Reconstructing the Earth’s Social Ecosystem through Socio-Ecological Inquiry in the Climate Crisis Era

Authors

  • Rahayu Mardikaningsih Universitas Sunan Giri Surabaya

Keywords:

climate crisis, socio-ecological systems, environmental sociology, ecological degradation, governance, sustainability, planetary transformation

Abstract

This study investigates the evolving structure of the Earth’s social ecosystem by analyzing the intersection between sociological systems and ecological forces in the context of climate disruption. It argues that environmental transformation is not merely a natural occurrence but a socially constructed and politically mediated process. Drawing from literature in environmental sociology, political ecology, and critical theory, the study traces how governance systems, economic models, cultural narratives, and technological infrastructures reinforce environmental degradation while simultaneously shaping social inequality. The analysis highlights how fragmented institutions, market-based ecological approaches, and extractivist logics sustain the conditions that generate climate vulnerability. It also explores how climate-induced displacement, contested environmental discourses, and uneven access to green technologies contribute to the reconfiguration of identity, agency, and justice in a warming world. By integrating theoretical insights from diverse disciplines, the study develops a comprehensive framework to interpret socio-ecological transformation. It emphasizes the need to move beyond disciplinary silos to understand the dynamics that condition both crisis and response. The findings contribute to a growing body of scholarship that advocates for interdisciplinary and critical approaches to environmental inquiry and offers pathways for equitable and resilient futures.

References

Adger, W. N., R. S. De Campos, & C. Mortreux. 2018. Mobility, Displacement and Migration, and Their Interactions with Vulnerability and Adaptation to Environmental Risks. In Routledge Handbook of Environmental Displacement and Migration (pp. 29-41). Routledge, London.

Apostolopoulou, E., E. Greco, & W. M. Adams. 2019. Biodiversity Offsetting and the Production of 'Equivalent Natures': A Marxist Critique. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 17(3), 861-892.

Asaaga, F. A., B. V. Purse, M. Rahman, P. N. Srinivas, S. D. Kalegowda, T. Seshadri, J. C. Young, & M. A. Oommen. 2023. The Role of Social Vulnerability in Improving Interventions for Neglected Zoonotic Diseases: The Example of Kyasanur Forest Disease in India. PLOS Global Public Health, 3(2), 1-28.

Barbier, E. B. 2021. The Evolution of Economic Views on Natural Resource Scarcity. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 15(1), 24-44.

Barry, J. 1999. Rethinking Green Politics: Nature, Virtue and Progress. SAGE Publications, California.

Beck, U. 1995. Ecological Politics in an Age of Risk. Polity Press, USA.

Beck, U. 2009. World at Risk. Polity Press, USA.

Bonnett, M. 2006. Education for Sustainability as a Frame of Mind. Environmental Education Research, 12(3–4), 265–276.

Borras, S. M., & J. C. Franco. 2020. The Challenge of Locating Land-Based Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Politics Within a Social Justice Perspective: Towards an Idea of Agrarian Climate Justice. In Converging Social Justice Issues and Movements (pp. 82-99). Routledge, Dutch.

Bruna, N. 2022. A Climate-Smart World and the Rise of Green Extractivism. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 49(4), 839-864.

Bulkeley, H., & M. Betsill. 2003. Cities and Climate Change: Urban Sustainability and Global Environmental Governance. Routledge, London.

Bunker, S. G., & P. S. Ciccantell. 2005. Globalization and the Race for Resources. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

Burgess, A. 2019. Environmental Risk Narratives in Historical Perspective: From Early Warnings to ‘Risk Society’ Blame. Journal of Risk Research, 22(9), 1128-1142.

Carey, G., E. Malbon, B. Crammond, M. Pescud, & P. Baker. 2017. Can the Sociology of Social Problems Help Us to Understand and Manage ‘Lifestyle Drift’?. Health Promotion International, 32(4), 755-761.

