NATURE AND SOCIOLOGY
Nature has become increasingly central to social thinking. From the social implications of environmental degradation to the plethora of issues raised by biotechnology, genomics, neuroscience and health, the ‘natural’ world is increasingly difficult to ignore for sociologists and social scientists. In addition to a wide-ranging treatment of this field, this ground-breaking text presents fresh perspectives that challenge the way we think about the relationship between ‘time’, ‘nature’ and ‘society’.

Although the natural and social are inevitably intertwined, Tim Newton argues that we should be open to the possibility of difference in our preception of them. In so doing, he contests accepted tenets, such as an overriding need for anti-dualism, and underscores the limitations of current approaches such as social constructionism and critical realism. In addition, he engages with the burgeoning debates on new genetics and neuroscience, takes the material world and human biology seriously, and addresses the issues of interdisciplinarity that are likely to arise in any longer term attempt to work across the social and natural world.

Nature and Sociology will be of great interest to students of a variety of disciplines including Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy and Human Geography, Social and Biological Antropology, and the Life and Physical Sciences.

The Author Tim Newton

Tim Newton is Professor of Organisations and Society at the University of Exeter. His current research interests include social theory, sociology and nature, interdisciplinarity, and the historical relationship between commercialisation and the self. He has published widely within sociology, psychology and organisation studies journals.