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| Illustration of Urban Social Ecology. (Source: Socialworkdegreeguide.com) |
Examining the concept of social ecology, it actually has a
similar meaning to the term human ecology. According to Daldjoeni (1997: 89),
this term has been popularized since the 1920s in American sociology,
especially by admirers of the Chicago school called "Human Ecology".
Their activity, namely studying the interrelation of humans with their
environment (physical, social and technical), is mainly aimed at humans in
cities. Therefore, according to him, the relationship between humans and their
environment contains two important aspects, namely the relationship between
humans as individuals and their environment and the relationship between humans
as a group and their environment.
This scientific tradition and research model in the style of the Chicago School, in its development, gave birth to many followers, especially the theory of urban social ecology. Sociologists who follow this school focus their attention on the study of how urban problems experience a chaotic situation which in a short time gives rise to migration flows from various ethnic neighborhoods and how practically uncontrolled growth arises. In addition, this social ecological study highlights selected structures with distinctive social relationship characteristics. Likewise, according to him, the broad structure of the city appears as a principle of real order and integration which by tracing the basis of family structure also shows the heterogeneous nature of ethnic groups, occupational differentiation, crime and economic forms (Evers, 1995: 3).
Referring to the scientific heritage of America, social
ecology can be interpreted as the study of social relationships bound by time
and space, as these are shaped by the selective and distributive forces of the
environment. Apart from that, social ecology can also be defined in three terms
as follows:
Social ecology as the study of sub-social relations between humans. The sub-social aspect in this context is defined as the entire non-personal relationship between humans, which arises from a sense of the same social fate that cannot be explained from conscious human interactions.
Social ecology as the study of socio-cultural areas. By this
we mean parts of a particular city that have a distinctive pattern because of
their inhabitants, for example areas for traders, emigrants, high-ranking
officials, dirty people, and so on. Each of them is seen as a unity and
analyzed according to its social and cultural spatial life.
Social ecology functions to describe the spatial
distribution of social phenomena. Therefore, it is felt that social ecology is
better viewed as a method rather than a theory for researching society. This
method is directed at searching and mapping the spatial distribution of certain
social phenomena (Daldjoeni, 1997: 89-90).
Apart from that, social ecology is also defined as the study
of social relationships that exist in time and space. Social relationships
occur due to various forces contained in the environment and these have
selective and distributive properties. Therefore, if sociology basically
studies the structure of human society and its functions, then social ecology
can be defined as a part of sociology that focuses on the study of the
structure and function of human society in its environment (McKenzie in
Daldjoeni, 1997: 91).
Based on this description, it can be seen that social
ecology actually focuses the study on process aspects including the causes or
motives for something to happen as well as predictively predicting possible
consequences that will arise in the future. Therefore, in scientific studies
that use a social ecological approach, including this study which highlights
changes in the spatial structure of settlements in Makassar, one cannot ignore
the importance of history as a "well" of information about processes.
MCKenzie, who conducted research in the city of Chicago in 1925, described the ecological process in the form of invasion in several stages, namely initial stage, secondary stage (advanced stage), and climax stage. According to him, the initial process is characterized by symptoms of geographic expansion of an existing social group and then encountering challenges from the population in the area affected by the expansion. In the advanced stage, competition becomes more exciting, which is then followed by the processes of displacement, selection and assimilation. The intensity of all three is determined by the nature of the expanding and being expanded. Groups that are forced to lose competition will occupy or expand into other weaker areas and then be followed by a new succession. At this last moment, it will reach a climax and this process will occur continuously one after another, resulting in increasingly wide concentric circular zones (Yunus, 2004: 7-8).
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