Abstract
The concept of “environment” is ambiguous in social theory. Sometimes it is wielded like a “tyrant” which moulds subjects as if they were a simple reflection of its environment; other times it is treated as if the environment is a “slave” of subjects whose agency can transform it. This paper reflects on the complex interaction between people and their environments. Social theory cannot establish a univocal, abstract, final explanation of the influence of the environment on people’s behaviour and identity. Each environment will have a situational configuration that will have different consequences depending on other biological and cultural traits of the subject. Each specific situation must be analysed empirically to understand this complex interaction. The subject-environment mismatch creates “social folds” — that is wrinkles which open new social spaces and enable freedom. The modulation between environment and subject creates risks to freedom, but also liberating opportunities.
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Notes
In fact, despite future proposals to live on other planets, it is well known that the human body is not prepared nor has it evolved to live outside of Earth.
Of the five basic geopolitical principles of Randall Collins (1978), the first two are fundamentally related to the environment. One of the most fascinating cases of this dependence is geopolitics. Geographical features and the geological composition of the Earth continue to be determining factors in global dynamics for resources and in the triggering of wars and conflicts (Romero Moñivas, 2019).
This “exemptionalism” has long historical roots. Its origin is found in the change in self-perception of human beings in their relationship with nature. While in the Paleolithic the human identity was considered in continuity with the natural environment and animals, from the Neolithic onwards this situation changed. Increasingly, humanity has considered itself in radical discontinuity with nature. From this derives, among other things, the myth of exemptionalism.
The physical mobility of the groups and crowds of a society has begun to be studied quantitatively to try to elicit the “general laws” of the transit of people (Cf. Schläpfer, 2021).
An intriguing and illuminating specific case of this context-dependent nature of freedom is “academic freedom” (Cf. Gordon 2022).
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This paper is funded by the R&D Project “A proposal for the epistemological integration of sociology and biology from the analysis of human ambivalence (PR65/19-22435) (2020–2022)” granted to the author by the Administration of the Community of Madrid and Complutense University of Madrid (Spain).
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Moñivas, J.R. The Emergence of Social Folds: How the Environment Contributes to the Creation of Ambivalent Social Actors. Soc 61, 71–82 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-023-00929-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-023-00929-7