Social theories of environmental reform - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 68

the development of what can be called the environmental sociology of
networks and flows.

4. Third-generation theories: networks and flows

Via various contributions, the second half of the 1990s witnessed the
emergence of what we can now label the sociology of networks and
flows. 10 The foundation of a new sociological perspective, a new social
theory or even 'new rules of sociological methods' (Urry, 2003 ) never
emerge with one publication, and also here several scholars are at its
foundation. Crucial in the development of the sociology of networks
and flows is the shift from states and societies to networks and flows
of capital, people, money, information, images, goods/materials and
the like. These networks and flows form the true architectures of a
global modernity. Crucial for our analysis, this sociology of networks
and flows had the Information Age literature, and more particular
Castells's ( 1996 /1997) work on that, as one of the crucial foundations.
It is beyond the scope of this volume to provide a full overview,
review and assessment of the debates regarding the sociology of net-
works and flows. Others have done so with sufficient detail and bal-
ance. 11 Here we will especially focus on the main characteristics of this
sociology of networks and flows, which are relevant to the environmen-
tal social sciences, and how this sociology (can) change(s) the agenda
of environmental reform studies and perspectives. In addition to the
focus on Castells's work on the Information Age in Chapter 2 ,wewill
here especially rely on John Urry's interpretation of a new sociology of
networks and flows. 12

A sociology of networks and flows

Although he judges Castells's trilogy on the rise of the network society
as the best effort so far to analyse networked modernity, Urry ( 2000 ,

10

Others have labelled this the sociology of mobilities, referring basically to the
same innovations in sociological concepts and theories (see the overview of the
sociology of mobility in Kloppenburg, 2005 ).

11

See, for instance, Leydesdorff ( 2002 ), Simonsen ( 2004 ) and the various
references in Mol and Spaargaren ( 2006 ).

12

It goes without saying that there are numerous others that have contributed
recently in developing such a new perspective, often each with his/her own
terminology, emphasis and focus (cf. Kaufman, 2002 ; Kesselring, 2006 ;
Graham and Marvin, 2001 ; Bauman, 2000 ; Rifkin, 2000 ).