{"title":"Community sharing: sustainable mobility in a post-carbon, depopulating society","authors":"R. Ozaki, M. Aoyagi, F. Steward","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.2002000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.2002000","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper examines new initiatives in shared mobility of Kashiwa City, a satellite town outside Tokyo, from the users’ perspective. In Japan, the transport sector accounts for almost 20% of carbon emissions. At the same time, a population decrease has led to a decline in use of public transport, reducing the level of the quality of life of residents who live in rural and remote areas. This makes residents depend on private cars, ending up contributing to carbon emissions. Three key issues for sustainable mobility to tackle carbon emissions and residents’ wellbeing issues are discussed. Kashiwa City has experimented with new shared transport services with fixed-route microbuses and more flexible community taxis. The paper explores user perception and experience of such community mobility services and considers the three issues from the viewpoint of the practice of mobility. Background interviews were conducted with the city’s officials and transport service operators, and an ethnographic study was carried out and in-situ conversations were made to explore the utility and meaning of mobility. To increase use of public transport to further reduce CO2 emissions from transport, it is important to pay more attention to the practice of mobility from the user’s perspective. (200 words)","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"73 - 87"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43342014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Purnomo, A. Maryudi, Novil Dedy Andriatmoko, Edy Muhamad Jayadi, Heiko Faust
{"title":"The cost of leisure: the political ecology of the commercialization of Indonesia’s protected areas","authors":"M. Purnomo, A. Maryudi, Novil Dedy Andriatmoko, Edy Muhamad Jayadi, Heiko Faust","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.2001990","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.2001990","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Using the political ecology approach, we investigated the Indonesian government’s decision to commercialize protected areas (PAs) and promote its tourism sector aggressively, and examined how this commercialization is enabled through various institutions and governing structures. We confirmed that the commercialization of PAs in Indonesia was an alternative accumulation, dealing with the crisis of capitalist accumulation. Our empirical finding showed that the commercialization of PAs in Indonesia had detimental environmental and social impacts, such as deadlocks or monopoly or management, and environmental deterioration. This commercialization pattern was different from accumulation by conservation in other regions, such as Africa, where local people were deprived of their access to the means of production, consequently becoming laborers in the tourism industry. In Indonesia, local people were given access to resources; however, as these resources were of little value, they became laborers in the tourism industry. Further research is needed to test whether different patterns of accumulation by conservation also apply to other types of PAs in Indonesia, such as national parks and customary forests, including various coral reef conservation areas in remote and small Islands used as tourist attractions.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"121 - 133"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45042867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Taking the lead or following norms? Examining intersections of power in sustainability transitions in Swedish housing associations","authors":"Pernilla Hagbert, Liisa Perjo, Åsa Nyblom","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.1997386","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.1997386","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this paper, we explore narratives of sustainability in housing and everyday life, positing the home as an ‘opportunity space’ for sustainability transitions. Case studies of three Swedish housing associations provide empirical insights on how sustainability is understood and practiced among residents. Addressing aspects of power and problem framing in sustainability transitions, we analyse how sustainability engagements in the associations are shaped by intersecting discourses, power relations and norms relating to age, gender, class and ethnicity. The analysis suggests that reflexivity on sustainability in the associations on one hand links to different sustainability approaches, which relate to assumptions regarding who can become engaged and the organisation of the associations’ work. On the other hand, narratives and practices of ‘doing sustainability’ are made sense of in different ways, where issues of for whom, the type of knowledge that is premiered, and the ‘upscaling’ of initiatives pose challenges for a more inclusive and transformative approach to sustainability in housing associations. Taken together, this creates different conditions for sustainability transitions in housing and everyday life, shaped both by norms of who and what is seen as sustainable, and by structures that outline the space for action for the associations and their residents.