Society, space and environment. Towards a sociological re‐conceptualisation of nature

Abstract

Modern environmental problems constitute a challenge for the social sciences, and during the last few decades the human being's relationship to nature itself has been an object for sociological thought. In this article the concept of nature is elaborated through discussing sociological contributions on the environmental issue, and through discussing recent thinking of human geographers and sociologists about space. It is stated that nature viewed as unmediated reality cannot be given an autonomous position in social theory, but has to be theoretically elaborated through how social practices and processes incorporate and transform it. This leads to the suggestion that biophysical objects should be theorised as belonging to the social, but that at the same time the mechanisms that generate these objects are to be regarded as not belonging wholly to the social world. In developing two different meanings of nature ‐ as materiality and as mechanisms ‐ this article presents a reconceptualisation of nature such as to make it relevant for sociological analysis.

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