Chapter 14 The Environment

Standpoint

the unique perspective of an individual based on a set of sociological characteristics including age, class, employment, ethnicity, family, gender, sex, race, etc.

Operational Definition

the definition of an abstract quality (e.g., poverty/pollution) in such a way that it can be counted for statistical purposes.

Peer Review Process

the rigorous assessment by academic experts of the draft of a scholarly article or book to ensure that the research findings are sound and the work overall is suitable for publication.

Tobacco Strategy

a marketing strategy in which a medical professional or other scientific expert is paid by a company to endorse the company's product on scientific grounds. The tactic was first used by tobacco producers, who hired medical researchers to combat public concerns about the health risks of cigarettes.

Social Ecology

a school of thought, founded by Bookchin, that recognizes the link between environmental issues and social problems, including economic, cultural, ethnic, and gender conflicts.

Murray Bookchin (1921-2006)

American thinker prominent in the ecology and anarchism movements.

Epidemiology

the study of public health, specifically the incidence and spread of diseases in a population.

Red Herrring

a logical fallacy in which a fundamentally irrelevant topic is presented in an argument in order to divert attention from the original and more important issue.

Moral Community

as described by Durkheim, a group of individuals sharing a commitment to a common moral (usually religious) worldview. Durkheim differed from his contemporaries in viewing religion as a communal rather than individual experience.

Environmental Racism

a double standard in attitudes around environmental protection, depending on which race or ethnicity prevails in the threatened region. White places generally attract a high level of concern and care, while places associated with racial minorities are often neglected.

Victimology

the study of crime victims and the psychological effects of their experiences; in sociology, it often refers to how a person is portrayed as a victim of some event or situation in a way that minimises or denies the person's agency.

Samuel Henry Prince (1886 - 1962)

early Canadian sociologist involved with research of a practical application. His study of the Halifax Explosion of 1917 is a classic work on the sociology of disasters.

Rotten Apple Theory

an attempt to downplay the systemic problems in a process or an organization by placing the blame on individuals.

China Price

the true cost of China's competitive advantage in manufacturing, which takes into account the harm done to exploited workers and damage caused to the environment.

Environmental Refugee

people forced to leave their home region owning to sudden changes to the local environment (e.g., drought, melting land ice, polluted water) that pose a threat to their livelihood or survival.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

a condition in which the sufferer experiences serious psychological symptoms stemming from his/her experience of harrowing events, such as warfare, political oppression, or crime. The condition is often medicalized, so that treatment focuses on the pathology of the social environment that provides the context for the event experienced by the sufferer.