Resumen de A passion for environmental sociology

J. David Tàbara Villalba, Daniel Polo López

• español

  El profesor Riley E. Dunlap ha sido uno de los «padres fundadores» y sigue siendo uno de los académicos más destacados de la sociología ambiental contemporánea. En realidad, no es posible entender el desarrollo de esta disciplina, la cual cuenta ya con más de tres décadas de desarrollo, sin su contribución. En la presente nota de investigación, se trabaja desde una perspectiva que combina los aspectos biográficos, históricos y personales, con algunos de los momentos y las aportaciones más importantes de su carrera profesional, y se expone el contenido de una entrevista realizada en mayo del 2004 en el ICTA-UAB, Barcelona.

• English

  Professor Riley E. has been one of the «founding fathers» and still is one of the most outstanding academics of contemporary environmental sociology. In fact, it is not possible to understand the development of this discipline, which now extends over three decades, without understanding his contribution. In this research note, we use an approach which combines biographical, historical and personal aspects to underline some of the most important hallmarks of his professional career and we transcribe the content of an interview carried out in May 2004 at IEST-UAB, Barcelona. We use this dialogical narrative tool to further understand broader critical issues such as the role of social science in sustainability science and the possible evolution of environmental sociology towards an ecological sociology. The difficulties encountered by environmental sociology in its process of institutionalisation are to a large extent also representative of the power inequalities, dysfunctions and resistances of the existing systems of the production of environmental and sustainability knowledge with «scientific authority» that limit the emergence of innovative interdisciplinary and integrative approaches which include the insights from social sciences.