Seeing the Forest for the Trees: A Bibliometric Analysis of Environmental and Resource Sociology

Environmental sociology and the sociology of natural resources have become two established research areas in the United States with distinct institutional origins, research themes, and theoretical roots, as well as associated professional networks, journals, and conferences. Existing discussions of the relationships between the two subdisciplines are largely based on personal reflections and exploratory analyses. However, there is still not a clear understanding of the overall picture of interdisciplinary sociological research on human–nature interactions. In this study we conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of 8027 articles published in 30 selected academic journals during 1985–2017. Findings of this research provide a more complete view of the intellectual landscape of environmental and resource sociology. Overall, the study produces an empirically-based characterization of environmental sociology and the sociology of natural resources in terms of coauthorship and citation networks, and highlights the need for more sustained synthesis across different knowledge domains.