Unveiling Environmental Sociology Approaches:

a Review of Selected Articles

Abstract

The environmental issue has become the object of wide discussion in recent decades, delimiting
and building a solid presence, especially in the academic field. This issue has emerged during the
1960s, within a very specific historical context ”“ counterculture and criticisms of the current
predatory model of development. It has arrived in Brazil in the 1970s, assuming a singular face.
Nowadays, it expresses the criticism of the end of the “Economic Miracle” and the environmental impacts resulting from this development option. Knowing the process of institutionalization is
important to understand how Environmental Sociology leaves the status of subfield areas of
Sociology, such as Rural Sociology, and achieves a specific field. In this paper, we present a
discussion about the “making” of the Brazilian Environmental Sociology, arguing it as an
established field of study and it needs to reflect about its theoretical construction. Therefore, we
aim to analyze the articles on the theme “Environment and Society” published in major journals
related to the Humanities area of Brazil, 1980 to 2007, from the method “Content Analysis”, and
thus contribute to the understanding of Environmental Sociology process of (re)making as a
specific area of sociological thought.