Ecological Approach in Contemporary Sociological Research

Ecological Approach as a recent trend, new unifying paradigm and transdisciplinary approach could be seen in twenty-first century sociological research. Global initiatives in recent decades towards environmental issues led to inquiry in the field of social science research in general and also in sociology. In the last few centuries technological innovations, rapid growth of population and standard of living in terms of human development and social development gave rise to emergence of ‘human exemptionalism’ (a technical term given by Dunlop in 1980, means ‘a way of perceiving human relations with nature, stressing human dominance over nature). Otis Dudley Duncan and Leo Schnore are two of the most articulate spokesmen of the ecological approach in contemporary sociology. They are of the opinion that ecology deals with society as the functional organization of a population in the process of achieving and maintaining an adaptation to its environment. Based on Empiricism and Pragmatism, this approach stresses the reciprocal functional relationship among organisms and their physical environment. Ecology as a theoretical perspective in recent social sciences research stresses theories that attempt to explain how human beings individually and collectively behave, in relation to nature or other human beings in the ecosystem and nature-society interface. The central concern of the ecological approach in sociological research is the analysis of the problems of cultural diversity, climate and social change in terms of the interaction between social organization and environment. Hence, Ecological perspective/approach is the scientific study of the interactions between organisms and its environment. It is a multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary field that combines biology, geology, geography and sociology etc. So, in this research paper an attempt is made to understand the nature of ecological perspective and also to know the key principles associated with this. In this descriptive study of content analysis of available literature on ecology I have given an account of scholars western (Dunlop and Catton) and Indian (Ramchandra Guha and Radha kamal Mukerjee), who contributed to the development of ecological perspective in social science and sociological research.