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The postulates of ecologism were appreciated and reproduced in the 1920s in the classical socio-ecological concept of the Chicago school of sociology. Below we will consider this in more detail. At this point, it should be emphasized that the methodological framework for socio-ecological research of the Chicago school of Sociology was provided, aside from the European schools of thought, by the ideas of the Chicago school of philosophy, formed earlier on. This concept is characterized by pragmatism and instrumentalism that combine philosophical humanism, sociological naturalism, social evolutionism and reformist ecological activism, including that of an individual.

The ideas proposed by the Chicago school sociologists were based on the evolution of the social, psychic and moral nature of the human, who emerged at a certain level of development of organic life and who remains dependent on the character and results of his interaction with the surrounding natural and social environment. Relationships between society and the environment change (and are changeable) by efforts of humans and the natural environment. Therefore, the task of a sociologist is not only theorizing, once the general patterns of such relationships and links are instrumentally identified, describing their structures and mechanisms, but also identifying best cases and practices that harmonize the life of humans in the environment. This can provide an example for everyone to follow, and a social reform to create conditions for its implementation, could be proposed to the government and business.

George Herbert Mead (1863—1931), together with other philosophers of the Chicago school, developed the idea of pragmatism, which maintains that truth and sense found in the cognitive process must have a hands-on value. This approach, motivated by the processes of urbanization and migration, brought new social issues and posed a problem requiring practical resolution by scientists.

He proposed the idea of symbolic interactionism: people differently respond to the same act by other people depending on the symbols apportioned to such other people. In the urban context of Chicago in the early 20^th century, this translated into a situation when migration, uncontrolled by the city, led to the emergence of national ghettos and to other social problems. However, Mead was able to prove that these social problems were also caused by the way how a person perceives another person through symbols rather than via behavior12.

This is a common mistake of cognition caused by the pragmatism of deceit and self-deceit. In the beginning, one generalizes the behavior of a social group, creating symbols, which are then apportioned to such group, whether males or females, peoples or countries, people of other faith or neighbors. After that, these symbols / assumptions are carried over to specific persons who have the identity or status of such group. The biggest problem is when spontaneous behavior of a specific person is not taken into account, when the desire to create social inequality, place oneself above this person and thus justify the suppression, violence or destruction being perpetrated, prevails. This situation was typical for uncivilized societies. In civilized societies, it is balanced by the legal system. While also being an instrument of violence that creates social inequality, court considers criminal acts of specific individuals.

If an ecosociologist, having summarized the results of a group research, the participants of which share the same identity or status, identifies a different behavior of a specific member of the group, he understands that this person realizes other identities and statuses that were unaccounted for by the sociologist, temporary situations, personal inclinations and so on.

John Dewey (1859—1952) made a significant influence on ecosociology as he developed the idea of instrumentalism within the framework of pragmatism. In his works, he maintained that the human nature combines biological and social components because they are functionally identical. This idea of biosocial parallelism implied that human instincts and social behavior are equivalent and need to be satisfied. After that, he only had to elaborate an instrumental base, i.e., methodologies of sociological research aimed at satisfaction of vitally important needs.

Where a need arises due to a disruption in the optimal functioning of the human organism in the ambient environment, its satisfaction is aimed at restoring equilibrium in interaction with the environment, and achieving the optimum. This implies a preliminary sociological study of a given situation, the interaction itself and its consequences for gathering of research materials. A sociologist may resort both to spontaneity and to experiment.

Individual experience is understood as integrity, interrelation, versatility, uniqueness and inseparability of things natural and social, organic and psychic, subjective and objective. This unity is a condition of freedom, expedience and responsibility, realization of all abilities inherent to human nature. This is the main task of a researcher – to develop empirical, including experimental techniques for distinguishing between moral and immoral behavior, help conduct political reforms aimed at transformation of qualities inherent to human nature.

Dewey regarded examples of interaction between individual actors (agents) in specific social formations (associations) as being the subject of empirical research. He viewed society as the process of association and communication when experiments, ideas, values become common for the participants. He was especially attracted to the ideal of creative democracy – a social organization with a minimized social control over individual manifestation of creative self-realization that rules out bureaucratic and hierarchical relationships.

