This presentation was given to Mr. Wasif Ali Waseer lecturer Sociology at UMT,Lahore by the students of Sociology in the class of Environmental Sociology.Topic presented was Emile Durkheim As Environmental Sociologist
3. Environmental Commentator
• Out of three founding Figures in sociology,
Durkheim is probably the least likely to be
recognized as an environmental
commentator.
4. Facts of Lower Order
• In large part, this reflects his deliberate
decision to elevate social facts over ‘facts
of lower order’ (that is, psychological,
biological).
5. A Social Fact
• For Durkheim, a social fact is ‘any way of
acting, whether fixed or not, capable
exerting over the individual an external
constraint’ (2002 [1895]: 117)
6. Constraint is normally Manifested
• This constraint is normally manifested
in the form of law, morality, beliefs,
customs and even fashions.
7. Examining an Experience that is
Characteristic
• We can verify the existence of a social
fact, Durkheim ventured, by examining
an experience that is characteristic.
8. For Example
• Children are compelled to adopt ways of
seeing, thinking and acting that they
otherwise would not have arrived at
spontaneously.
9. Social Phenomena Cannot Be
Explained
• Social phenomena cannot be explained
through the lens of individual psychology.
10. Central Rule of the Sociological
Method
• It is a central rule of the sociological
method that ‘the determining cause of a
social fact must be sought among
antecedent social facts and not among
the states of individual consciousness’ (p.
125).
12. Proper Field of Sociology
• Social Facts, Durkheim insists ‘are
consequently the proper field of
sociology’ (p. 112)
13. Theoretical Independence of Sociology
• While this vigorous defence of social
facts and collective consciousness most
certainly buttressed the theoretical
independence of sociology
14. Non-Sociological Approaches
• It also had the affect of warning off
members of the new discipline from non
sociological approaches that were
reductionist in nature (that is, they
reduced explanation to biological and
psychological factors).
15. Theory of Societal Transformation
• Nevertheless, Durkheim himself
frequently utilised biological concepts
and metaphors in presenting his theory of
societal transformation.
16. Theory Inspired by Darwinian
Evolutionary Model
• Furthermore, this theory was most
certainly inspired by the Darwinian
evolutionary model that was popular
among intellectuals in the late nineteenth
century.
17. Mechanical Solidarity
• In The Division of Labour in Society
(1893), he describes the evolution of
modern societies from a state of
mechanical solidarity, where in social
solidarity is a product of shared cultured
values.
18. Organic Solidarity
• Organic solidarity, where the social
bond is a function of interdependence,
most notably that arising out of an
increasingly complex division of labour.
19. Ecological Crises of Rising Population
• Catton (2002:2) proposes that Durkheim's
theory was very much an attempt to
devise a solution to what is essentially an
ecological crises of rising population
paired with scarce resources.
20. Engage in Agriculture
• As societies became larger and denser, it
would have been disastrous if everyone
had continued to engage in agriculture.
21. Technological Innovation
• Increasingly, occupational specialisation
meant that the competition over arable
land was lessened even as that land
became more productive thanks to
technological innovation.
22. Ecology and Evolution
• Alas, Durkheim was doubly hobbled,
Catton says, both by his narrowly
selective reading of Darwin and by the
unavailability in the 1880s of our
knowledge of ecology and evolution
(2002:93)
23. Increasing Diversity
• In the first instance, he erroneously
supposed that Darwin believed that
increasing diversity to be a way of
minimising competition for scarce
resources.
24. Co-Evolution
• Rather, Darwin cautioned the co-evolution
(two species involving at the same time)
could, in some cases, increase their
resemblance to one another or result in
one species bringing the other to
extinction.
25. Lessening Rivalries and Increasing
Mutual Interdependence
• In short, Darwin viewed specialisation as
a way in which one species could gain
competitive advantage over
another, not, as Durkheim believed, as a
way of lessening revelries and increasing
mutual interdependence.
26. Insights of Modern Ecology
• Durkheim could not have privy to the
insights of modern ecology, which did not
emerge as a sub-field of biology until next
century.
27. Mutual Dependence was Symbiotic
• Most crucially, no one in Durkheim’s
time recognised that mutual dependence
was symbiotic but not necessarily
balanced.
28. Predators and Parasites
• That is, some interaction in nature benefit
both member populations (mutualism) but
others benefit one without either harming
or benefiting the other (commensalism);
and yet others are beneficial to one and
determinal to the other, as with
predators and parasites (Catton 2002:93).
29. Human Ecological Communities
• The latter gives rise to power differences,
something especially significant when you
are dealing with human ecological
communities.
30. Profound Process of Change
• What are we left with then is chiefly
speculation on what might have been.
Citing Talcott Parsons (1987:217),
Jarvikowski (1996:82) ventures that
Durkheim would likely to have written in
different way today about the
relationships between the social and
physical environment because biological
theory has undergone a profound
process of change.
