Ecology
Ecology refers both to the specific science and to the field that that science studies. In the latter sense, ecology is an interactive relationship between living things themselves and with their physical environment. The science that studies this field combines knowledge from chemistry, geography, climatology, and biology. Works of Malthus and Charles Darwin influenced the early ecological science, while German biologist Ernst Haeckel is often acknowledged with the introduction of the term “ecology” in 1866.
Social scientists study the effects that ecology has on humans and their society, economy, natural resources, and health. Some social scientists have adapted the logic and methods of the natural science of ecology to study humans and their societies. Some of the examples are: human ecology, interpretative institutional ecology, and ecological psychology. Other social scientists study the field of ecology to understand and explain the socio-cultural evolution – some of the examples are cultural ecology and ecological-evolutionary theory.
References:
Amin. Accumulation on a World Scale: A Critique of the Theory of Underdevelopment (1970);
Beck U. World Risk Society (1997);
- World at Risk (2009);
- What Is Globalization? (2015);
- The Metamorphosis of the World: How Climate Change is Transforming Our Concept of the World (2017).
- Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (1992, in German 1986);
- Power in the Global Age (2005, in German 2002);
Giddens. Runaway World (2000);
- The Politics of Climate Change (2009);
Gorz. Ecology as Politics (1978, in French 1975);
Hawley. Human Ecology: A Theory of Community Structure (1950);
- Urban Society: An Ecological Approach (1971);
Luhmann. Ecological Communication (1989, in German 1986);