At the same time, admitting that changing the human nature in order to achieve this ideal would be difficult, he was trying to address this issue as a pedagogue. Believing that only a useful knowledge is true and valuable, he developed school programs where, in the beginning, children were learning through play and afterwards – through teamwork and individual labor. For him, it was obvious that aside from biological restrictions, there exist social restrictions. Accordingly, another important aspect of education was to teach children the skills of adaptation to the ever-changing social and natural environment13.

These ideas formed the philosophy of action, where a person actor (homo actor) performing the social role delegated to him, turns into an activist (homo active) characterized by natural morality and consciously choosing between his physical actions. This demonstrates realism and naturalism of the individual stream of experience, which is opposed to “bare” mentalism. However, this philosophy does not provide for nature’s development outside human actions and shows no interest for natural conditions, which may lead to extinction of the human race. Conditions resulting from the actions of humans and which could also lead to extinction of the human race were not studied either. Understanding of this and specific socio-ecological problems encouraged the elaboration by the Chicago school of sociology of the classic social concept of human ecology.

Environmental sociology, as an area of sociological research and theorizing, took its final shape in the 1920s – 1930s and is associated with such names as Robert Ezra Park (1864—1944), Ernest Watson Burgess (1886—1966) and Roderick Duncan McKenzie (1885—1940). They studied specific urban issues using quantitative sociological methods including systematizing and formalization of data gathered, territorial zoning and group segregation. This allowed studying the processes of deviant behavior, migration and adaptation14.

At that time, Chicago as a social environment was a fascinating object of research. It demonstrated a complete set of situations and cases, which individually could be found in the other United States cities. Special attention was paid to labor strikes and demonstrations that often turned into mass civil unrest, migration processes and adaptation of ethnic communities, growth and organization of crime. As sociologists were eager to offer new ideas, they were expected to find ways for resolving these problems.

The socio-ecological concept proposed by the Chicago school of sociology was applied to a specific object / subject, relied upon an evolutionary approach to studying social change and the naturalistic approach to selecting methods of research. The Chicago school sociologists rejected Spencer’s theory of universal progress conceding to this notion only after generalization of specific research materials and admitting the possibility of progress in sociological cognition15.

They emphasized a natural origin of conflict and the consistency of its transformation into an optimal state of consensus. This concept viewed conflict and consensus as interrelated and mutually complementary aspects of a single process of evolution. This description of the process of social change, the use for analysis of a tool for elaboration of dual, dichotomous and paired interrelated opposites determined the subsequent fate of the socio-ecological theory that combined a diversity of approaches.

The socio-ecological concept was based on the idea that society (urban community) is a complex system, organism and a biological phenomenon. Accordingly, in addition to the socio-cultural level, it has a biotic quality, which underpins all social development and determines social organization of the urban community. Therefore, in Park’s opinion, society forms at the biotic level while the cultural level emerges in the process of social evolution.

Schema: Social evolution

The starting point for analysis became the most developed social phenomena. Social evolution moves from the biotic to the cultural level and is driven by competition, which takes various forms in the course of evolution and achieves an optimum – competitive cooperation – at the cultural level. Competition forms the structure and regulates the sequence of change and restoration of equilibrium in the development of the social organism.

Social change per se looks as a process consisting of several consecutive phases, each of them being the result of the preceding forms of competition. After that, Park systematized and structured analytical conclusions. These methods allowed obtaining new knowledge and seeing phases of evolution and links between the biotic and cultural levels.

Park identified four phases of the evolution process from the biotic to social level: the ecological, economic, political and cultural orders. Accordingly, there exist four forms of socialization, namely, competition – struggle for survival on the biotic level, conflict on the economic level, adaptation on the political level and assimilation – on the cultural level.

All four are represented in the modern society in different situations (specific cases) to a varying extent (quantitative parameters) but with the same characteristic features:

– Ecological order is the result of physical (space-temporal) interaction of individuals. This order is characterized by freedom of traveling.

– Economic order exists where there is production, trade and exchange and is characterized by free competition.

– Political order prevails where there is control, management, regulation and enforcement. It is characterized by political freedoms.

