Peter Dickens
Biographic Data
| ID | 5437491 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Dickens |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Dickens |
| SIGNATURE | DICKENS P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sussex |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 79 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1973 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Housing, States and Localities
Capital and the Cosmos
This book offers an appraisal of some of the core socio-political, military, and economic developments in our relationship with outer space.
Capital and the Cosmos
Astronauts at Work
As astronauts penetrate ever further into the cosmos, how are their bodies and subjectivities being transformed? While space travel remains governed by mechanisms of power and domination that tend to treat astronauts as tools, the practice of "space medicine" is now beginning to interact with astronauts' bodies in a more multidirectional, dialectical fashion.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website
Disentangling Capital's Web
"Sciencing the Sh*t" Out of a Crisis
At the start of The Martian movie we find an astronaut left for dead on Mars. A dust storm has forced the rest of his crew to leave in a hurry and now the astronaut, Mark Watney, has only enough fo
Leaving the World Instead of Saving It
Interstellar. Directed by Christopher NolanScience fiction has often used the cosmos to mirror earthly hopes and fears, a well-known example being Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. In those nove
Property Bureaucracy and Culture
Cosmology and Society
Contemporary sociology has paid very little attention to cosmology. But, like all forms of intellectual endeavour, cosmology is a product of society. Using insights from Bourdieu's social theory, this paper shows how cosmologies are invested in by owners of economic capital seeking power and social status. There are also important dialectical relations between economic patronage and cosmology, cosmologies resonating in different ways with the eco…
Society, Subjectivity and the Cosmos
The social sciences have paid little sustained attention to society's relations with the universe. This paper attempts to redress this failure, arguing that human beings have been increasingly alienated from the cosmos. This estrangement is a product of three closely related processes. These are the division between mental and manual labour in master-slave societies, the strengthening of abstraction due to the market, and the tendency of human be…
The Humanization of the Cosmos—To What End
Society is increasingly humanizing the cosmos. Satellites have for some time been central to the flow of information, to surveillance, and to the conduct of warfare. As these examples suggest, however, the humanization of the cosmos is primarily benefiting the powerful. These include major economic and military institutions. Furthermore, the forthcoming commodification and colonization of the cosmos is again likely to enhance the interests of the…
Alienation, the Cosmos and the Self
This paper is concerned with the alienation between the self and the cosmos. On the one hand, the binaries involved in this process (including the division between society and nature and between mental and manual labour) have been widely described and commented on. Social scientists and activists alike have shown that dichotomies of this kind are used by social elites to legitimate control over nature and over 'inferior' human beings. These insig…
The Cosmos as Capitalism's Outside
Who Really Won the Space Race
Last October's anniversary of the launch of the Sputnik artificial satellite has led to much discussion as to who won the space race. Usually it is argued that the United States unproblematically "won
Cosmic Society
Space weaponry, satellite surveillance and communications, and private space travel are all means in which outer space is being humanized: incorporated into society’s projects. But what are the political implications of society not only being globalized, but becoming ‘cosmic’? Our ideas about society have long affected, and been affected by, our understanding of the universe: large sections of our economy and society are now organized around huma…
On the Metabolism between Society and Nature in the U.K
This symposium on the metabolic relationship between human society and non-human nature in the U.K. has been edited and largely written by members of the Red Green Study Group, formed in London in
Cosmic society
Outer Space and Internal Nature
This article represents one step towards developing a sociology of humanity's relationship with the cosmos. It adapts a central question of sociological concern - how humanity transforms itself as it interacts with nature - to ask questions about how human subjectivities are affected by the increasing 'humanization' of the universe and by developments in contemporary cosmology. The argument presented is that some (wealthy) sectors of society are …
Society & Nature
The Labor Process
Marxism and the Underdog" is an impressive paper. It usefully outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the Marxist (what I would prefer to term "historical materialist") perspective on animals. As the paper rightly suggests, much of Marx's own work was predicated on the opposition between humans and animals other than humans. Yet, as the paper also points out, many of his concepts and critiques are useful for addressing contemporary concerns. Amo…
