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Describes the main structural lines of the Brussels master′s programme in human ecology. Delineates its relationships with the European Certificate of Human Ecology and the European Association of Human Ecology. In this way describes two complementary networking structures on human ecology (HE) in Europe. This overview of networking structures is complemented by an enumeration of national and international HE organizations in Europe. Discusses the possible involvement of the Society for Human Ecology in two rather recent international developments in the field: the growing number of academic initiatives in East European countries; and the evaluation by international panels of experts of interdisciplinary research products as state of the environment studies which otherwise escape the test of international scientific validation.

The purpose of this chapter is to bring three recent and innovative feminist science and technology studies paradigms into dialogue on the topics of subjectivity and knowledge.

Each of the three frameworks – feminist postcolonial science and technology studies, queer ecologies, and new feminist materialisms – reconceptualizes and expands our understanding of subjectivity and knowledge. As projects invested in identifying and challenging the strategic conferral of subjectivity, they move from subjectivity located in all human life, to subjectivity as indivisible from nature, to a broader notion of subjectivity as both material and discursive. Despite some methodological differences, the three frameworks all broaden feminist conceptions of knowledge production and validation, advocating for increased consideration of scientific practices and material conditions in feminist scholarship.

This chapter examines three feminist science and technology studies paradigms by comparing and contrasting how each addresses notions of subjectivity and knowledge in ways that push us to rethink key epistemological issues.

This chapter identifies similarities and differences in the three frameworks’ discussions of subjectivity and knowledge production. By putting these frameworks into conversation, we identify methodological crossover, capture the coevolution of subjectivity and knowledge production in feminist theory, and emphasize the importance of matter in sociocultural explorations.

This study introduces an ecological framework for disabilities meant to provide a new model of viewing and learning about disabilities and special education. This model projects a multi-systemic view of factors that influence a person's life, where people with disabilities are active actors in the development of the world. The increased awareness about interconnectedness, globalization, inter- and trans-disciplinarity, influences on human experience, greening, sustainability, inequality, inequity and lack of opportunities is shifting how people think about potential and growth.

The methodological approach is qualitative, interpretive research.

In disability studies, the Ecological Model of Disabilities helps reframe this uniqueness as part of the spectrum of human experiences. In special education, the Ecoducation Model helps reframe the learning experience.

This research is conceptual, but it is also all-inclusive, rendering itself to a wide application in educational settings.

The Ecoducation Model for Special Education is specific to the education of children and adults with disabilities, and it is directly compatible with the broader Ecological Model of Disabilities. These ecological models can be applied to all levels of the ecological system, and to different ecodemes of population. Nevertheless, the ecological models need to be locally implemented, with general principles tailored to national traditions, laws and resources.

Advocating for the pursuit of individual well-being within the larger society, both models call for practical changes in a multitude of areas, including legislation and policy, training of professional personnel, sufficient financial input in programs designed for the care of children and adults with disabilities, change in societal mentalities to fight discrimination, disempowerment and isolation. Because the scope of ecological frameworks is incommensurate, being both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, further research possibilities are countless. The ecological perspective opens the fields of disability studies and special education to new theoretical and empirical possibilities.

Two epistemological models are described as new frameworks in disability studies: the Ecological Model of Disabilities and the Ecoducation Model for Special Education. Both are original models that look into the education and inclusion of the person with disabilities.

Ecology is a word commonly used in many circles with a focus on the environment and human interactions with it. Human ecology as a concept studies human interaction with the environment in different cultures. Human cultural backgrounds differ and the way the traditional beliefs influence human activities varies from place to place. In entrepreneurship, traditional values can play a role as they often shape the character of practitioners. In the quest for sustainable development, one cannot underestimate the influence of these cultural tenets in shaping the dynamics of the practitioners’ activities. This chapter explores the role of African cultural beliefs, philosophies in cultivating principled entrepreneurship. It presents some traditional values that influenced the mindset of entrepreneurs in the past towards ethical work. These tenets guided the dynamics of trade and responsible management of resources for the benefit of one’s community and of oneself.

The purpose of this chapter is to adopt and demonstrate the value of a political ecology approach in examining sport stadia, particularly stadia in the United States. We attempt to highlight how in the development of stadia key decision-makers sometimes overlook questions of community and environmental health and security.

