Contributions from Social Science

Home Graduate Program Contributions from Social Science

The social science component of environmental studies extends from applied policy analysis to critical social theory. Research and teaching in the social sciences focuses on the societal forces driving ecological change, environmental governance and natural resource management, and new ways of addressing issues of social and environmental justice and ecological and cultural diversity. Specific areas of current faculty and student research include international, U.S. and regional environmental policy; North-South international environmental conflicts; water management policy and different socio-spatial scales; environment and development studies; environmental history; technoscience, risk and disaster studies; market-based approaches to natural resource management; agrarian political economy and agro-food studies; environmental movements, and environmental social theory, justice, ethics and political thought.