Changing our environment, changing ourselves
A number of contemporary issues demand transdisciplinarity, a fusion between insights from different disciplines within some overarching framework. Yet too often in such cases the disciplines continue to talk past each other. This paper focuses on critical realism as a way of coordinating the disciplines. Critical realism provides a view of reality as stratified, with real causal mechanisms operating at the physical, biological, and social levels…
Reconstructing Nature
One of the main features of the contemporary environmental crisis is that no one has a clear idea of what is going on. The author uses an extension of Marx's theory of alienation to explain why people find it so difficult to relate their different knowledges of the natural and social world. He argues that nevertheless it is possible to relate these to the abstractions of ecological discourse. Emancipation can come only through embracing science a…
Sociological theory and the environment
Part 1 Preface Part 2 I Introduction and Overview Chapter 3 1 Sociological Theory and the Environment: An Overview and Introduction Part 4 II The Classical Tradition and Environmental Sociology Chapter 5 2 Environmental Sociology and the Classical Sociological Tradition: Some Observations on Current Controversies Chapter 6 3 A Green Marxism? Labor-Processes, Alienation, and the Division of Labor Chapter 7 4 Ecological Materialism and the Sociolog…
Linking the Social and Natural Sciences
Social science has long fought shy of the natural sciences. Meanwhile, concerns with the environment, health and the new genetics are creating a need for systematic links to be made between these disciplines. This paper suggests a new way in which social theory can be linked to biology. Recent developments in biology point to the importance of considering organisms in relation to their environment. And work in epidemiology stresses the links betw…
Linking the Social and Natural Sciences
Housing, States and Localities
Some social and political implications of the contemporary fragmentation of the 'service class' in Britain
Changing our environment, changing ourselves
A number of contemporary issues demand transdisciplinarity, a fusion between insights from different disciplines within some overarching framework. Yet too often in such cases the disciplines continue to talk past each other. This paper focuses on critical realism as a way of coordinating the disciplines. Critical realism provides a view of reality as stratified, with real causal mechanisms operating at the physical, biological, and social levels…
Human nature, society and the home
‘The New Psychology’, which combines biology, psychology and the social sciences, is now generating considerable insights and debates. Such work gives special emphasis to ‘the expressive order'; people's own understandings and statements deriving from the innate drives affecting their behaviour as well as the socially‐constructed cultures of which they are part. Housing and urban studies, this paper suggests, should be part of these developments.…
The Cosmos as Capitalism's Outside
A Model of Students' Daily Activity Patterns
A model is described whose purpose is to predict the distribution of students in different activities and locations during the course of a typical day, depending on the effective restrictions imposed by the spatial distribution of buildings and sites, and by administrative and social constraints on the timing of activities. The model is of an entropy-maximising type; the data against which it is tested are drawn from time budget surveys made in t…
Outer Space and Internal Nature
This article represents one step towards developing a sociology of humanity's relationship with the cosmos. It adapts a central question of sociological concern - how humanity transforms itself as it interacts with nature - to ask questions about how human subjectivities are affected by the increasing 'humanization' of the universe and by developments in contemporary cosmology. The argument presented is that some (wealthy) sectors of society are …
Disentangling Capital's Web
Leaving the World Instead of Saving It
Interstellar. Directed by Christopher NolanScience fiction has often used the cosmos to mirror earthly hopes and fears, a well-known example being Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. In those nove
The Labor Process
Marxism and the Underdog" is an impressive paper. It usefully outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the Marxist (what I would prefer to term "historical materialist") perspective on animals. As the paper rightly suggests, much of Marx's own work was predicated on the opposition between humans and animals other than humans. Yet, as the paper also points out, many of his concepts and critiques are useful for addressing contemporary concerns. Amo…
Property, Bureaucracy and Culture
Society, space and human nature
A Model of Students' Daily Activity Patterns
A model is described whose purpose is to predict the distribution of students in different activities and locations during the course of a typical day, depending on the effective restrictions imposed by the spatial distribution of buildings and sites, and by administrative and social constraints on the timing of activities. The model is of an entropy-maximising type; the data against which it is tested are drawn from time budget surveys made in t…
