43

This article deals with the significance of interdisciplinary rural and environmental social research for the theorization of society and society-nature relations. For this purpose fields of knowledge adjacent to rural sociology are reviewed: environmental sociology, human and social ecology, ecological economics, social-ecological systems analysis, research on common pool resources and environmental conflicts. In discussing themes, concepts and reflections about the relations between society and nature, it is shown how theoretical codification and reflection on knowledge as well as knowledge application for natural resource management can develop from interdisciplinary research. Rural sociology can gain from the interdisciplinary knowledge exchange without changing its specialization as sociological subdiscipline.