TY - CHAP

T1 - Moving Ahead: Environmental Sociology’s Contribution to Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research

AU - Groß, Matthias

AU - Heinrichs, Harald

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - This volume's goal is to further scholarship within the intellectual tradition of environmental sociology and its inter- and transdisciplinary connections. That it is time for sociology to generally move away from its purely internal debates has been pointed out by many sociologists in the last 4 decades, who have lamented the low impetus of sociology in public forums and policy issues and have uttered a general crisis of the discipline (see e.g., Gouldner 1970; Lemert 1995; Lopreato and Crippens 2001; Clawson et al. 2007). It is our contention that many of these critical assessments of the current state of sociology are also a crisis of sociology's potential for trans- or at least interdisciplinary collaboration. And indeed, it appears to be unclear as to what extend sociology is able to deliver relevant knowledge to the solution of pressing societal questions in cooperation with other disciplines. The editors of this volume believe that environmental sociology, unlike many other sociological subdisciplines, has taken up the challenge of interdisciplinarity since quite a while. In Europe, the term transdisciplinarity is most often used to describe integrative forms of research that comprise different methods for relating scientific knowledge and extra-scientific practice in problem-solving. In this way, the research topics of many streams of European environmental sociology are not mainly driven by self-referential disciplinary theory building, but they are inherently problem and solution-oriented and therefore necessarily inter- and also transdisciplinary.

AB - This volume's goal is to further scholarship within the intellectual tradition of environmental sociology and its inter- and transdisciplinary connections. That it is time for sociology to generally move away from its purely internal debates has been pointed out by many sociologists in the last 4 decades, who have lamented the low impetus of sociology in public forums and policy issues and have uttered a general crisis of the discipline (see e.g., Gouldner 1970; Lemert 1995; Lopreato and Crippens 2001; Clawson et al. 2007). It is our contention that many of these critical assessments of the current state of sociology are also a crisis of sociology's potential for trans- or at least interdisciplinary collaboration. And indeed, it appears to be unclear as to what extend sociology is able to deliver relevant knowledge to the solution of pressing societal questions in cooperation with other disciplines. The editors of this volume believe that environmental sociology, unlike many other sociological subdisciplines, has taken up the challenge of interdisciplinarity since quite a while. In Europe, the term transdisciplinarity is most often used to describe integrative forms of research that comprise different methods for relating scientific knowledge and extra-scientific practice in problem-solving. In this way, the research topics of many streams of European environmental sociology are not mainly driven by self-referential disciplinary theory building, but they are inherently problem and solution-oriented and therefore necessarily inter- and also transdisciplinary.

KW - Sustainability sciences, Communication

KW - Internal Debate

KW - Interdisciplinary Collaboration

KW - Governance Process

KW - Public Forum

KW - Intellectual Tradition

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84891400948&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/978-90-481-8730-0_19

DO - 10.1007/978-90-481-8730-0_19

M3 - Chapter

SN - 978-90-481-8729-4

SP - 347

EP - 351

BT - Environmental Sociology

A2 - Gross, Matthias

A2 - Heinrichs, Harald

PB - Springer

CY - Dordrecht u.a.

ER -