This article argues that direct ecological impact needs to be incorporated into research on organizations and the natural environment, as complementary to conceptualizations of ecological impact as a social construction. Building on work in analytical sociology, it proposes to study socio-ecological mechanisms and thus enhance the understanding of processes of organizing within dynamic ecosystems. Three categories of socio-ecological mechanisms are introduced and illustrated with examples. The article concludes with reflections on the expected increase of direct ecological impact on organizations.
Using in-depth ethnographic analysis of Kejetia’s artisanal gold mining community in Tongo (Northern Ghana), this article argues that governance is based on artisanal gold miners’ three-dimensional orientation towards both ‘above-ground’ social–political relations and regulations (a geometrically two-dimensional orientation) and the ‘subterranean’ geological sphere (which literally adds depth and a third geometric dimension). A substance relation to gold also means that its properties and geological context strongly influence miners’ micro governance, as do miners’ cosmological perceptions of gold’s relationship to the above-ground and subterranean spheres. Hence, gold acquisition is embedded in a web of geological, social and cosmological relations beyond actual excavation. Artisanal mining policy and research should recognise the impact of this three-dimensional orientation and substance approach.
Berzelius failed to make use of Faraday's electrochemical laws in his laborious determination of equivalent weights.