‘Society Can’t Move So Much As a Chair!’—Systems, Structures and Actors in Social Ecology

Abstract

From the socioecological perspective, society is conceived as a sym-bolic system that is coupled with biophysical elements. The biophysical and the symbolic components of society are considered to be coevolving. The expansion of the fossil energy regime, for example, was the result of changes in the sym-bolic systems of proto-industrial societies. At the same time, these systems were themselves transformed by the material dynamics the new energy regime released. Social Ecology has adopted complex systems theory as a metatheoretical frame-work to integrate the analysis of both symbolic and biophysical systems and their coevolution. This emphasis on systems in socioecological theory is balanced, to some extent, by a focus on actors in empirical socioecological research. The concept of actors and their agency plays an important role in transdisciplinary research, in local studies and in Environmental History. How are these actor-cen-tered areas of research connected to the systems-centered theoretical framework of Social Ecology? How is agency accommodated in systems, and to what extent can systems and their structures be influenced by actors? This chapter explores these questions both theoretically and in relation to concrete research examples. In doing so, it highlights some of the unresolved theoretical questions in Social Ecology and suggests possible ways they can be answered.