BEYOND THE NATURE SOCIETY DIVIDE - LEARNING TO THINK ABOUT A MOUNTAIN

Sociological efforts to understand environment-society relationships f all primarily into four conceptual categories. The first three, involv ing analytical separation, analytical primacy, and balanced dualism, a ll draw distinctions between biophysical and social aspects of human e xperience, with subsequent analyses being based on these a priori dist inctions. The fourth or constructivist approach questions this natural ized dichotomy, calling attention instead to mutual contingency or con joint constitution: What we take to be ''physical facts'' are likely t o be strongly shaped by social construction processes, and at the same time, what we take to be ''strictly social'' will often have been sha ped in part by taken-for-granted realities of the physical world. Tech nology offers important opportunities for tracing these interconnectio ns, being an embodiment of both the physical and the social. The point is illustrated with a long-term historical analysis of a specific phy siographic feature-a mountain-that has undergone little overt physical change over the centuries, but has undergone repeated changes in its social meanings and uses. Few of the changes would have been possible in the absence of the mountain's physiographic characteristics; simila rly, few would have occurred in the absence of changing sociocultural definitions and possibilities. The challenge for sociology is not just to recognize the importance of both the physical and the social facto rs, and certainly not to argue over the relative importance of the two , but to recognize the extent to which what we rake to be ''physical'' and ''social'' factors can be conjointly constituted.