– Cultural order is characterized by the dominance of morals, ethics, traditions, habits and customs, which form social institutes and structures, and which in turn, specify restrictions for individuals and society. However, this restriction is taken for granted as it is based on consensus16.

Communication (interaction) capacity is inborn and makes a newly born baby a human. He is striving to communicate and this striving compels him to agree to curb his instincts, desires and aspirations. After that, social institutes and structures are reproduced as a result of collective action and consensus on a daily basis. Interactionism boils down to the postulate that individuals use communication to socialize and integrate. His process allows consecutive and coordinated action leading to a consensus-based or authoritative interaction, suppression of the minority by the majority, or majority of citizens by the elite representing a minority.

However, the anticipated interaction may not necessarily occur. Then interaction occurs in another situation in another form. This means that interaction is determined by the human nature. Interaction is based on movement, which characterizes the ecological level. This particular level is the subject examined by ecosociology, while the hierarchically structured superstructure – economic, political and cultural orders – are studied by economy, political science and anthropology.

Despite the attractiveness of studying the cultural level, the Chicago school ecosociologists, together with students, researched the urban environment fully using the structure suggested by Park. Naturally, they paid a lot of attention to the ecological level, which could be used for studying migration processes. Researchers acted on the assumption that a social organism consists of individuals capable of migration. Migration is a collective action and interaction typical specifically for the biotic (ecological) level. It is a basic freedom for all people irrespectively of the race and nationality.

Availability of higher-level freedoms (of conscience, political and economic freedom) is the subject matter of a new scientific discipline – cultural-anthropological ecology. The central concept of this science is “liberty” as a feature of modern society. The degree of freedom may increase or decrease on a case-by-case basis. For a human, the greatest external freedom is possible at the ecological level (in contrast with plants, humans have a freedom of movement), and inner freedom – at the cultural level (unlike animals, humans consciously choose their behavior).

On the one hand, all American reforms are supposed to be aimed at securing freedom for individuals and society and building a free American society. On the other hand, nobody ever plans or builds a free society; it emerges of its own accord where it does not oppress itself. And it emerges due to the biotic nature of humans – their ecological level. Therefore, the 19^th-century wave of migration to the United States from China, Asia, India and Middle East indicates the switching of an in-depth mechanism that would change the existing institutes to build a qualitatively new society of free cooperation.

In the 1920s, the Chicago school ecosociologists received a few seats on the Committee for Local Community Studies. Participants of this inter-disciplinary research organization also included economists, philosophers, anthropologists, political experts and psychologists. They elaborated a common conceptual framework, conducted joint empirical research and theorized, developed recommendations for business and municipal authorities.

However, socio-economic crises and the subsequent Great American Depression of the 1930s formulated other national priorities. As a result, the socio-ecological concept of the Chicago school of sociology was used as a method without being developed into an independent discipline.

Attempts to rethink the socio-ecological theory made by Park’s followers were aiming to overcome the biosocial dualism of Park’s concept and make social-ecological theory more sociology sounding. Louis Wirth (1897—1952), having constructed a purely sociological theory of urban life, proposed to get rid of eclectics that allowed various interpretations of urban processes by scientists representing different disciplines. Interaction / communication continue to be the main characteristic of social processes and a driving force behind the development of local community.

To overcome the excessively broad theoretical orientation of the socio-ecological concept, he proposed a thesis that interaction becomes intensive with a large congestion of people on a constrained territory. He suggested a method for distinguishing between urban and rural communities:

– The first characteristic of urban population relates to its high density (the ratio of the territorial size to the number of residents).

– The second characteristic is the diversity of population (a large number of different social groups).

– The third is to prevailing social relationships (communal in a rural and social / mixed – in an urban community)17.

Therefore, the space-temporal aspect remained a characteristic of society, while ecosociology came to be perceived as a science that measures and describes the social environment.

To define the main ecosociological categories, McKenzie pointed out an ecological organization as a spatial body of the population in a local or the global community. He argued that ecological things dominate all other characteristics because they all are a result of space-temporal relationships. Accordingly, he gave priority to studying and theorizing on the phenomenon of the ecological community18.

