Presentation short abstract

In this paper, I argue that teaching political ecology in higher education should involve a praxis of subjectivation—enabling students to recognise and position themselves within environmental injustices. Drawing on teaching exercises, I explore strategies for embodied and transformative learning.

Presentation long abstract

Political ecologists have long shown that practices of “sustainable development” depoliticise environmental struggles and can perpetuate colonial logics. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the notion of Education for Sustainable Development for many provokes a sense of unease. But what would it mean to instead educate for environmental justice—or even for political ecology itself? While most professional political ecologists teach and do research in universities, the emerging subfield of the political ecology of education has paid limited attention to higher education. The critical gaze has yet to turn inward.

In this paper, I argue that teaching political ecology at the university level should stimulate a practice of “subjectivation”: a process through which students (and teachers) become subjects of their own learning. Beyond developing conceptual and analytical understanding of environmental inequalities, teaching must also enable students to recognise—and sense—their own position within these dynamics, making learning embodied, political, and actionable. Drawing on exercises from my own teaching practice at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) and King’s College London (UK), I reflect on teaching strategies that move beyond knowledge transmission to cultivate subjectivation and situated learning. The aim is to start a conversation about how we as university teachers qualify students as political ecologists while positioning them reflexively within the politicised environments they study and inhabit.