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"187 - 198"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43579857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Livelihood discourses at the water-energy-food-nexus in Victoria’s Coal Seam Gas (CSG) debate","authors":"Elliot Clarke","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.1980936","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.1980936","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Onshore Coal Seam Gas (CSG) extraction is a controversial practice that has attracted scrutiny from stakeholders surrounding its risk to livelihoods and the environment at the water-energy-food nexus. Victoria’s 2016 public Inquiry into Unconventional Gas provided an opportunity to evaluate how stakeholders conceptualise the role of livelihoods at the water-energy-food nexus and how discourses were deployed to interpret the risks and benefits of CSG development. This paper argues that the relationship between CSG, livelihood assets and resource security is discursively constructed as a form of power and plays a significant role in both nexus modelling and CSG decision-making. This is supported by the application of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which determined that stakeholders regularly considered livelihood assets to be crucial to both sustaining livelihoods and resource security in Victoria. Based on these findings, a revised water-energy-food nexus model is presented where livelihood assets are positioned at the centre of the nexus framework. This paper concludes by considering how competing environmental discourses are likely to shape the future of Australia’s water, energy and food security in ongoing CSG debates more generally.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"52 - 63"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48480337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sub-disciplining science in sociology: Bridges and barriers between environmental STS and environmental sociology","authors":"A. Porcelli, J. Besek","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.1991647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.1991647","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT It is inarguable that the natural sciences, from chemistry to ecology, are indispensable if sociologists are to address environmental change. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how, exactly, sociologists incorporate natural science into their work. In other words, what might a sociologist mean if they say that natural science is a vital part of their research? Here we examine this question through a comparative history of environmental science and technology studies (eSTS) and environmental sociology (ES), arguably the two sociological subdisciplines to which the inclusion of natural science is most important. Our results show a complicated picture, one in which eSTS and ES, at times, influence one another’s approach to natural science, yet at most other times diverge completely. In the first half of our analysis we detail how they have diverged, showing how most eSTS scholars have treated natural science as an object of analysis while most ES scholars, in turn, have treated natural science as a resource for analysis. Then, in the second half, we discuss where and how they have converged, focusing on three shared concerns: ignorance, democratizing environmental knowledge, and postcolonial epistemologies.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"149 - 160"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48089136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Under the guise of science: how the US Forest Service deployed settler colonial and racist logics to advance an unsubstantiated fire suppression agenda","authors":"Kirsten Vinyeta","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.1987608","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.1987608","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Over the last century, the United States Forest Service (USFS) has reversed its stance on the ecological role of fire – from a militant enforcer of forest fire suppression to supporting prescribed fire as a management tool. Meanwhile, the Karuk Tribe has always prioritized cultural burning as a vital spiritual and ecological practice, one that has been actively suppressed by the USFS. This article examines the discursive evolution of USFS fire science through the critical lens of settler colonial theory. A content analysis of agency discourse reveals how the USFS deployed anti-Indigenous rhetoric to justify its own unsubstantiated forest management agenda. USFS leadership racialized light burning by deridingly referring to it as ‘Piute Forestry.’ The agency has also discredited, downplayed, and erased Indigenous peoples and knowledges in ways that invoke tropes of the ‘Indian savage,’ the ‘Vanishing Indian,’ and the concept of ‘Terra Nullius.’ It wasn’t until the 1960s – in the context of the Civil Rights and American Indian Movements – that the USFS began contemplating the value of prescribed fire. This research illustrates the complicated relationship between the settler state and Western science, as well as the malleability of scientific discourse in the face of changing social contexts.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"134 - 148"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48455926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From inclusion to epistemic belonging in international environmental expertise: learning from the institutionalisation of scenarios and models in IPBES","authors":"Jasper Montana","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.1958532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.1958532","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The inclusion of diverse perspectives from different disciplines, genders and locations has become a foreground concern in environmental expertise. While inclusion is increasingly accounted for in the design and evaluation of expert organisations, questions remain about the extent to which the pursuit of inclusion equates to effective participation. Building on recent scholarship on expertise in environmental sociology and public participation in environmental governance, this paper puts forward the argument that enabling inclusion in international expert organisations can be supported by facilitating epistemic belonging – a state achieved not only through mutual recognition of skilful practice amongst their expert communities (i.e. group belonging) but also the mobilisation of material resources within and beyond these organisations that enable participating experts to assert their importance, define their specialist skills and to effectively enact their epistemic practices. In this account, I trace the institutionalization of biodiversity scenarios and models in the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) to show how achieving epistemic belonging requires expert communities to actively reshape the resource environments in which they operate. This account extends current sociological perspectives on environmental expertise and offers insights for environmental expert organisations seeking to broaden their inclusion practices.