Ecosociology Sources. Series: «Ecosociology»

If an ecosociologist, having summarized the results of a group research, the participants of which share the same identity or status, identifies a different behavior of a specific member of the group, he understands that this person realizes other identities and statuses that were unaccounted for by the sociologist, temporary situations, personal inclinations and so on.

John Dewey (1859—1952) made a significant influence on ecosociology as he developed the idea of instrumentalism within the framework of pragmatism. In his works, he maintained that the human nature combines biological and social components because they are functionally identical. This idea of biosocial parallelism implied that human instincts and social behavior are equivalent and need to be satisfied. After that, he only had to elaborate an instrumental base, i.e., methodologies of sociological research aimed at satisfaction of vitally important needs.

Where a need arises due to a disruption in the optimal functioning of the human organism in the ambient environment, its satisfaction is aimed at restoring equilibrium in interaction with the environment, and achieving the optimum. This implies a preliminary sociological study of a given situation, the interaction itself and its consequences for gathering of research materials. A sociologist may resort both to spontaneity and to experiment.

Individual experience is understood as integrity, interrelation, versatility, uniqueness and inseparability of things natural and social, organic and psychic, subjective and objective. This unity is a condition of freedom, expedience and responsibility, realization of all abilities inherent to human nature. This is the main task of a researcher – to develop empirical, including experimental techniques for distinguishing between moral and immoral behavior, help conduct political reforms aimed at transformation of qualities inherent to human nature.

Dewey regarded examples of interaction between individual actors (agents) in specific social formations (associations) as being the subject of empirical research. He viewed society as the process of association and communication when experiments, ideas, values become common for the participants. He was especially attracted to the ideal of creative democracy – a social organization with a minimized social control over individual manifestation of creative self-realization that rules out bureaucratic and hierarchical relationships.

At the same time, admitting that changing the human nature in order to achieve this ideal would be difficult, he was trying to address this issue as a pedagogue. Believing that only a useful knowledge is true and valuable, he developed school programs where, in the beginning, children were learning through play and afterwards – through teamwork and individual labor. For him, it was obvious that aside from biological restrictions, there exist social restrictions. Accordingly, another important aspect of education was to teach children the skills of adaptation to the ever-changing social and natural environment[13 - Dewey J. Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: Macmillan. 1916.; Human nature and conduct: An introduction to social psychology. New York: Holt. 1922.; Experience and nature. Chicago. 1925.; Logic: The theory of inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston. 1938.].

These ideas formed the philosophy of action, where a person actor (homo actor) performing the social role delegated to him, turns into an activist (homo active) characterized by natural morality and consciously choosing between his physical actions. This demonstrates realism and naturalism of the individual stream of experience, which is opposed to “bare” mentalism. However, this philosophy does not provide for nature’s development outside human actions and shows no interest for natural conditions, which may lead to extinction of the human race. Conditions resulting from the actions of humans and which could also lead to extinction of the human race were not studied either. Understanding of this and specific socio-ecological problems encouraged the elaboration by the Chicago school of sociology of the classic social concept of human ecology.

Environmental sociology, as an area of sociological research and theorizing, took its final shape in the 1920s – 1930s and is associated with such names as Robert Ezra Park (1864—1944), Ernest Watson Burgess (1886—1966) and Roderick Duncan McKenzie (1885—1940). They studied specific urban issues using quantitative sociological methods including systematizing and formalization of data gathered, territorial zoning and group segregation. This allowed studying the processes of deviant behavior, migration and adaptation[14 - McKenzie R.D., Park R.E., Burgess E.W. The city. Chicago: Chicago University Press. 1967.].

At that time, Chicago as a social environment was a fascinating object of research. It demonstrated a complete set of situations and cases, which individually could be found in the other United States cities. Special attention was paid to labor strikes and demonstrations that often turned into mass civil unrest, migration processes and adaptation of ethnic communities, growth and organization of crime. As sociologists were eager to offer new ideas, they were expected to find ways for resolving these problems.

The socio-ecological concept proposed by the Chicago school of sociology was applied to a specific object / subject, relied upon an evolutionary approach to studying social change and the naturalistic approach to selecting methods of research. The Chicago school sociologists rejected Spencer’s theory of universal progress conceding to this notion only after generalization of specific research materials and admitting the possibility of progress in sociological cognition[15 - Park R.E. Human nature and collective behavior // American Journal Sociology. 1927. Vol. 32. №5. p. 695—703.; Human ecology // American Journal Sociology. 1936. Vol. 42. №1. p. 1—15.].

They emphasized a natural origin of conflict and the consistency of its transformation into an optimal state of consensus. This concept viewed conflict and consensus as interrelated and mutually complementary aspects of a single process of evolution. This description of the process of social change, the use for analysis of a tool for elaboration of dual, dichotomous and paired interrelated opposites determined the subsequent fate of the socio-ecological theory that combined a diversity of approaches.

The socio-ecological concept was based on the idea that society (urban community) is a complex system, organism and a biological phenomenon. Accordingly, in addition to the socio-cultural level, it has a biotic quality, which underpins all social development and determines social organization of the urban community. Therefore, in Park’s opinion, society forms at the biotic level while the cultural level emerges in the process of social evolution.

