ASOK22206U Sociological Perspectives on the Green transitions

This course provides students with the conceptual tools needed to understand, analyze, as well as critically and constructively engage with ongoing societal transformations induced by climate change, biodiversity and other ecological crises, colloquially known as green transition. It builds on scholarship and meso-level theories founded in environmental and climate sociology, branching also into other literatures to ask foundational questions about society-wide change towards sustainability: how much of it is currently happening across societal sectors, domains, and levels; how has it or is it currently being brought about; what shapes, conditions, or hampers more of it? To pose these questions in macro-sociologically adequate terms, the course starts by reviewing debates on two contrasting diagnoses: the risk society diagnosis of Ulrich Beck and the ecological modernization diagnosis of Maarten Hajer, John Dryzek and others. At stake here is the questions of the place of environmental concern, policy, and practice in reworking (late) modernity. From here, the course delves into the main institutional vectors of green social change, covering in turn questions of:

a) socio-technical change (green technological innovation, changing infrastructures);

b) political-economic change (shifting modes of governance and politics, new circular market models);

c) mobilization-driven change (environmental social movements, urban green communities);

d) changing North-South relations (new globalized inequalities, climate justice activism);

e) everyday practice change (emerging consumptions habits, new social distinctions and divisions);

f) cultural value change (continuity and change in moral valuations of ‘nature’ in the Anthropocene).

Throughout, focus is on understanding present-day green social change in light of historical experience and meso-level sociological theory, with a view to taking stock of what near-future changes lie ahead. Alongside examining the various substantive dimensions of green transition, we will also discuss adequate methodological strategies affiliated with the different problem complexes and vectors of social change. Throughout, students work on aligning analytical and methodological strategies via case analyses.