Ideology and the State
Housing, States and Localities
Utopia on trial
The Japanisation of British industry? Instances from a high growth area
Here the authors make two arguments, Japanese industry is characterised by distinctive practices, but these predominate in only certain ‘leading edge’ sectors and were introduced mainly to ensure labour supply. Second, Britain's managers are increasingly outside the internal labour markets of large corporations. In this respect British firms are not becoming ‘Japanese’
Architecture, the individual and social change
(1988). Architecture, the individual and social change. Housing Studies: Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 259-262
Housebuilding, planning and community action. The production and negotiation of the built environment
Cities and services. The geography of collective consumption
Some social and political implications of the contemporary fragmentation of the 'service class' in Britain
Human nature, society and the home
‘The New Psychology’, which combines biology, psychology and the social sciences, is now generating considerable insights and debates. Such work gives special emphasis to ‘the expressive order'; people's own understandings and statements deriving from the innate drives affecting their behaviour as well as the socially‐constructed cultures of which they are part. Housing and urban studies, this paper suggests, should be part of these developments.…
Society, space and human nature
Architecture as commodity fetishism. Some cautionary comments on ‘Green Design’
’Buildings are responsible for more external pollution than any other product’. (D. Mckenzie, 1991)
Property, Bureaucracy and Culture
Reconstructing nature
Beyond sociology
Nature and society
Society, Space and the Biotic Level
Urban and rural sociology is currently dominated by two relatively separate approaches. One perspective emphasises political economy and increasing globalisation. Another focuses on the meaning of urban and rural areas in people's lives. This paper argues for a fusion between these two views. Urban and rural sociology should be concerned with the relations between political economy on the one hand and the biological and psychological bases of hum…
Society, Space and the Biotic Level
Urban and rural sociology is currently dominated by two relatively separate approaches. One perspective emphasises political economy and increasing globalisation. Another focuses on the meaning of urban and rural areas in people's lives. This paper argues for a fusion between these two views. Urban and rural sociology should be concerned with the relations between political economy on the one hand and the biological and psychological bases of hum…
Linking the Social and Natural Sciences
Social science has long fought shy of the natural sciences. Meanwhile, concerns with the environment, health and the new genetics are creating a need for systematic links to be made between these disciplines. This paper suggests a new way in which social theory can be linked to biology. Recent developments in biology point to the importance of considering organisms in relation to their environment. And work in epidemiology stresses the links betw…
Linking the Social and Natural Sciences
Reconstructing Nature
One of the main features of the contemporary environmental crisis is that no one has a clear idea of what is going on. The author uses an extension of Marx's theory of alienation to explain why people find it so difficult to relate their different knowledges of the natural and social world. He argues that nevertheless it is possible to relate these to the abstractions of ecological discourse. Emancipation can come only through embracing science a…
Sociological theory and the environment
Part 1 Preface Part 2 I Introduction and Overview Chapter 3 1 Sociological Theory and the Environment: An Overview and Introduction Part 4 II The Classical Tradition and Environmental Sociology Chapter 5 2 Environmental Sociology and the Classical Sociological Tradition: Some Observations on Current Controversies Chapter 6 3 A Green Marxism? Labor-Processes, Alienation, and the Division of Labor Chapter 7 4 Ecological Materialism and the Sociolog…
The Labor Process
Marxism and the Underdog" is an impressive paper. It usefully outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the Marxist (what I would prefer to term "historical materialist") perspective on animals. As the paper rightly suggests, much of Marx's own work was predicated on the opposition between humans and animals other than humans. Yet, as the paper also points out, many of his concepts and critiques are useful for addressing contemporary concerns. Amo…
Changing our environment, changing ourselves
A number of contemporary issues demand transdisciplinarity, a fusion between insights from different disciplines within some overarching framework. Yet too often in such cases the disciplines continue to talk past each other. This paper focuses on critical realism as a way of coordinating the disciplines. Critical realism provides a view of reality as stratified, with real causal mechanisms operating at the physical, biological, and social levels…
Society & Nature
Sociology (27 works) · Political science (19 works) · Epistemology (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Social science (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · History (11 works) · Politics (10 works) · Environmental ethics (9 works)