We took an ontological approach in considering what it means for the stadium to exist in the current political ideological time period. For us, this meant raising questions about how we understand the varying human and nonhuman components of the stadium, and how they connect and influence one another. From there, we outline why political ecology is a useful framework for examining the environmental costs of stadia and their development. We utilize the city of Detroit's decision to provide funding for Little Caesars Arena – home to professional basketball and hockey competitions – to argue that investment in sport stadia creates environmental opportunity costs to the “host” community.

In the case of Detroit, we argue that private economic gain took precedence over community and environmental health and security when decisions were made on infrastructure. Specifically, despite the city going through bankruptcy and locking citizens out of water, the decision was made to provide millions of dollars for the construction of Little Caesars Arena and the development of the land immediately surrounding the arena. Through this, we suggest the need to produce informed case studies surrounding the environmental consideration.

The focus on community and environmental health and security is lacking from the discourse of stadia development in the United States. This chapter seeks to bring this consideration to the forefront by offering a way to examine these issues from a political ecological standpoint, and we urge researchers to conduct case studies using a political ecological framework with a community focus.

The purpose of this paper is to present a “human ecology economics (HEE)” framework for understanding economic growth and development challenges in Eastern Europe.

The HEE approach relies on evolutionary and complex systems processes; it expands the field of ecological economics by incorporating interdisciplinary material from the humanities; and it allows a long‐run perspective with a focus on sustainability of human systems. Using this framework and primary research from Hungary, Estonia, and Azerbaijan, challenges to Eastern European development are identified.

The main limit to Eastern European sustainable development is not “production capital”, i.e. the availability of natural resources, fixed human‐made capital, and intermediate consumption, but instead shortages of “transaction capital”, i.e. “social capital, informational capital, and financial capital.”

Rigorous analytical models of, and precise predictions of, change in the human ecology are at present not possible using evolutionary and complex systems approaches; however, Eastern Europe can be fruitfully studied through the HEE approach, and certain simulation methods and lessons from recent history are suggested.

Greater support for various kinds of transaction capital is recommended, including for social and communication networks, for information exchange between small and medium size businesses, for innovation and creative learning by doing, for financial intermediation, for better inter‐party cooperation at the national level, etc.

The need for greater social cooperation, including a reduction in discrimination exercised by dominant individuals or groups, arises as a more important pre‐condition for sustainable economic growth than is commonly believed.

Scholars, policymakers, and practitioners might appreciate the more comprehensive interdisciplinary framework for understanding economic growth and development challenges in Eastern Europe, especially the role played by intangible belief systems, social agreements, and levels of cooperation.

This chapter will examine ideological debates currently taking place in academics. Anthropologists – and all academic workers – are at a crossroads. They must determine what it means to “green the academy” in an era of permanent war, “green capitalism,” and the neoliberal university (Sullivan, 2010). As Victor Wallis makes clear, “no serious observer now denies the severity of the environmental crisis, but it is still not widely recognized as a capitalist crisis, that is, as a crisis arising from and perpetuated by the rule of capital, and hence incapable of resolution within the capitalist framework.”

This study aims to examine the setting of International Standards on Auditing (ISA) 701 on disclosing key audit matters (KAMs) to explore the role of standard setting in maintaining or reconstituting the relationship of the auditing profession with preparers and users of financial reports.

This study draws on concepts from the sociology of the professions literature and the regulatory space metaphor. Data comprises comment letters and other documents pertaining to the setting of ISA 701.

The study shows that the KAM reporting requirement is part of the ongoing re-calibration of the regulatory arrangements governing auditing, which started in the early 2000s. This study interprets standard setting as a site for negotiating the relationships between linked ecologies in the audit regulatory space, namely, the auditing profession, preparers of financial statements and users of audited reports. This study identifies three processes involved in setting ISA 701, namely, reconstitution of the rules governing auditors’ reports as a link between the three ecologies, preserving boundaries between the auditing profession and preparers and negotiation aimed at balancing competing interests of the interrelated ecologies.

The study offers insights into the role of regulatory rule setting as a central medium through which the adaptive relationship of the profession with its environment is negotiated.