Environmental Sociology 6 (2/4): Social Constuction of Environment, II: Framing Easter Island
Channel: TheBioregionalState
Date: 2011-10-25

WHO: I am Dr. Mark D. Whitaker (Ph.D., Sociology; University of Wisconsin-Madison), from a university known for its concentration of environmental sociologists. My interests are environmental sociology, comparative history, the organizational causes of environmental degradation, and sustainability strategies.

WHAT: This is a free seven part video lecture series on Environmental Sociology.

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Outline of this Session
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(1/4) Views summarized so far in the five theoretical views of environmental sociology; in the 1980s, pioneering sociocultural history book of the way the environmental beliefs were changing over time: Hannigan's Environmental Sociology: A Social Constructionist View; introductory example #1: acid rain (real for a long time before constructed in the media and science); example; #2: discussion of South Korea's "Four Rivers project" constructed as different than a widely opposed Grand Canal project a year before despite being the same project; this 'new' construct is connected with repression in media workers and upon social movements who disagree; in 2011 South Korea's media downgraded to "partly free" by an NGO in international rankings.

3 empirical areas useful to have a perspective on the social construction of the environment:   
1. in historical change in cultural meanings, values, and desired uses connected to the environment; which groups dominate or have hegemony on construction? Historical changes over time.
2. in political contention; different social movement claims making versus state claims making develops an interactive history (#1 once more); strategies in political framing for sharing appealing meanings about development and environmental conditions and/or attempts to discredit other meanings.
3. useful to help explore interactions of 'material' social inequalities and how they are or are not connected with subjective views on environmental inequalities and risks: different appraisals of the same risks show they seem influenced by larger social inequalities in categories of gender, class, region, ethnicity ("environmental racism"), cultural heritage, or power position

(2/4) Example of #1 and #2: even the social construction of the ancient environment is reflected in current environmental politics; Easter Island as an Abused Poster Child for Every Social Movement Under the Sun: 9 Social Constructions of Easter Island over 20 years, summarized; Malthusianism and its claimed self-directed ecocide there discredited.

(3/4) Example of #2: social construction of the environment under political contention and media control; South Korea's "Four Rivers project" as an interpretive battle for who 'wins' the hegemonic meaning of a President's projects

(4/4) Example of #3: different subjective views of environmental risks mirror material social inequalities (or sometimes not) instead of people sharing common views of environment; environmental racism frame; different risk appraisals by gender, culture, ethnic heritages (Asians in the U.S.A.), with different geographies of 'good vs. bad' environmental experiences in a stratified society.

Conclusion: another 3 ways to understand the actual process of social construction of material issues: 
1. constructing real material risks accurately.
2. constructing real material risks inaccurately, 
3. constructing something that isn't really there (quick mention of the debate over "Climategate" in 2009 and revelations then about scientific fraud, data destruction, and peer review 'repression' of debate in climate science via banning people from publishing in any journal; this was organized by people associated with U.K.'s East Anglia climate research unit; their emails and the paltry state of their datasets were hacked/liberated in 2009 showing for years they falsified climate records and conducted a conspiracy to attempt to ban certain people from being published to get a social construction of the environment that they (and their funders for grants or political allies) wanted to see to justify global carbon policies--despite in emails revealing they privately worried among themselves they had little faith in their own research; information:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html