. The integrated framework of Gramscian political ecology enables the analysis of transition conflicts as struggles for hegemony on the terrain of society-nature relations amid ecological crises. A brief comparative study of coal transitions in South Africa and Germany serves to illustrate the key insights that Gramscian political ecology offers into the contested nature of sustainability transitions, including conflict dynamics, power strategies, and barriers and potentials for radical transformative change.

Growth and productive sophistication of Minas Artisanal Cheese from Canastra: an analysis based on innovative processes in natural resources

This article aims to delineate the role of innovation in the successful outcomes of Minas Artisanal Cheese (QMA) from Canastra. The methodological foundation is built upon literature review, documentary analysis, field research, and interviews. Our findings reveal the interplay between traditional and scientific knowledge as a pivotal element in the productive sophistication of Canastra’s QMA, facilitating work enhancement and striving to meet consumer market demands while maintaining local know-how and practices, which the society-nature relationship has historically shaped. The discussion is situated within the realm of empirical studies on natural resource-based innovation in Latin America and reflections on Territorial Innovation Systems (TIS), which consider a multiscale perspective of the innovation process prevalent in studies in the field of Knowledge and Innovation Geography. Despite advancements, we underscore that the establishment of Canastra’s QMA still faces challenges stemming from typical structural frailties of peripheral TIS. We aspire that these results not only contribute to comprehending the productive region of Canastra’s QMA but also serve as a supportive framework for innovation policies that acknowledge the necessity of contextual considerations in regional realities.

The Self-reliant India and Development Trajectory Process: Emerging Regional Strategies in Sustainability Paradigm

Development means to bring a kind of change and improvement in lives of humans and societies inhabiting settlements, areas and regions. The process has never been uniform in practice as humans live in varied places and manifest complex socio-cultural geographies. To improve life conditions is to provide for basic amenities and necessities. This requires coherence and integrated management of environmental conditions which are subject to unprecedented changes and effects. However, to a majority of people improvement in living status still persists as the bigger challenge in countries of the Global South. In India, the new economic policy-led economic reforms and subsequent increase in economic activities has had a greater pressure on the natural environment. In this backdrop, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a blended policy and strategy since it has bundle of targets to be achieved in order to address basic necessities of human population and maintaining society-nature relations. The performance of regions in the country in delivering SDGs has been a geographically variable phenomenon. The regional inequalities including social, economic, infrastructural, and environmental aspects are the emerging geographies of the post-liberalized India which need to be tackled under newer development policy. To check further exaggeration of environment and society-nature relations, and upholding position of a vibrant economy, the Self-reliant (Aatmanirbhar Bharat) approach of India is to strengthen planning, governance and management of sustainable development process more in an integrated regional development framework and utilization of indigenous resources. Study is based on secondary sources of data and information, this provides a constructive perspective in understanding regional performance of sustainable development and the role that self-reliant strategy is to play strengthening process of development in the country.

On the links between climate scepticism and right-wing populism (RWP): an explanatory approach based on cultural political economy (CPE)

ABSTRACT Various analyses show that right-wing populist parties (RWP) tend to be sceptical of climate science and policy. This points to a blank space in the dominant analyses of populism: their blindness towards society-nature relations. This paper aims to develop an approach grounded in Cultural Political Economy (CPE) that can be used to decipher the mediation of RWP within the context of economic, political, and cultural developments as well as society–nature relations. Against this background, the argument is developed that RWP is concerned not only with countering migration and processes of societal liberalisation, but also with defending an existing way of life that is firmly rooted in the destructive appropriation of nature. As a current of right-wing politics, RWP defends the imperial mode of living by expressing scepticism towards the existence of anthropogenic climate change. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the political economy of RWP by linking the dimensions of social domination with the appropriation of nature.

