If You Love the Environment, Why Don’t You Do Something to Save It? Bringing Culture into Environmental Analysis

Abstract

Since its inception, environmental sociology has enriched our knowledge of how social and ecological systems are interwoven. The current state of the planet is clearly and inarguably disrupted by social actions. Likewise, our social life is undoubtedly affected by ecological problems and shaped by our desire to appreciate and preserve “nature.”1 We can witness profoundly diverse interactions between society and nature on a daily basis— what A. H. Alkon (2013) has succinctly termed “socio-natures.” Illustrating the diversity of socio-natures, the television show Duck Dynasty follows a rural, politically conservative family in the Southern United States as they use their knowledge of duck behavior and physiology to strike it rich selling duck calls and decoys. Meanwhile, on social media, millions follow Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg, and the Fridays For Future movement. Instigated by 16-year-old Thunberg’s outrage and deep sadness at inaction on climate change, protests have ignited youth across the world to express their fears about a changing climate and fury with the lack of political response. At first glance, these examples might seem to illustrate the polarization across urban and rural and liberal and political dimensions (McCright and Dunlap 2011): A conservative rural population seemingly interested in capitalizing on nature contrasts with a politically liberal group of youth seeking to “save” nature. However, while there is some truth to this comparison, both the Duck Dynasty and the Fridays For Future movement illustrate a shared, felt connection to ecological systems and a cultural response to that felt connection. Those in Duck Dynasty demonstrate how a deep knowledge of the non-human world is necessary for a successful duck hunt, while the Fridays For Future followers convey a sense of moral outrage at lack of action to protect the non-human world. We contend that scholars cannot fully understand the differences or common ground across these cases without a cultural analysis that unpacks how views of nature are discursively framed, emotionally experienced, and embodied in everyday habits. The rootedness and inseparability of human existence and the natural, or material, world captured in the term “socio-natures” follows an enduring insight of early environmental sociologists.