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- Convenor:
-
Peter Sutoris
(University of Leeds)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- G4
- Sessions:
- Thursday 27 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The Anthropocene, an era of unprecedented human influence over the natural environment, brings into question the social purpose of education. How might anthropological perspectives help us redefine education's role in the face of existential threats, including climate change and biodiversity loss?
Long Abstract:
Education is considered a force for good in many mainstream discourses and historical accounts of "progress". However, education, and its links to extractivist capitalism and the ideology of infinite economic growth on a finite planet, as well as its colonial origins and contemporary renditions marked by the dominance of 'Global North'-centric epistemologies, can also be considered one of the causes of the socioenvironmental multicrisis that has come to define the new geological era -- the Anthropocene. While alternative forms of learning -- such as Ivan Illich's idea of deschooling, efforts to bridge education with Indigenous knowledges, the notion of ecopedagogy, or Paulo Freire's concept of conscientisation -- have been explored by scholars and put forward in their theoretical form, ethnographic research into educational "alternatives" is scarce. In this panel, we will consider how anthropological perspectives might contribute to redefining the social purpose of education in the Anthropocene, and explore questions including: What is the potential of ethnographic research to identify, document and problematise the ideas and practices underpinning contemporary education systems? How might anthropology intervene in the on-going debates in the field of Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE), such as the ways education can, and should, change in the face of unprecedented environmental destruction? How might anthropological research among indigenous populations contribute to formulating educational alternatives? What does ethnographic research tell us about education's blind spots and unintended consequences in the Anthropocene?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 27 June, 2024, -Karolina Dziubata-Smykowska (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland) Marek Jaskólski (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland) Aleksandra Lis (Adam Mickiewicz University)
Paper short abstract:
Environmental knowledge gained through adult education enables not only to assert human and non-human rights, but also to raise awareness of climate change and verify mitigation strategies. The paper outlines aims of the ERICA project on adult education of community-based environmental monitoring.
Paper long abstract:
The fossil fuel industry, apart from being the major cause of climate change, also produces impacts on the local
environment, including land degradation, waste production, water and air contamination and biodiversity loss. Identifying individual ways of understanding and processing information about visible changes in the local cultural landscape, which determine certain adaptation strategies, can help coping with an uncertain future. Environmental knowledge gained through adult education enables local communities not only to assert their rights in conflicts with fossil fuel companies, but also to raise awareness about climate change and verify the mitigation or deindustrialization strategies. The paper shall outline assumptions of the project "ERICA - Environmental monitoring through civic engagement" funded by the KA220-ADU-Cooperation partnerships in adult education of the Erasmus+ program. The main objective of the project is to create an e-book of best practices and e-learning platform on environmental monitoring.
Verena Schneeweiss
Paper short abstract:
The format of city walks combines urban ethnological approaches with educational work, taking into account perception, emotion and embodiment as well as polyphony, multiple perspectives and ambivalences. City walks point to glocal traces and also change, e.g. for socio-ecological transformation.
Paper long abstract:
The paradoxes and effects of globalisation and colonialism shape interpersonal and transcultural relationships. In cityscapes, global relations of dependency and inequality with all their interdependencies become tangible on site.
How are post/colonial traces and globalisation reflected in urban space? Where do connections between trade and capitalism, racism and (forced) migration become visible? How do we deal with these traces and how can we include them in educational work? If these traces and contexts are man-made, how can we work (activistically) against or with them and how do we want to shape urban space?
The format of city walks can combine urban ethnological approaches with educational work and take into account aspects of perception, emotion and embodiment (cf. sensory ethnography & embodied ethnography). Strolling through the city is about showing diversity, change of perspective, power critique, polyphony and ambivalences, integrating subaltern, marginalised voices and negotiating narratives and spaces of memory. In this process, the city is accessed and explored with the experiential knowledge of all participants, transforming together while walking together.
City walks can also point to options for action, change and utopias, such as to places of socio-ecological transformation.
I would like to offer some basic reflections on the potential and ethnological aspects of this format of educational work, as well as describe some examples of walking tours.
Amanda Anderson (Anglia Ruskin University)
Paper short abstract:
In this work in progress I look at environmental education provided by a Christian faith-based organisation (FBO) in England. Through ethnography, immersed in the environmental studies program, I describe how one FBO responds to the climate crisis with learning embedded in hope and Christian values.
