Social Ecology: Society-Nature Relations across Time and Space (Human-Environment Interactions Book 5)

"This book presents the current state of the art in Social Ecology as practiced by the Vienna School of Social Ecology, globally one of the main research groups in this field. As a significant contribution to the growing literature on interdisciplinary sustainability studies, the book introduces the purpose and nature of Social Ecology and then places the "Vienna School" within the broader context of socioecological and other interdisciplinary environmental approaches. The conceptual and methodological foundations of Social Ecology are discussed in detail, allowing the reader to obtain a broad overview of current socioecological thinking. Issues covered include socio-metabolic transitions, socioecological approaches to land use, the relation between actor-centered and system approaches, a socioecological theory of labor and the importance of legacies, as conceived in Environmental History and in Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research. To underpin this overview empirically, the strengths of socioecological research are elucidated in cases of cutting-edge research, introducing a variety of themes the Vienna School has been tackling empirically over the past years. Given how the field is presented - reflecting research carried out on different scales, reaching from local to global as well as from past to present and future - and due to the way the book is structured, it is suitable for classroom use, as a primer, and also as an overview of how Social Ecology evolved, right up to its current research frontiers"- - Springer Front Matter....Pages i-lxii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 The Archipelago of Social Ecology and the Island of the Vienna School....Pages 3-28 Core Concepts and Heuristics....Pages 29-61 Transitions in Sociometabolic Regimes Throughout Human History....Pages 63-92 Beyond Inputs and Outputs: Opening the Black-Box of Land-Use Intensity....Pages 93-124 ‘Society Can’t Move So Much As a Chair!’—Systems, Structures and Actors in Social Ecology....Pages 125-147 Why Legacies Matter: Merits of a Long-Term Perspective....Pages 149-168 Toward a Socioecological Concept of Human Labor....Pages 169-196 Front Matter....Pages 197-197 Long-Term Trends in Global Material and Energy Use....Pages 199-216 More Than the Sum of Its Parts: Patterns in Global Material Flows....Pages 217-237 Boundary Issues: Calculating National Material Use for a Globalized World....Pages 239-258 How Circular Is the Global Economy? A Sociometabolic Analysis....Pages 259-275 Material Stocks and Sustainable Development....Pages 277-291 Front Matter....Pages 293-293 Livestock Grazing, the Neglected Land Use....Pages 295-313 Systemic Feedbacks in Global Land Use....Pages 315-334 A Burning Issue: Anthropogenic Vegetation Fires....Pages 335-348 How Far Does the European Union Reach? Analyzing Embodied HANPP....Pages 349-360 Africa’s Land System Trajectories 1980–2005....Pages 361-373 Of Birds and Bees: Biodiversity and the Colonization of Ecosystems....Pages 375-388 Front Matter....Pages 389-389 Long-Term Risks of Colonization: The Bavarian ‘Donaumoos’....Pages 391-415 A Forest Transition: Austrian Carbon Budgets 1830–2010....Pages 417-431 Front Matter....Pages 389-389 From Energy Source to Sink: Transformations of Austrian Agriculture....Pages 433-445 The Philippines 1910–2003: A Century of Transitions....Pages 447-458 How Tourism Transformed an Alpine Valley....Pages 459-474 Cleaning a Metropolis: The History of Vienna’s Sewage System....Pages 475-486 Front Matter....Pages 487-487 Planning, Residential Decisions and Energy Use in Vienna....Pages 489-503 Time Use, Gender and Sustainable Agriculture in Austria....Pages 505-522 Complex Disasters on the Nicobar Islands....Pages 523-542 Island Sustainability: The Case of Samothraki....Pages 543-557 Health Through Socioecological Lenses—A Case for Sustainable Hospitals....Pages 559-576 Back Matter....Pages 577-610