Identity and the natural environment : the psychological significance of nature / edited by Susan Clayton and Susan Opotow.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Clayton, Susan D., 1960-

Opotow, Susan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Environmental psychology.

Identity (Psychology).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vi, 353 p. ) ill. ;

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The often impassioned nature of environmental conflicts can be attributed to the fact that they are bound up with our sense of personal and social identity. Environmental identity--how we orient ourselves to the natural world--leads us to personalize abstract global issues and take action (or not) according to our sense of who we are. We may know about the greenhouse effect--but can we give up our SUV for a more fuel-efficient car? Understanding this psychological connection can lead to more effective pro-environmental policymaking.Identity and the Natural Environment examines the ways in which our sense of who we are affects our relationship with nature, and vice versa. This book brings together cutting-edge work on the topic of identity and the environment, sampling the variety and energy of this emerging field but also placing it within a descriptive framework. These theory-based, empirical studies locate environmental identity on a continuum of social influence, and the book is divided into three sections reflecting minimal, moderate, or strong social influence. Throughout, the contributors focus on the interplay between social and environmental forces; as one local activist says, "We don't know if we're organizing communities to plant trees, or planting trees to organize communities."

Contents:

Some lives and some theories / Steven J. Holmes

Environmental identity: a conceptual and an operational definition / Susan Clayton

Human identity in relation to wild black bears: a natural-social ecology of subjective creatures / Gene Myers and Ann Russell

Moralizing trees: anthropomorphism and identity in children's relationships to nature / Ulrich Gebhard, Patricia Nevers, and Elfriede Billmann-Mahecha

The development of environmental moral identity / Peter H. Kahn, Jr.

Children's environmental identity: indicators and behavioral impacts / Elisabeth Kals and Heidi Ittner

The human self and the animal other: exploring borderland identities / Linda Kalof

Trees and human identity / Robert Sommer

Identity, involvement, and expertise in the inner city: some benefits of tree-planting projects / Maureen E. Austin and Rachel Kaplan

Representations of the local environment as threatened by global climate change: toward a contextualized analysis of environmental identity in a coastal area / Volker Linneweber, Gerhard Hartmuth, and Immo Fritsche

Identity and exclusion in rangland conflict / Susan Opotow and Amara Brook

Group identity and stakeholder conflict in water resource management / Charles D. Samuelson, Tarla Rai Peterson, and Linda L. Putnam

Constructing and maintaining ecological identities: the strategies of deep ecologists / Stephen Zavestoski

Identity and sustained environmental practice / Willett Kempton and Dorothy C. Holland.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

9780262270465

0262270463

9781423725367

1423725360

OCLC:

61678140