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The Social Construction of Nature
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The Social Construction of Nature
A Sociology of Ecological Enlightenment

First Edition
  • Klaus Eder - Humboldt University, Berlin/European University Institute, Florence


August 1996 | 256 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
In this unique and agenda-setting examination of the relation between nature and culture, Klaus Eder demonstrates our ideas of nature are culturally determined, and explains how the relation between modern, industrial societies and nature is increasingly violent and destructive.

Through an analysis of symbolism, ritual and taboo, Eder questions the view of nature as an object. Showing how nature is socially constructed, he presents a critique of Marx and Durkheim while offering a radical reinterpretation of the relationship among society, culture and nature.

Eder concludes with an examination of the symbolic order of society and of the role of religion in modern culture. Using a culturalist interpretation, he explains how environmentalism, and the social construction of nature, is a key index of social order and structure.

 
Introduction
 
PART ONE: A SOCIAL THEORY OF NATURE
 
The Theoretical Construction of Nature
A Critique of Naturalistic Theories of Evolution

 
 
The Evolution of the Societal Relationship to Nature as a Learning Process?
An Ecological Critique of Practical Reason

 
 
PART TWO: FROM NATURE TO CULTURE
 
Culinary Morality
A Comparative Analysis of Food Taboos

 
 
Carnivorous and Vegetarian Culture
Two Models of the Symbolic Organization of Society

 
 
The Modern Discourse on What To Eat
A Sociology of the Natural Foods Movement

 
 
PART THREE: THE MODERN POLITICS OF NATURE
 
Framing and Communicating Nature
The Political Transformation of Modern Environmentalism

 
 
The Politics of Nature
A New Politics?

 

`Klaus Eder affords us with a rare, genuinely social consructionist perspective on nature. He must be credited, and his book praised, on numerous grounds. First and foremost, he retrieves, develops and introduces to a German and Anglo-Saxon readership what is probably to this day the most comprehensive and thoroughly social constructionist framework to apprehend human/nature relationships. The author also provides a sound account of food taboos across different cultures, including our own, thereby acting as a precursor to what is known as `symmetrical anthropology' This book is an important contribution to the social sciences in general' - British Journal of Sociology

`The Social Construction of Nature argues that modernity's characteristic pride in dominating nature has caused us to forget that we live in a culture which forces us into a self-destructive relationship with nature. The author shows how this is reflected in our eating practices: carnivorous culture is seen as an extension of domination going back to Greek roots, while the emerging vegetarian culture is based on the idea of harmony with nature. In this context the opposite of the natural foods movements is the industrial exploitation of nature. The final part claims that contemporary environmentalism is a turning point in the cultural evolution of modernity' - Scientific and Medical Network Journal

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