Schema: Social evolution

The starting point for analysis became the most developed social phenomena. Social evolution moves from the biotic to the cultural level and is driven by competition, which takes various forms in the course of evolution and achieves an optimum – competitive cooperation – at the cultural level. Competition forms the structure and regulates the sequence of change and restoration of equilibrium in the development of the social organism.

Social change per se looks as a process consisting of several consecutive phases, each of them being the result of the preceding forms of competition. After that, Park systematized and structured analytical conclusions. These methods allowed obtaining new knowledge and seeing phases of evolution and links between the biotic and cultural levels.

Park identified four phases of the evolution process from the biotic to social level: the ecological, economic, political and cultural orders. Accordingly, there exist four forms of socialization, namely, competition – struggle for survival on the biotic level, conflict on the economic level, adaptation on the political level and assimilation – on the cultural level.

All four are represented in the modern society in different situations (specific cases) to a varying extent (quantitative parameters) but with the same characteristic features:

– Ecological order is the result of physical (space-temporal) interaction of individuals. This order is characterized by freedom of traveling.

– Economic order exists where there is production, trade and exchange and is characterized by free competition.

– Political order prevails where there is control, management, regulation and enforcement. It is characterized by political freedoms.

– Cultural order is characterized by the dominance of morals, ethics, traditions, habits and customs, which form social institutes and structures, and which in turn, specify restrictions for individuals and society. However, this restriction is taken for granted as it is based on consensus[16 - Park R.E. Society: Collective behavior, news and opinion, sociology and modern society. Glencoe: Free. 1955.].

Communication (interaction) capacity is inborn and makes a newly born baby a human. He is striving to communicate and this striving compels him to agree to curb his instincts, desires and aspirations. After that, social institutes and structures are reproduced as a result of collective action and consensus on a daily basis. Interactionism boils down to the postulate that individuals use communication to socialize and integrate. His process allows consecutive and coordinated action leading to a consensus-based or authoritative interaction, suppression of the minority by the majority, or majority of citizens by the elite representing a minority.

However, the anticipated interaction may not necessarily occur. Then interaction occurs in another situation in another form. This means that interaction is determined by the human nature. Interaction is based on movement, which characterizes the ecological level. This particular level is the subject examined by ecosociology, while the hierarchically structured superstructure – economic, political and cultural orders – are studied by economy, political science and anthropology.

Despite the attractiveness of studying the cultural level, the Chicago school ecosociologists, together with students, researched the urban environment fully using the structure suggested by Park. Naturally, they paid a lot of attention to the ecological level, which could be used for studying migration processes. Researchers acted on the assumption that a social organism consists of individuals capable of migration. Migration is a collective action and interaction typical specifically for the biotic (ecological) level. It is a basic freedom for all people irrespectively of the race and nationality.

Availability of higher-level freedoms (of conscience, political and economic freedom) is the subject matter of a new scientific discipline – cultural-anthropological ecology. The central concept of this science is “liberty” as a feature of modern society. The degree of freedom may increase or decrease on a case-by-case basis. For a human, the greatest external freedom is possible at the ecological level (in contrast with plants, humans have a freedom of movement), and inner freedom – at the cultural level (unlike animals, humans consciously choose their behavior).

On the one hand, all American reforms are supposed to be aimed at securing freedom for individuals and society and building a free American society. On the other hand, nobody ever plans or builds a free society; it emerges of its own accord where it does not oppress itself. And it emerges due to the biotic nature of humans – their ecological level. Therefore, the 19

-century wave of migration to the United States from China, Asia, India and Middle East indicates the switching of an in-depth mechanism that would change the existing institutes to build a qualitatively new society of free cooperation.

In the 1920s, the Chicago school ecosociologists received a few seats on the Committee for Local Community Studies. Participants of this inter-disciplinary research organization also included economists, philosophers, anthropologists, political experts and psychologists. They elaborated a common conceptual framework, conducted joint empirical research and theorized, developed recommendations for business and municipal authorities.

However, socio-economic crises and the subsequent Great American Depression of the 1930s formulated other national priorities. As a result, the socio-ecological concept of the Chicago school of sociology was used as a method without being developed into an independent discipline.

Attempts to rethink the socio-ecological theory made by Park’s followers were aiming to overcome the biosocial dualism of Park’s concept and make social-ecological theory more sociology sounding. Louis Wirth (1897—1952), having constructed a purely sociological theory of urban life, proposed to get rid of eclectics that allowed various interpretations of urban processes by scientists representing different disciplines. Interaction / communication continue to be the main characteristic of social processes and a driving force behind the development of local community.

To overcome the excessively broad theoretical orientation of the socio-ecological concept, he proposed a thesis that interaction becomes intensive with a large congestion of people on a constrained territory. He suggested a method for distinguishing between urban and rural communities:

– The first characteristic of urban population relates to its high density (the ratio of the territorial size to the number of residents).

– The second characteristic is the diversity of population (a large number of different social groups).

