What do the social sciences contribute to natural resource management?

From the heart of inner-city Chicago at the turn of the 20th Century to electrification of the transportation grid in the 21st, natural resource social scientists are concerned with the human-ecosystem interface.

Social science researchers study a broad range of topics related to human dimensions of societal issues. Sociology is one subfield of the social sciences that is broadly defined as “the study of human society” (Conley, 2019: 5). That is, sociologists study the systems of organizations that groups of people create to provide for shared needs – things like public services, law and safety, and cultural institutions that create a cohesive group identity.

Sociologists are interested in understanding the meanings behind and consequences of people’s preferences, values, social ties, and behaviors. The questions that sociological research asks about the world may include things like:

• How do attitudes and values affect a person’s behavior?

• What are sources of bonding among a group of people?

• Which factors are associated with a particular life outcome

• Why do people prefer one policy option or plan over another?

• What patterns can be observed in the way people think about or experience an issue?

A (Really Brief) History of Sociology

Sociology emerged as an academic discipline in Europe during the mid-1800s, which was a really happening time! The Industrial Revolution pulled populations away from dispersed agricultural dwellings and concentrated them in dense urban settings. This transformed the way people lived, worked, played, and otherwise interacted. Additionally, political revolutions in France and the United States demanded new forms of representative governance. At the same time, scientific understanding was ousting traditional religious authority and offering new explanations for everything from illness to natural disasters. With so much going on, early sociologists were concerned with how social cohesion, or a sense of community, would be maintained under societal transformation (Ritzer, 2011). What would hold people together under this new social order?

During these early days of the sociological discipline, Jane Addams, an American social scientist located in Chicago, co-founded a settlement house where she studied urban conditions and helped immigrant laborers in Chicago’s urban core. Established in 1889, Hull House served as an organizing base and center for social services (before those formally existed) for immigrants experiencing housing shortages and overcrowding, brutal work conditions, and environmental illnesses. As described in the article, “Hull-House and the ‘Garbage Ladies’ of Chicago,” (below), researchers at the Hull House were some of the early investigators into problems associated with environmental pollution in working-class neighborhoods, workplace exposure to toxic chemicals, and the connection between public infrastructure and public health (NPS, 2021).

How do social scientists view the natural world?

Outside of the work at Hull House, most social scientists were primarily concerned with how industrial production changed human relationships and power structures and largely ignored human impacts to the environment. By the 1960s, industrial production in U.S. cities had created severe environmental degradation, creating a tipping point and inspiring social movements that social scientists could not ignore. New theoretical perspectives were developed to explain the relationship between humans and the environment, and these ideas guided new fields of research.

Where do natural resource social scientists work?

Social scientists contribute to natural resource management by conducting research and are often employed by universities, public policy institutes, and governmental agencies. Some examples include:

USDA, Economic Research Service
U.S. Forest Service
National Park Service
Mackinac Center for Public Policy

Summary

Social science research helps us understand why people believe or act in particular ways. This information is critical for developing programs, policies, and plans members of the public will support, creating solutions that effectively deal with problems, and analyzing where processes intended to meet public needs fall short or break down. When it comes to policies and plans dealing with the environment, the social sciences have an important role to play because human actions play an outsized role in (re)shaping planetary systems. Evidence of this is apparent when we review the history of human impacts to the Great Lakes.