The Tick Issue as a Reflection of Society–Nature Relations: Localized Perspectives, Health Issues and Personal Responsibility—A Multi-Actor Sociological Survey in a Rural Region (The Argonne Region, France)

Ticks are acarids that can transmit diseases, such as Lyme borreliosis, to human beings. They have often been considered from an ecological perspective (the environments in which they live) or from a medical one (diagnosis and treatment), while relational approaches to human–tick encounters that integrate the social sciences have remained less common. This article opts for a socio-territorial approach and a cross-analysis of different groups of actors faced with tick risk in a rural environment during their professional or leisure activities: foresters, farmers, hunters, environmentalists and hikers. The paper is based on observations and about thirty sociological interviews conducted in 2021–2022 in the rural Argonne region (France). The survey reveals the interconnection and tension between three types of approach to tick-related issues, i.e., a localized approach (based on a knowledge of place as well as everyday uses), a health-centered approach (medical knowledge as transformed and shaped by the respondents’ own experiences of tick-borne disease) and an emphasis on taking personal responsibility instead of collective preventive health initiatives or awareness campaigns (as to the location of “tick areas” or of protective measures).

‘Revolution of space’, autogestion, and appropriation of nature in Henri Lefebvre’s political and revolutionary project

This commentary engages with Napoletano et al.'s analysis of the relationship between society and nature in the work of Henri Lefebvre. I present some reflections on the nexuses between the production of space, autogestion, and the appropriation of nature. I maintain that the politics of space is not separate from the politics of nature. Autogestion is fundamental to construct a revolutionary project to ‘change life’ that includes a new society–nature relationship in the context of the ‘revolution of space’.

Marx’s “Species Being” as an Ontological Revolution Against the “Green City/Global City” Agenda: Two Possible Moments of Reclaiming “Species Life”

ABSTRACT Cities are experiencing continuous growth in population and must straddle a delicate balance between nurturing nature and providing livelihood. In that context, the contemporary urban agenda of sustainability must find creative ways of meeting global environmental expectations and resolving issues of displacement and rehabilitation of the poor. First, I use Marx’s concept of species being and estrangement to understand how sustainability discourses commodify and externalize urban nature as “environment,” estranging urban citizens from a deep sensuous connection with nature. Second, I use Marx’s species being to demonstrate how globalization-induced displacement estranges labor from itself and spaces in which labor produces existence. I provide two empirical moments, green city-New Town, Kolkata and the globalizing city-Ahmedabad in India to explore how urban policy fails to fundamentally alter nature–society relationship or eradicate estrangement of labor from itself, labor from nature, and nature from itself. This article argues that cities are caught up in a nature–society paradox that puts society in contradiction with nature.

The making of sustainability: ideological strategies, the materiality of nature, and biomass use in the bioeconomy

The bioeconomy, a recent addition to the political project of ecological modernization, is largely premised on the widespread use of biomass. Biomass is presented by bioeconomy proponents as renewable and, therefore, sustainable. However, a large body of academic and non-academic literature questions this sustainability, citing the negative socio-ecological aspects of biomass use. Given this contradiction, we ask how the key institutions of the innovation system (government, science, and industry), construct and uphold the image of sustainability of biomass use in the bioeconomy. Through an analysis based on ideology critique, we look at the broad field of biomass policy in Germany, including official bioeconomy strategies and biomass potential calculations, expert portrayals of biomass use in the bioeconomy-themed Year of Science, and an iconic biomass-based commodity. We identify four central ideological strategies that uphold the image of sustainability and contribute to creating political consent for the political project of the German bioeconomy: seeking managerial solutions, relying on technological innovation, relegating solutions into the future, and obscuring the materiality of nature. We discuss how these strategies are upheld by the wider discourse and institutions of ecological modernization and argue that particular attention should be given to the biophysical materiality of living nature in this context. The materiality of nature represents both an obstacle to the ideological strategies identified, and a starting point for envisioning alternative society–nature relations.

