2018 Volume 24 Pages 74-88
This paper considers environmental movement research issues from the point of view of social movement research. First, it aims to clarify the relationship between environmental so-ciology and social movement research. Then it distinguishes interpretative research and ex-planatory research along the methodological classification presented in Section 2. The former is classified into interpretation of macro social significance, interpretation about meaning for participants and interpretation of concepts and categories, and the latter into explanation of social movement organization, explanation about movement characteristics and about action. In addition, the paper highlights the points that each study area emphasizes, and discusses the diversification of movements, and the positionality of research. In the third section, it first considers middle-term Touraine theory as a representative example of interpretative movement research. And the paper draws attention to the issues with its application to environmental movement research: (1) consciousness as interpretation theory, (2) understanding of the theory (concept and historical hypothesis, verification), and (3) validity of the theory (relativization, late theory) . In Section 4, the paper discusses mobilization theory, which is in the mainstream of explanatory movement research. Then, it sets forth the issues relating to its application to environmental movement research: (1) consciousness as explanatory theory, (2) identification based on definition and hypothesis centered on organization, and (3) falsifiability of hypothesis. Furthermore, the paper discusses the features of environmental sociology (environmentalmovement research) at the description phase (descriptions including nature and materials) which can influence social movement research. Finally, it makes a brief reference to “social environment theory" at the level of contact between society and nature.
