ABSTRACT

Traditionally, Sociology has identified its subject matter as a distinct set – social phenomena – that can be taken as quite different and largely disconnected from potentially relevant disciplines such as Psychology, Economics or Planetary Ecology.

Within Sociology and Human Ecology, Smith and Jenks argue that this position is no longer sustainable. Indeed, exhorting the reader to confront human ecology and its relation to the physical and biological environments, Smith and Jenks suggest that the development of understanding with regards to the position occupied by the social requires, in turn, an extension of the component disciplines and methodologies of a ‘new’ human socio-ecology.

Aiming to evoke critical change to the possibility, status and range of the social sciences whilst also offering essential grounding for inter-disciplinary engagement, Sociology and Human Ecology will appeal to postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields such as Social Theory, Socio-Biology and Ecological Economics.

chapter |5 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|25 pages

Ontology from the perspective of complexity theory

Auto-eco-organisation

chapter 3|31 pages

The ontological status of the living

A renewed foundation for epistemology and representation

chapter 4|28 pages

Human cognition and development

chapter 5|22 pages

The social, structure and the emotions

chapter 6|20 pages

The challenge of ecological economics