Carrera, J. S. 2023. Advancing Du Bois’s Legacy Through Emancipatory Environmental Sociology. Environmental Sociology, 9(4), 349-365.

Castles, S. 2002. Environmental Change and Forced Migration. International Migration Review, 36(1), 31–62.

Catton, W. R., & R. E. Dunlap. 1994. Environmental Sociology: A New Paradigm. The American Sociologist, 13(1), 41–49.

Cooke, B., S. West, & W. J. Boonstra. 2016. Dwelling in the Biosphere: Exploring an Embodied Human–Environment Connection in Resilience Thinking. Sustainability Science, 11, 831-843.

Creswell, J. W. 2007. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Crews, T. E., W. Carton, & L. Olsson. 2018. Is the Future of Agriculture Perennial? Imperatives and Opportunities to Reinvent Agriculture by Shifting from Annual Monocultures to Perennial Polycultures. Global Sustainability, 1(11), 1-18.

Dalby, S. 2009. Security and Environmental Change. Polity Press, USA.

Danylova, T., & G. Salata. 2018. The Ecological Imperative and Human Nature: A New Perspective on Ecological Education. Мiждисциплiнарнi дослiдження складних систем, (12), 17-24.

Dryzek, J. S. 2005. The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Escobar, A. 2008. Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes. Duke University Press, USA.

Etherington, D., & M. Jones. 2018. Re-Stating the Post-Political: Depoliticization, Social Inequalities, and City-Region Growth. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 50(1), 51-72.

Folke, C., S. Polasky, J. Rockström, V. Galaz, F. Westley, M. Lamont, & B. H. Walker. 2021. Our Future in the Anthropocene Biosphere. Ambio, 50, 834-869.

Giddens, A. 2009. The Politics of Climate Change. Polity Press, USA.

Gillard, R., A. Gouldson, J. Paavola, & J. Van Alstine. 2016. Transformational Responses to Climate Change: Beyond a Systems Perspective of Social Change in Mitigation and Adaptation. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 7(2), 251-265.

Görg, C., U. Brand, H. Haberl, D. Hummel, T. Jahn, & S. Liehr. 2017. Challenges for Social-Ecological Transformations: Contributions from Social and Political Ecology. Sustainability, 9(7), 1-21.

Gupta, A., & M. Mason. 2016. Disclosing or Obscuring? The Politics of Transparency in Global Climate Governance. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 18, 82-90.

Hariani, M., R. Mardikaningsih, & N. E. Essa. 2022. HR and Environmental Policy Management Strategies to Create a Sustainable Organization that Improves Company Performance, Journal of Social Science Studies, 2(2), 249 – 254.

Harlan, S. L., D. N. Pellow, J. T. Roberts, S. E. Bell, W. G. Holt, J. Nagel, & R. J. Brulle. 2015. Climate Justice and Inequality. Climate Change and Society: Sociological Perspectives, 2015(1), 127-163.

Healy, N., J. C. Stephens, & S. A. Malin. 2019. Embodied Energy Injustices: Unveiling and Politicizing the Transboundary Harms of Fossil Fuel Extractivism and Fossil Fuel Supply Chains. Energy Research & Social Science, 48, 219-234.

Hosseini, S. H., & B. K. Gills. 2020. Beyond the Critical: Reinventing the Radical Imagination in Transformative Development and Global (ization) Studies. Globalizations, 17(8), 1350-1366.

Hunt, J. C., Y. D. Aktas, A. Mahalov, M. Moustaoui, F. Salamanca, & M. Georgescu. 2017. Climate Change and Growing Megacities: Hazards and Vulnerability. In Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Engineering Sustainability, 171(6), 314-326. Thomas Telford Ltd, London.

Ingram, D. 2000. Green Screen: Environmentalism and Hollywood Cinema. Maryland: University Press of America.

Işık, N. E. 2015. The Role of Narrative Methods in Sociology: Stories as a Powerful Tool to Understand Individual and Society. Sosyoloji Araştırmaları Dergisi, 18(1), 103-125.

