Socio-environmentalism in Latin America

New book highlights intellectual production in the interdisciplinary field of socio-environmental sciences.

By Mônica Pileggi

Agência FAPESP – To keep up with the diverse environmental challenges, Latin America has produced knowledge and investigations that boast the originality and multifaceted approaches of the environment-society relationship.

That is one of the highlights of the book The environmental question in Latin America – Social Theory and Interdisciplinarity (América Latina – Teoria social e interdisciplinaridade), recently released by Editora Unicamp and has the objective of offering a panorama of intellectual production in the interdisciplinary field of socio-environmental sciences in important universities and research centers in the region.

Organized by Leila da Costa Ferreira, professor at the Department of Sociology in the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH) at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp),  the book received FAPESP funding under the Research Award – Publications.

The book is fruit of the Thematic Project “The environmental question, interdisplinarity, social theory and intellectual production in Latin America” ("A questão ambiental, interdisciplinaridade, teoria social e produção intelectual na América Latina"), coordinated by Unicamp’s Environmental Research Center (Nepam).

“Due to the scope and vastness of Latin America, we opted to study university programs and research centers that had a tradition in the area of social theory and interdisciplinarity in the region,” he commented to Agência FAPESP. 

Ferreira explains that the group studied seven countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile Colombia, Equator, Mexico and Uruguay – working to identify the main research lines in the aggregate scientific production and the main topics covered by this type of production.

For the analysis, the group developed a research methodology that involved visits to the centers under study and creation of a database to host the knowledge produced in the socio-environmental area by the seven countries.

After collecting the material, the group interviewed the authors of these studies, whose research results were presented on topics such as sustainability, public policy, interdisciplinarity, environmental sociology, social theory, science and intellectual production in Latin America at a 2008 international seminar at Nepam.

“We observed that intellectual production in the region, mainly in the socio-environmental area, accompanies international literature not only in quantity, but also in quality. This shows that we are well positioned internationally,” he notes.

“At the same time, our production has a certain degree of specificity, due to the political and social history of these countries. These are countries with major social inequality, but that have biodiversity,” he complemented.

Directed to an academic audience and those interested in ecological issues, the book is split into two sections and includes the results of studies presented in the seminar.
In the first, the authors describe the main theory that guides the work, approaching the environmental question and America from different perspectives in the symbolic and political dimension.

The second part is a collection of articles dedicated to relevant topics in the region, such as public health, sustainability, quality of life, topics related to conservation, socio-environmentalism and technology. 
 

• The environmental question in Latin America – Social Theory and Interdisciplinarity (América Latina – Teoria social e interdisciplinaridade)
  Organizer: Leila da Costa Ferreira
  Release: 2011
  Price: R$ 32.00
  Pages: 288
  More information: www.editora.unicamp.br