Paper long abstract:
My work in progress is an ethnographic approach to Environmental Sustainability Education (ESE) in the UK: Environment Education was first mentioned at the UN IGC in Tbilisi in 1977. We have been educating our children and our communities since then. We are as educated as we have ever been, yet as closest to environmental disaster (Komatsu et al, 2020). Something isn’t working or hasn’t worked. I am using an ethnographic approach, to describe what ESE provided by FBOs (Faith-based organisations) looks like. My literature review identified a gap in research as well as a lack of attention to faith-based Environmental Education in general. My ethnographic research focusing on a Christian based environmental education group in England, for adult learners, suggests that those who take it up, become more environmentally active as they grow in confidence. The faith-based environmental education embedded in Christian values, that I look at, appears to be transformative, and encourages a sense of gentle activism. Christian Environmental Education works for those who sign up to Christian values. It is clearly a breeding space for hope and encourages those taking part towards action. FBOs offer spaces and places at the heart of many communities (in England) and can play an important role in dealing with the climate crisis. FBOs have become increasingly active on the environmental front from Pope Francis’s influential encyclical Laudato Si (2015) which speaks against a misguided anthropocentrism and advocates an integral ecology, to the presence of the first ever faith-pavilion at COP 28 (2023).
Nabanita Samanta (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay)
Paper short abstract:
This paper attends to generative affordances of the ‘oceanic turn’ for redefining anthropology and reinscribing the contour of education. The attempt is to critically engage with the ‘blue turn’ so as to recalibrate its transformative pedagogical potentials for re-worlding (anthrop)oceanic futures.
Paper long abstract:
With the twin threats of climate crises on one hand and the neocolonial ocean grabs on the other, the oceans have now turned out to be not only a ‘commodity frontier’ but also an onto-epistemological frontier. This ‘turn’ to the ocean – rendered as the ‘blue turn’ in literary studies and social sciences – while pushing the limits of terrestrial biases, evidently unsettles several of the worn-out conceptual schemes in anthropology. This epistemic renewal comes at a paradoxical juncture when even the most distant depths of the oceans continue to bear the imprints left by the triumphalism of untamed extractivism as central to the capitalist and (neo)colonialist ventures, thus pointing to the stretch of the Anthropocene. Interestingly, the oceanic realms, while bearing the consequences of anthropogenic activities yet eluding complete grasp of human knowability, remain emblematic of Anthropocenic figuration and its ingrained asynchronicities. Against these unfolding and emergent exigencies, this paper seeks to understand how the 'blue turn' reshapes anthropology, and how this reshaping, in turn, might allude to some possible ways of redefining and reimagining the role and contours of education by tapping into the generative affordances of oceanic anthropology. The paper further discusses, drawing insights from some cases of indigenous oceanic literacy initiatives, how the onto-epistemic churning of the oceanic turn can be translated into transformative pedagogy and praxis, and how anthropological enquiry can engage with these alternative pedagogies to arrive at a better grasp of the Anthropocenic ruinations and ways to live with these.
Abdul Wahid Khan (Univeristy of Oxford)
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses the need for a paradigm shift in education in the Anthropocene to produce critical apocalyptic thinking to create the right kind of consciousness about this catastrophic yet revealing situation through local wisdom, technology and multi-disciplinary collaborative efforts.
Paper long abstract:
The paper discusses the need for a paradigm shift in education in the Anthropocene, a geological epoch defined by human impact on the planet. The author compliments Bowers’ idea that the rate at which Earth's glaciers are melting is outpacing the pace of change in education. Presently, education is not able to keep up with or even recognize the socio-ecological contexts that are evolving and the associated crises. Investigations into culture and education are trapped in a "pre-ecological" mindset that disregards the environmental contexts at both local and planetary scales. The paper suggests that education should focus on interdisciplinary knowledge, critical thinking, and the use of technology to make education free and accessible for all. The author argues that the current denial of the Anthropocene by some world leaders is a major obstacle to addressing environmental issues and that education has a crucial role to play in creating awareness and promoting ecological consciousness. The current education system lacks ecological and environmental consciousness, and there is a need to design an education system that is Anthropocene-conscious. Lastly, drawing from McKenzie Wark’s and other scholars’ work, the paper discusses access to education in the new emerging class relationship and the importance of free education and easy access to educational resources. The paper concludes by emphasizing the (nostalgic) ideas about incorporating ecological local wisdom in the education system today to enhance provincial thinking that is missing from academia today by drawing from anthropological fieldwork in Chitral, Pakistan on Pastoralist livelihood.
