Internalizing Animals and Ecosystems in Social Citizenship and Social Policy: From Political Community to Political Country

Johan Nordensvard, Jason Alexandra and Markus Ketola
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Johan Nordensvard: Department of Management and Engineering (IEI), Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden
Jason Alexandra: School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
Markus Ketola: School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9LD, UK

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 12, 1-15

Abstract: The aim of this editorial is to explore, conceptualize, and research the need to internalize both animals and ecosystems in our understanding of social citizenship and social policy. This editorial should be seen as a brief overview of the themes that should be covered in the contributions to the Special Issue, “Internalizing Animals and Ecosystems in Social Citizenship and Social Policy: From Political Community to Political Country”. This Special Issue argues the importance of integrating animals and ecosystems as a way to re-politicize humans’ social relation with both animals and our ecosystem as in sustainable development and social policy. If environmental policy becomes social policy, we would re-construct social citizenship to include consideration for animals and ecosystems as integral part of social policy. This expansion in scope is a progression from seeing humans as part of a political community to becoming more involved in their political country. This aligns with the concept of Country—an all-encompassing term in Australia, involving a people’s territory, land, water, biological resources, the complex obligations and relationships involved.

Keywords: social policy; social citizenship; animal welfare; conservation; wellbeing; sustainability; preservation; ecosystem services; environmental ethics; political theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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