Jasanoff, S. 2010. Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton University Press, New Jersey.

Luederitz, C., D. J. Abson, R. Audet, & D. J. Lang. 2017. Many Pathways Toward Sustainability: Not Conflict but Co-Learning Between Transition Narratives. Sustainability Science, 12(1), 393-407.

Mardikaningsih, R. & D. Darmawan. 2022. Ethical Principles in Business Decision Making: Implications for Corporate Sustainability and Relationships with External Stakeholders, Journal of Social Science Studies, 2(2), 131 – 138.

Mardikaningsih, R. & D. T. W. Wardoyo. 2024. The Role of Technology in Human Resource Development for Sustainability: A Literature Review on Digital Innovation, Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, 3(3), 20-26.

McAfee, K. 2012. The Contradictions of Eco-Commerce. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 23(1), 44–60.

McDonnell, J. E., H. Abelvik-Lawson, & D. Short. 2020. A Paradox of ‘Sustainable Development’: A Critique of the Ecological Order of Capitalism. In The Emerald Handbook of Crime, Justice and Sustainable Development (pp. 439-463). Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, England.

Moran, E. F. 2016. People and Nature: An Introduction to Human Ecological Relations. John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey.

Naderpajouh, N., D. J. Yu, D. P. Aldrich, I. Linkov, & J. Matinheikki. 2018. Engineering Meets Institutions: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Management of Resilience. Environment Systems and Decisions, 38(3), 306-317.

Neuman, W. L. 2006. Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (6th ed.). Pearson Education, London.

Nygren, A., M. Kröger, & B. Gills. 2022. Global Extractivisms and Transformative Alternatives. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 49(4), 734-759.

O'Brien, K. L. 2016. Climate Change and Social Transformations: Is it Time for a Quantum Leap? Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 7(5), 618-626.

Okereke, C., & K. Dooley. 2010. Principles of Justice in Proposals and Policy Approaches to Climate Change. Global Environmental Change, 20(1), 82–95.

Patel, R. 2007. Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. Melville House, Brooklyn.

Paulson, S. 2018. Pluriversal Learning: Pathways Toward a World of Many Worlds. Nordia Geographical Publications, 47(5), 85-109.

Plowright, S. 2016. Action, an ‘Encompassing Ethic’ and Academics in the Midst of the Climate Crisis. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 48(14), 1442-1451.

Roberts, J. T., & B. C. Parks. 2007. A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy. MIT Press, Cambridge.

Ruttonsha, P. 2018. Systemic Design: Theory, Methods, and Practice: Towards a (Socio-Ecological) Science of Settlement: Relational Dynamics as a Basis for Place. Springer Nature, Japan.

Selby, J., & C. Hoffmann (Eds.). 2017. Rethinking Climate Change, Conflict and Security. Routledge, London.

Sirakaya, A., A. Cliquet, & J. Harris. 2018. Ecosystem Services in Cities: Towards the International Legal Protection of Ecosystem Services in Urban Environments. Ecosystem Services, 29(B), 205-212.

Sultana, F. 2021. Climate Change, COVID-19, and the Co-Production of Injustices: A Feminist Reading of Overlapping Crises. Social & Cultural Geography, 22(4), 447-460.

Weinstein, M., C. Pouliot, I. Martins, R. Levinson, L. Carter, L. Bencze, & A. Sharma. 2023. Science Education Towards Social and Ecological Justice (Vol. 24). Springer International Publishing, Switzerland.

Yearley, S. 1992. The Green Case: A Sociology of Environmental Issues, Arguments and Politics. HarperCollins Academic, New York.

Downloads

Published

2025-05-30

How to Cite

Mardikaningsih, R. (2025). Reconstructing the Earth’s Social Ecosystem through Socio-Ecological Inquiry in the Climate Crisis Era. Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, 4(1), 49–56. Retrieved from https://inti.ejournalmeta.com/index.php/inti/article/view/104

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 > >> 

Similar Articles

1 2 3 4 5 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.