The followers of the socio-ecological concept maintained and continue to maintain that all social processes are in fact ecological. This understanding was to be the foundation for all social sciences, as the social institutes and structures are built on a space-temporal foundation, emerge and exist in accordance with the changing natural conditions, and nothing exists beyond these conditions.

This approach was enhanced by the fact that such socio-ecological methods as zoning and social mapping were successfully used for identifying and verifying the correlation between various social variables, which at first glance were not interrelated. Moreover, the use of these methods and conceptual approaches made possible generalized descriptions of various multi-variable cases, giving at least an understanding of functional, if not causal dependence.

An effective use of the socio-ecological method can be also explained by the level-based approach, which is similar to the principle used in system analysis when the phenomenon of a local community (social organism) being examined is analyzed in its interrelation with its higher (macro) and lower (micro) level. The lower level is the individual and the higher level is represented by social “compositions” consisting of various communities united into municipalities.

However, causal links of social organisms with their habitat and issues relating to optimal life support were not yet studied by ecosociology. Therefore, beginning with the mid-1930s, the abstract character of the ecosociology’s space-temporal functionalism came under criticism from representatives of the socio-cultural school, who emphasized the dependence of natural resource use on cultural traditions, values, symbols and norms.

Milla Aissa Alihan proposed a new vision of society and started working on a methodology for analyzing the social sphere within the framework of the already existing discipline – urban sociology. Three main variables – social standing (status), urbanization level (population density) and degree of segregation (multiplicity of social groups) – were identified. A city was described as a subsystem comprising greater territories and larger communities. In doing so, researchers were using data obtained from a census of urban population. On the one hand, this allowed analysis of cities rather than urban communities. On the other hand, this made possible, based on the statistical data received, a classification of subsystems (local communities). The result obtained could be rechecked some time later (sociological monitoring) to see social dynamics. This also enabled researchers to reasonably theorize on social organization as the main result of evolution19.

Amos Henry Hawley (1910—2009), further developing the socio-ecological concept, was of the opinion that a community is an ecosystem (a territorial local system of interrelations between its functionally differentiated parts). Ecosociology may view a community as a population united by the similarity of its component organisms (commensalism). Human population is included into the ecosystem due to a mutually useful interaction with dissimilar organisms (symbiosis).

The focus of attention of the researcher-sociologist now turns to the functional socio-ecological system that develops in the process of interaction with an abiotic environment and other biotic communities. During such interaction, a specific social organization with specific characteristics is formed20. Despite the fact that a civilized man prefers adapting nature to his needs rather than adapts to nature, and tries to irreversibly change nature’s characteristics and processes for his benefit, nature has resilience and is capable of influencing humans. It also can perform irreversible acts on humans.

Finally, as the socio-ecological theories, approaches and methods are developed, social atomism is substituted with organizational functionalism; attention is focused more on the functioning of a social organization rather than on the driving forces and causes of this process or space-temporal forms of its manifestation. A description of this mechanism was made by Otis Dudley Duncan (1921—2004) and Leo Francis Schnore, who used the socio-ecological complex theory. The socio-ecological complex comprises four components:

1) Population (local human population);

2) Nature environment (abiota + biota + human populations);

3) Technology (things + means of production + culture of production);

4) Organization (social institutes and structures)21.

Schema: Social ecological complex

Park proposed an analogous structure of the socio-ecological process and studies of movement in time and space (communication and migration) as well as unique events (artefacts) determined by culture. Duncan and Schnore focused on the functioning of social organization, believing that this component was of most importance for their research. Making a social organization the subject of their analysis within the framework of ecosociology, they used quantitative methods and, based on the data obtained, proposed a thesis that it is a collective adaptation of the human population to the environment.

This approach was also different from that proposed by Park, where the population of a city, state, country and planet represented the macro level. A new understanding of the socio-ecological process as the functioning of a social organization allowed ecosociologists to conclude that samples of interactions that provide an ecological niche for the community, are the analytical unit. Therefore, society was viewed as a human population that was trying to use the environment’s resources to preserve itself (survive) through adaptation.