Towards transnational agrarian conflicts? Global NGOs, transnational agrobusiness and local struggles for land on Sumatra

ABSTRACT The article explores the spatial dimension of the contested renegotiation of society-nature relations in the context of the oil palm boom in Indonesia. Drawing on qualitative research as well as on concepts of political ecology, materialist state theory and literature on the transnationalization and internationalisation of the state, it argues that conflicts in the context of the oil palm boom cannot merely be conceptualised as local negotiation processes for access to land, but are increasingly transnational in character. Particularly, transnational actors such as oil palm companies and environmental protection organisations as well as transnational regulatory systems such as private sustainability and carbon standards are increasingly relevant in structuring local conflicts. To illustrate how these transnational mechanisms of contestation and conflict resolution operate, the article's empirical focus lies on conflicts over land in the Indonesian province of Jambi on the island of Sumatra.

THE COMMODIFICATION OF WATER AND ITS REBATES IN THE BRAZILIAN SEMI-INDUSTRY

Water is a natural and vital resource for all living beings. However, as everything in the capitalist production system is marketable, water is no exception to the rule and becomes inappropriately appropriated and, for the poorer classes, it has restricted use. In Brazil, there are multiple uses and conflicts of water, especially in regions with greater socioeconomic inequalities and climate implications, which reverberate in water scarcity, such as the Brazilian Northeast. In this sense, the present work aims to analyze the uses and conflicts of water in Brazil from the nature-society relationship and the repercussions of the capitalist mode of production through the unequal and market distribution of water, in addition to addressing the issue of water from integrated way, bringing human actions to the debate, as well as observing the correlation of water scarcity in the northeastern sertão region and whether this determines the access to water of the poor populations that live there. From this perspective, the procedures proposed for data collection and obtaining results were through bibliographic research. In the bibliographic research, authors such as: Ribeiro (2008), Júnior and Barros (2020), Machado and Torres (2012), Ferreira (2019), Silva (2016), among others who contributed to the theoretical basis were used.

Sustainability in Higher Education Institutions in the Amazon Region: A Case Study in a Federal Public University in Western Pará, Brazil

Sustainable development (SD) in higher education has occupied the agenda over recent decades. Higher education institutions make efforts to promote sustainability in education, curriculum, research, outreach, and campus operations. This article aims to analyze the level of implementation of sustainability in higher education in the Amazon. The specific objectives of this paper are to identify the curriculum greening (CG) characteristics in institutional development plans (IDPs) and to analyze the perceptions of students from a higher education institution in the Amazon region about sustainability. It follows a qualitative approach, with documentary research and questionnaires applied to students. Analysis content was used in the data analysis. The main findings are the presence of some CG characteristics in institutional documents that were analyzed as a commitment to the transformation of society–nature relations, contextualization, disciplinary order, democracy, theory and practice, students as knowledge protagonists, cognitive aspects, alternative scenarios, and methodological adequacy. The results show that commitment to sustainability cannot just be a declaration of good intentions. It is essential to discuss the ways of implementing sustainability in the academic environment, as it implies changes in epistemological, political, and social conceptions.

Certification Regimes in the Global Agro-Food System and the Transformation of the Nature-Society Relationship

Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of environmental certification regimes in the global agro-food system—a trend characterized as an example of the ecological modernization approach—which emerged largely because of the rise of consumer sovereignty and the neoliberal push for environmental and social “quality” in food production and processing. Based on a robust analysis of global aquaculture, the article argues that the environmental certification regimes privilege some actors, species, and cultures while marginalizing others. While the fundamental tenet of the ecological modernization approach is to shape capitalism by ecological principles, I argue instead that through environmental certification, ecology or nature itself is largely shaped, transformed and restructured to fit into and thereby serve neoliberal global governance and accumulation in a normalized manner. The example of certification regimes is therefore more like a “modernization of ecology” rather than ecological modernization.

SPECIFICATION A MODEL FOR STUDY OF POLITICAL RATIONALITY

The objective of this document has been to conceptually analyze Sustainable Development. In this sense, seven concepts were chosen, based on their similarities and differences, to interpret the nature-society relationship in terms of the equitable availability of resources between species and generations. This conceptual analysis of Sustainable Development will allow us to glimpse theories, diagnoses and interventions to promote rational lifestyles favorable to the conservation of the environment.

