Sociology 184 Environmental Sociology                           C. Chase-Dunn                                        Spring 2007

Research Paper

 

Twenty-five percent of your grade in Sociology 122 is based on a short research paper. Each student should prepare a short written statement that briefly specifies the location, time period and spatial boundaries of the premodern world-system you plan to study. This should be turned in on April 18 along with the citations for two or three library sources (not web sites) of information you will use for your paper. Pick either Option A or Option B.

 

Option A: a premodern world-system

Option A is to study the socio-economic structure of a premodern world-system (see definition below). Describe the main structural, environmental, institutional and cultural aspects of a particular premodern world-system of your choosing.

v     Focus on a particular group of people and estimate the spatial boundaries of the bulk goods network, the political-military network, the prestige goods network and the information network of which this focal group is a part.

v     Discuss the question of core/periphery relations in the system you are studying.

v     Briefly characterize the main technological and social characteristics and institutions in the system you are studying. What kinds of interactional links are there between local and regional groups? Take into account the focal group’s relationships with other regions, its prior history, and contending interests within the system. You should also discuss the nature of the settlement system in the world-system you are studying and the ways in which the people utilize, protect or fail to protect natural resources.[1] Be sure to include a bibliography with citations of the information sources you use to study your world-system. Start with Wikipedia and Google Scholar, and go to the library (you can do this).

            If you choose a world-system for which there is a voluminous literature, narrow your focus to a fairly short time period (say 100 years or so). Begin by describing the structure of the system at a single point in time and then move to a discussion of the dynamics of change.

            Examples of studies of premodern world-systems can be found at

http://www.irows.ucr.edu/workpaptoc.htm  IROWS Working Papers #2 and #4.

A premodern world-system is defined as outside the modern Europe-centered world-system. So anything before 1500 BCE is fine, and after that year any region is ok as long as it has not been importantly changed by interaction with Europeans.

 

Option b: an environmental social movement organization

Social movements are groups of people who share a similar discourse and who are trying to remedy certain problems by mobilizing support. Describe the main historical, ideological, institutional, organizational and cultural aspects of the environmental movement and pick a particular social movement organization to study (e.g. the California Green Party, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, etc.) Talk about the history of the movement and the history of the particular organization you are studying. When and where did the movement discourse emerge and how has it evolved? Describe the different tendencies within the movement and locate your organization within these.  Discuss the ways in which the issues, ideas and organizational activities of the environmental movement intersect with those of other social movements. Especially discuss those other movements with which there are great complementarities and similarities, and also focus on those other movements with which there are big differences and possible areas of competition, disagreement or even conflict. In recent decades the environmental movement has involved people from both the global north and the global south and this often leads to disagreements. Discuss these differences and efforts to overcome them. There are also well-known disagreements between different movements over goals, tactics and strategies. For example, the labor movement wants jobs but the environmental movement wants to protect the biosphere. Examine issues of this sort and efforts to overcome them that may allow the movements to engage in cooperative action and to become effective in local, national and global politics.

 

Read the list of requirements above several times while you are working on your paper and be sure to do each of the things that are requested. The maximum length of the text of your paper should be 10 pp. typed, double-spaced. Please include a bibliography that includes real books and articles, not just web sites. Use Google Scholar. Maps, figures and references can take additional pages. The Research Paper is due on June 4.

A Guide to Writing Research Papers is at: http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/PlanResearchPaper.html

 



[1] An evolutionary perspective on human settlement systems that defines settlement systems and settlement size hierarchies: “The role of ecosettlement systems in human social evolution” C. Chase-Dunn https://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows15/irows15.htm