– The third is to prevailing social relationships (communal in a rural and social / mixed – in an urban community)[17 - Wirth L. Social interaction: The problem of the individual and the group. 1939. Vol. 44. p. 965—979.; Human ecology. 1945. Vol. 50. №6. p. 483—488.; Community life and the social policy. Chicago. 1956.].

Therefore, the space-temporal aspect remained a characteristic of society, while ecosociology came to be perceived as a science that measures and describes the social environment.

To define the main ecosociological categories, McKenzie pointed out an ecological organization as a spatial body of the population in a local or the global community. He argued that ecological things dominate all other characteristics because they all are a result of space-temporal relationships. Accordingly, he gave priority to studying and theorizing on the phenomenon of the ecological community[18 - McKenzie R.D. Social ecology // Encyclopedia of Social Sciences. New York: Macmillan, Collier. 1937. Vol. 5. p. 314—315.].

The followers of the socio-ecological concept maintained and continue to maintain that all social processes are in fact ecological. This understanding was to be the foundation for all social sciences, as the social institutes and structures are built on a space-temporal foundation, emerge and exist in accordance with the changing natural conditions, and nothing exists beyond these conditions.

This approach was enhanced by the fact that such socio-ecological methods as zoning and social mapping were successfully used for identifying and verifying the correlation between various social variables, which at first glance were not interrelated. Moreover, the use of these methods and conceptual approaches made possible generalized descriptions of various multi-variable cases, giving at least an understanding of functional, if not causal dependence.

An effective use of the socio-ecological method can be also explained by the level-based approach, which is similar to the principle used in system analysis when the phenomenon of a local community (social organism) being examined is analyzed in its interrelation with its higher (macro) and lower (micro) level. The lower level is the individual and the higher level is represented by social “compositions” consisting of various communities united into municipalities.

However, causal links of social organisms with their habitat and issues relating to optimal life support were not yet studied by ecosociology. Therefore, beginning with the mid-1930s, the abstract character of the ecosociology’s space-temporal functionalism came under criticism from representatives of the socio-cultural school, who emphasized the dependence of natural resource use on cultural traditions, values, symbols and norms.

Milla Aissa Alihan proposed a new vision of society and started working on a methodology for analyzing the social sphere within the framework of the already existing discipline – urban sociology. Three main variables – social standing (status), urbanization level (population density) and degree of segregation (multiplicity of social groups) – were identified. A city was described as a subsystem comprising greater territories and larger communities. In doing so, researchers were using data obtained from a census of urban population. On the one hand, this allowed analysis of cities rather than urban communities. On the other hand, this made possible, based on the statistical data received, a classification of subsystems (local communities). The result obtained could be rechecked some time later (sociological monitoring) to see social dynamics. This also enabled researchers to reasonably theorize on social organization as the main result of evolution[19 - Alihan M.A. Social ecology: A critical analysis. New York: Columbia University Press. 1935.].

Amos Henry Hawley (1910—2009), further developing the socio-ecological concept, was of the opinion that a community is an ecosystem (a territorial local system of interrelations between its functionally differentiated parts). Ecosociology may view a community as a population united by the similarity of its component organisms (commensalism). Human population is included into the ecosystem due to a mutually useful interaction with dissimilar organisms (symbiosis).

The focus of attention of the researcher-sociologist now turns to the functional socio-ecological system that develops in the process of interaction with an abiotic environment and other biotic communities. During such interaction, a specific social organization with specific characteristics is formed[20 - Huwley A. Human ecology: A theory of community structure. New York: Ronald Press Company. 1950.]. Despite the fact that a civilized man prefers adapting nature to his needs rather than adapts to nature, and tries to irreversibly change nature’s characteristics and processes for his benefit, nature has resilience and is capable of influencing humans. It also can perform irreversible acts on humans.

Finally, as the socio-ecological theories, approaches and methods are developed, social atomism is substituted with organizational functionalism; attention is focused more on the functioning of a social organization rather than on the driving forces and causes of this process or space-temporal forms of its manifestation. A description of this mechanism was made by Otis Dudley Duncan (1921—2004) and Leo Francis Schnore, who used the socio-ecological complex theory. The socio-ecological complex comprises four components:

1) Population (local human population);

2) Nature environment (abiota + biota + human populations);

3) Technology (things + means of production + culture of production);

4) Organization (social institutes and structures)[21 - Duncan O.D. From social system to ecosystem // Sociological Inquiry. 1961. Vol. 31. p. 140—149.; Social organization and the ecosystem // Modern Sociology. Ed. R. Faris. Chicago: Rand McNally. 1964. p. 36—82.; Duncan O.D., Schnore L.F. Cultural, behavioral and ecological perspectives in the study of social organisation // American Journal Sociology. 1969. Vol. 65. №2. p. 132—136.].

Schema: Social ecological complex

Park proposed an analogous structure of the socio-ecological process and studies of movement in time and space (communication and migration) as well as unique events (artefacts) determined by culture. Duncan and Schnore focused on the functioning of social organization, believing that this component was of most importance for their research. Making a social organization the subject of their analysis within the framework of ecosociology, they used quantitative methods and, based on the data obtained, proposed a thesis that it is a collective adaptation of the human population to the environment.