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"7 1","pages":"305 - 315"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23251042.2021.1958532","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41784608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Our wetland is our mother, you cannot take her away from us’: Reconstructing the political space of reclaiming a coastal wetland in Sompeta, Andhra Pradesh, India","authors":"K. Jahnavi, S. Satpathy","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.1979716","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.1979716","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article is a case study of state-mediated wetland grabbing and dispossession and the people’s struggle to reclaim a coastal wetland at Sompeta in India. It examines the nature and mechanisms of dispossession as well as the resistance to wetland grabbing. The study shows that the apparatuses used by the state to capture the wetland, unleash a coercive process of land dispossession from above. It also uncovers a composite dispossessory politics, which is a convergence of the physical loss of wetland used as commons, loss of livelihoods and exclusion based on socio-cultural identities of gender, caste and class. Resistance from below counteracted both the coercive process and the dimensions of dispossession. We find that wetland commons is a geography of social embeddedness and ecological sustainability which has to be protected from commercial exploitation. Moreover, wetland conversion implies water scarcity and loss of social safety net for the disadvantaged communities dependent on the wetland. As long as the state continues to neglect this social reality, the rural communities will resist. To break the impasse, it is imperative to have ‘a dialogue’ among resource users with competing claims encompassing equity and sustainability.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"109 - 120"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47654152","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Preparedness behaviors for natural hazards and their association with experiences, perceptions, and social engagement in Taiwanese society","authors":"Juheon Lee","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.1980937","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.1980937","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study examined how individuals’ past experiences and perceptions of natural hazards, as well as their participation in voluntary organizations, were associated with their hazard preparedness. The study first explored how individuals’ past experiences of three types of natural hazards (floods, landslides, and earthquakes), and their perceptions of hazard risk and controllability, were associated with their participation in voluntary organizations – an important indicator of social capital. This study also investigated how individuals’ experiences and perceptions of natural hazards, and their participation in voluntary organizations, were associated with their adoption of preparedness behaviors for future hazards. The results of this study indicated that residents who experienced a natural hazard in the past generally reported better preparedness behaviors although the results differed according to the type of natural hazard. Both perceived risk and perceived controllability were positively associated with preparedness behavior, but perceived controllability was more strongly associated with participation in voluntary organizations.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"161 - 172"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43939469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Benjamin Leffel, Nikki Tavasoli, Brantley Liddle, Kent E. Henderson, Sabrina Kiernan
{"title":"Metropolitan air pollution abatement and industrial growth: Global urban panel analysis of PM10, PM2.5, NO2 and SO2","authors":"Benjamin Leffel, Nikki Tavasoli, Brantley Liddle, Kent E. Henderson, Sabrina Kiernan","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.1975349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.1975349","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study re-scales analysis of global environmental change down to the city-level, where it is becoming increasingly significant, to examine the relationship between air pollution abatement and industrial growth. Treadmill of Production theorists argue that economic growth leads to increased pollution, while Environmental Kuznets Curve research suggests that income increases initially lead to pollution increases, but begins to result in reductions after an economy transitions from manufacturing to services-based industries. We investigate whether growth in specific services industries is associated with pollution abatement in the presence of increasing income. For 96 of the world’s largest metropolitan areas, we test the effects of panel data on income, growth across several services industry sectors and other controls on levels of course particulate matter (PM10), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and Sulfur dioxide (SO2) during 2005–2017. We find that reductions of all four air pollutants are associated with local growth in public administration, environmental and health services industry sectors linked specifically to government spending, while pollution increases are associated with growth in manufacturing and mining industries. This affords important nuance to the debate on the reconcilability of economic growth and environmental protection, and on a more spatially granular scale.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"94 - 107"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43473740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}