INTRODUCTION
Population has a very close connection with environment. The relationship between population and environment is, however, reciprocal: both population and environment affect each other. Yet it was in the second half of the twentieth century that the relationship between population and environment got serious attention of economists, sociologists and demographers who began exploring various linkages between population and environment. Earlier, population was linked more with economic development than with environment. In sociology the works on environment follow mostly one of the two lines of thought:
Sociologists of environment examine how social structure affects the environment, i.e., resource use, resource depletion, environmental pollution, climate change and access to various community resources. They also studied environmental movements broadly covered under the aegis of neo-social movements, by focusing on local and global issues raised by them and drawing attention to participation of all social classes in the movements, organizational structure, motivation, successes and impact. On the other hand environmental sociologists took a neo-Durkheimian view of society and maintained that among other things society is shaped by environment. This module attempts to expose students to certain basic concepts in environment studies in sociology such as the concept of sustainable development, population-environment link and environmental movements. |
