Table of Contents

Preface
About the Authors
Chapter 1: Environmental Problems and Society
Joining the Dialogue
Environmental Justice Across Time
Environmental Justice Across Social Space
Environmental Justice Across Species
The Social Constitution of Environmental Problems and Solutions
Part I: The Material
Chapter 2: Health and Justice
The Material Basis of the Human Condition
One Health
One Justice
Living Downstream: The Precautionary Principle
Making Ties
Chapter 3: Consumption and Materialism
The Hierarchy of Needs
Consumption, Modern Style
Goods and Sentiments
Goods and Community
The Treadmill of Consumption
Chapter 4: Money and Markets
The Growth Compulsion
The “Invisible Elbow”
Overproduction and Underproduction
The Constructed Market
Rock Steady Farm and the Economics of Optimism
Chapter 5: Technology and Science
The Monologues of Technology and Science
Technology as a Dialogue
Technological Somnambulism
Science as Dialogue
Disasters, Fast and Slow
Science and Technology as Political
Chapter 6: Population and Development
The Malthusian Argument
Population as Culture
The Inequality Critique of Malthusianism
The Technologic Critique of Malthusianism
The Demographic Critique of Malthusianism
The Environment as a Social Actor
Part II: The Ideal
Chapter 7: The Ideology of Environmental Domination
Christianity and Environmental Domination
Individualism and Environmental Domination
Heteropatriarchy and Environmental Domination
The Difference That Ideology Makes
Chapter 8: The Ideology of Environmental Concern
Ancient Beginnings
The Moral Basis of Contemporary Environmental Concern
The Extent of Contemporary Environmental Concern
Two Theories of Contemporary Environmental Concern
The Dialogue of Environmental Concern
Postscript
Chapter 9: The Human Nature of Nature
The Contradictions of Nature
Nature as a Social Construction
Environment as a Social Construction
The Dialogue of Nature and Ideology
Part III. The Practical
Chapter 10: Mobilizing the Just Ecological Society
Mobilizing Ecological Conceptions
Mobilizing Ecological Connections
Mobilizing Ecological Contestations
The Pros of the Three Cons
Chapter 11: Transitioning to the Just Ecological Society
Democracy and Bureaucracy
Legal Structure
The Bottom and the Top
Participatory Governance
Local Knowledge
Governing Participation
Grounding Our Knowledge
Soul Fire Farm and Just Ecological Transition
Finding Our Balance
Chapter 12: Living in the Just Ecological Society
The A-B Split
The Reconstitution of Daily Life
Reconstituting Ourselves
References
Notes
Index

About the Author

Michael Mayerfeld Bell is Professor of Community and Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For his day job, he is principally an environmental sociologist and a social theorist, focusing on dialogics, the sociology of nature, and social justice. These concerns for the world have led him to studies of agroecology, the body, community, consumption, culture, development, food, democracy, economic sociology, gender, inequality, participation, place, politics, rurality, the sociology of music, and more. He is also a part-time composer of grassroots and classical music, and a mandolinist, guitarist, and singer. Loka Ashwood is an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky in the Department of Sociology. She theorizes about democracy, the environment, and social action to pinpoint points of aggravation and openings for change. She analyzes specific corporate and regulatory structures that undergird dispossession of property and community in rural places. She works with people to explore creative pathways forward amid intense distrust and government neglect. Learn more at www.lokaashwood.com.


Isaac Sohn Leslie is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Ike’s primary research area is the sociology of global environmental and economic change, with a focus on developing food systems for a just climate transition. Their research in the U.S. and Argentina centers queer, feminist, and anti-racist perspectives on designing food chains that prioritize healthy ecological and social relations. Ike recently co-edited a Special Issue of Society & Natural Resources on gender, sexuality, and sustainability in U.S. farming. They are also a beginning farmer and active in queer farmer organizing. For more, visit www.isaacleslie.com.

 




Laura Hanson Schlachter is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her scholarship and teaching focus on environmental sociology, social movements, and economic sociology. As a mixed methods researcher, Laura has directed the first national survey about workplace democracy, interviewed activists seeding a regenerative economy in Appalachia, and collaborated with village leaders to improve walkability in rural Wisconsin. Laura has a background in inclusive economic development and an ongoing volunteer role at the Madison affiliate of 350.org. Her writing has appeared in peer-reviewed academic journals, policy reports, and neighborhood newsletters. Her current research about constructive strategies to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis and alternative ways of organizing work has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation and Corporation for National and Community Service. Learn more at www.lauraschlachter.com.