However, understanding the importance of the space-temporal linking of the social organization’s interactions being described and analyzed, ecosociologists were yet unwilling to use physical characteristics of the natural environment for their analysis. This was due to an observation that the physical environment in cities is much technologized and designed to suit the needs of humans rather than the biota.

Accordingly, in cities, the main impact on human population is made by the social environment, which replaces the natural environment. Ecosociologists then described and interpreted social phenomena using biological terms as “predatory”, “parasitic”, “dominating” and “symbiotic” relationships. This method was to socialize and defend the independence of their discipline.

The approach taken by Duncan and Schnore was perceived as oppositional to other approaches to studying the social organization, namely, the culturological and behaviorist approaches. However, this was an opposition to the constructivist approach that used new but already proven tools and methods of research that were getting closer to an explanation of social reality.

Sociologists-culturologists tended to make descriptions or analyses, starting and ending with social sphere, without any space-temporal linkage. Sometimes, they did use the word “nature”, not in the sense of nature proper but intending to emphasize an unconditional, inborn, natural quality of a social objects or subject.

For ecosociology, explanations offered by behaviorists were considered unacceptable at the macro level because no individual and collective human behavior existed at this level. At the macro level, interaction was limited to social institutes and structures (consisting of organizations) in the context of climatic zones, continents and other major space-temporal natural formations.

There was no way of determining social organization via neither existing cultural conditions nor social-psychological behavior-related affirmations. The new methodology proposed by ecosociologists enabled a breakthrough in studying the phenomena of human behavior and culture. The principle of functional interaction of the environment and social organization, as well as the well-developed conceptual framework of biology made ecosociology popular but could not be used for getting closer to explaining many causes of human interactions.

However, sociology and other humanitarian disciplines recognized that the physical environment can and does influence society and human behavior. Therefore, sociology branched out into the old “traditional” sociology, which maintained that social facts could be explained only with other social facts, and a new environmental (ecological) sociology.

Traditional sociology, using a sociologism-based approach, developed an attitude to inter-disciplinarity, which looked more as a ban on mentioning physical and biological environment. There also existed a disciplinary ban on status accounting for ecosystems and the consequences of their impact on humans and human communities. Violators, labeled as naturalists, were shunned by sociologists, who refused to quote or even notice them. Despite this, in the first half of the 20^th century, several sociological works, linking human activity to the environment, were published.

Radha Kamal Mukherjee (1889—1968) was one of the first to conduct inter-disciplinary studies in the field of regional ecology within the framework of the sociology of labor. This research was done in India, a country different from the United States in many specific aspects22.

Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin (1889—1968) in his book “Man and society in calamity” summarizes almost 25 years of observations of social catastrophes, ranking epidemics and hunger together with revolutions and wars23. He links social degradation and crises to natural calamities and catastrophes, which always go hand in hand.

Paul Henry Landis (1901—1985), within the framework of rural sociology studied miner’s communities and their social structure, linking cultural change in these communities to accessibility and richness of natural resources and other factors of the natural environment24.

Fred Cottrell, in his studies of industrial sociology, analyzed interrelations between cultural forms of society and forms of energy. He concluded that the human civilization directly depends on technology and kinds of energy being used, showing the path of evolution from antiquity to the nuclear age, progress made by society and the resulting influence of economic, moral and social aspects. The issues relating to generation, transformation, distribution and consumption of energy remain one of the most serious issues over the entire history of civilization25.

In the late 1960s – early 1970s, this gave rise to the following three organizational changes, which made possible further strengthening of ecosociology as a sub-discipline of sociology:

1) An informal group of sociologists, studying interactions as related to natural resources and natural resource use, splintered from the Society for Studies of Rural Problems;

2) The Society for Studies of Social Issues established a division for research of environmental issues;

3) The American Sociological Association established a committee for ecosociology. The main subjects of ecosociological research were natural resource management, recreation in wild nature, ecological movement and public opinion on ecological problems.

Ecosociology saw its practical tasks as being elaboration of models and programs for restoring the quality of the natural environment. This pragmatism ensured strong financial support for the research from interested business and the authorities. This allowed expanding the scope of socio-ecological approach, provided new explanations of causes behind typical interactions of society with the natural environment, including erroneous interactions fraught with adverse consequences for humanity and nature.