New Recommendations
From time to time I add references here to people, research, and topics of interest. Usually but not always relatively new to the field (or to me).
For older, more classic and essential authors and works I recommend, go here.
--------------------------
Tim Ingold. The most impressive new conceptual approach to understanding human activity as an integral part of socio-natural processes that I have read in the last few years. I recommend his books: Being Alive (2011) and Making (2013). Both are collections of essays developing related themes. Ingold is an anthropologist by training.
C.S. Holling. A leading ecosystem theorist, Holling is best known for developing theories of the resilience of ecosystems and a generalized cycle of development, collapse, and re-organization. I recommend the book Panarchy (2002) by Lance Gunderson and Holling, especially the first four chapters, which are broadly applicable to eco-social systems generally.
Paul Thibault. A social linguist of the Halliday school, Thibault has extended the original social semiotics paradigm to focus on the material dynamics of "languaging" and semiosis generally in a way that is highly compatible with my own work. I particularly recommend his article "First-order languaging and second-order language" (2011) in the journal Ecological Psychology.
Bruno Latour. An Inquiry into Modes of Existence (2013) is a summative work of Latour's many explorations into the differing institutional realities of modern Western culture (science, law, religion, economics, etc.) and how they constitute the "beings" which define them. A sophisticated fusion of philosophy and sociology, this is a challenging work with which I do not entirely agree. But it deserves careful reading and response.