Relational values from a cultural valuation perspective: how can sociology contribute to the evaluation of ecosystem services?

Some authors have recently suggested a broadened perspective for the ecosystem services approach to include nature's contribution to people and relational values. This paper aims to develop the notion of relational values further by bringing in theoretical contributions from sociology: namely, the recursive relationship between structure and individual cultural practices, especially the notion of 'habitus' developed by Bourdieu. It argues that just as culture is shared and internalised as habitus, so too are relational values. Further, it reveals that the internalisation leads not only to the reproduction of routine cultural practices at the individual level but also to the establishment of new individual cultural practices contributing to structural change. The paper argues that symbolic power plays a key role in the sharing and internalisation process. With these sociological arguments, the paper aims to incorporate contribution from social theory, often ignored in the previous literature, and to enrich the ecosystem services literature.