A review of agent-based modeling for simulation of agricultural systems

In this manuscript global research trends are analyzed in agent-based modeling (ABM), which is applied to face the inherent complexity of agricultural systems. The search was carried out in Scopus, during the period 2009-2019, and the VOSviewer© software was used as a bibliometric tool. The results show that ABM is used under two approaches: research and policy evaluation, and in three thematic areas: systems and computation sciences, geography and ecology and environmental science. The purpose of this study is to investigate three types of phenomena: land-use changes, water management and agricultural policy evaluation. ABM has been shown to be useful for exploring and understanding the society-nature relationship of agricultural systems under an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach, and for supporting decision-making processes via its application in a Latin American context, which for our purposes is still of utmost importance.

THE ENVIRONMENT – A TERRA INCOGNITA FOR MOST SOCIOLOGISTS IN SERBIA

The issue of future societal development has captured the attention of scientists and experts from different fields and it is increasingly associated with environmental capacity and quality. The reach and the topicality of the issue were identified more than 40 years ago, while the solution materialized years later as a new paradigm of societal development – sustainable development. Considering the subject of study of sociology and its significance for steering societal development, this author was faced with the question of how and to what extent Serbian sociologists deal in their theoretical and empirical studies with the nature-society relationship and with sustainable development as a globally accepted development model. The discussion in this paper is based on the articles published in leading Serbian national journals in the fields of sociology and multidisciplinary sciences. The first findings reveal that sociologists less frequently deal with the environment and sustainable development than other social scientists, such as jurists, economists, psychologists, pedagogists, or andragologists. In this author’s opinion, one of the reasons for the relative marginalization of sociological research on the society-environment relationship is the relatively belated inclusion of specialized sociological disciplines such as social ecology or environmental sociology in the curricula of sociology academic programmes.

Para ler as ruínas do Antropoceno mineiro: catástrofe-crime e trauma cultural em Mariana

O artigo busca fornecer algumas indicações sobre como situar o Brasil no Antropoceno. Pergunta-se: como ler as ruínas do Antropoceno brasileiro a partir de desastres recentes? O objetivo geral é aferir a dimensão traumática do Antropoceno Mineiro a partir da catástrofe-crime de Mariana. Os objetivos específicos são, portanto, delinear os contornos do Antropoceno Mineiro, conectando-os com a teoria do trauma cultural de Alexander (2012) e a dinâmica entre valores e sofrimento em Joas (2013). Investigou-se dois documentos – "Estudo e sistematização dos danos morais individuais e coletivos para processo de indenização/reparação dos atingidos e atingidas pela barragem de rejeitos da Samarco Mineração S.A. (Vale e BHP Billiton) em Mariana-MG" e o livro-reportagem “Vozes e silenciamentos em Mariana: crime ou desastre ambiental?”, que foram lidos com as lentes da teoria do trauma cultural, das interpretações do Antropoceno e suas vozes no interior das ciências humanas e de contribuições, especialmente decoloniais, que desconstroem entendimentos hegemônicos sobre a relação sociedade-natureza na modernidade. Propõe-se a indissociabilidade entre Antropoceno e as catástrofes; destaca-se a relevância do trauma cultural como um elemento importante na compreensão dos impactos catastróficos; habilita-se uma "leitura de ruínas" para mensurar impactos em tragédias. A importância desta pesquisa reside em explorar esta camada pouco aferida no dimensionamento das catástrofes tecnológicas contemporâneas. A partir dos documentos, conclui-se que existe um processo ativo em curso para estabelecer a catástrofe-crime de Mariana como um trauma cultural – sobretudo no que diz respeito ao descentramento moral, expansão de sensibilidade e na solidificação do evento na memória pública. Além disso, a análise dos documentos demonstra ser viável a leitura das ruínas do Antropoceno brasileiro a partir da centralidade do trauma cultural.