Peter Sutoris (University of Leeds)
Paper short abstract:
The paper argues that many obstacles to education making a meaningful contribution to addressing the environmental multi-crisis are manifestations of a temporal framing of education through "shallow time." It proposes reorienting education towards "deep time" as a way of avoiding these pitfalls.
Paper long abstract:
Education has come to be viewed as an important instrument in humanity’s toolkit in tackling ecological breakdown. Research shows, however, that while many contemporary education systems can contribute to individual-level changes in awareness and behaviour, they are ill-equipped to enable society-level transformation. This paper argues that the gap between expectation of what “education for the environment” can achieve and what it has so far delivered can be explained by bureaucratisation, individualisation, and market capture that are at the heart of much contemporary education policy, research and practice. These dynamics are a consequence of framing education’s utility within “shallow time”, as reflected in frameworks like “21st century skills”. Shifting the temporal frame to deep time—which requires recognition of what happens prior to and beyond the lifespans of those being educated and those delivering the education, as well as rethinking how the utility of education is assessed—can help end the pattern of education reproducing existing social structures and imaginaries, enabling a more disruptive framing more consistent with the idea that education can help prevent rather than facilitate ecological breakdown.
Ryan Woods (University of Manchester) Raichael Lock (Manchester Institute of Education)
Paper short abstract:
We tell the story of an interdisciplinary project involving children in caring for, planting, listening to, and becoming trees in their school grounds. Through this we explore different pedagogies to bring us into closer relations with the more-than-human world.
Paper long abstract:
In Moss Side, Manchester, 2023, eleven children from a primary school council joined an after-school club to learn about the trees in their school grounds. Working with MEEN’s (Manchester Environmental Education Network) Treemarkable project they learned to identify these trees, map them, care for them and plant more. Nested into this was a soundscape research project which involved pupils in deep listening, putting microphones into trunks to listen to the trees, and meditating on becoming the trees.
This paper explores the children’s growing relationships with trees through interdisciplinary working. Taking inspiration from sensory and sound anthropology, the project worked with science such as Simard’s notion of the wood-wide web and practical gardening skills, before being enriched with creative sonic practices taken from Oliveros and Schafer.
Grounded in education for sustainability and the challenges to formal education as presented by Orr and Sterling, we highlight how to work within the current system to introduce transformative educational methods which improve multi-species relations and re-introduce specific forms of indigenous knowledge. We discuss the vitality gained from collaborative working between ethnographic research and education for sustainability, how experiential, response-able and sensory pedagogies support outdoor, place-based learning whilst sharing our observations and the reflections of the children who participated. We consider the potential of creating collaborative spaces for learning outside of formal education which enable reciprocal relationships with the more-than-human to emerge.
Philip Egbule (University of Delta, Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria) Nneka Okafor (University of Nigeria, Nsukka)
Paper short abstract:
There have been numerous discourses on climate change; however, a call for a proactive approach to halt the envisaged ruin is indispensable. This paper calls on African researchers to delve into their indigenous science for proactive approaches toward addressing the climate change crisis.
Paper long abstract:
It is an indisputable truism that in a fragile and conflict-affected setting with limited governance, political instability and visionless leadership, communities are ill-equipped to cope with a changing climate and associated environmental hazards. Although there have been numerous discourses on climate change and the consequent environmental hazards, a call for proactive approach to halting the envisaged ruin is indispensable. This paper, therefore, is a clarion call on Africans to delve into their indigenous science systems for proactive approaches toward addressing the climate change crisis. Unfortunately, one major challenge that may likely bedevil this call is the erroneous belief that African traditional ideas and practices are fetish. This paper will argue that climate science, like other branches of knowledge, needs to be broadened and decolonized and that Africa should search within its knowledge systems for appropriate ideas and approaches to many of its development challenges. Also, it will examine how our growing vulnerability could be addressed through the collaboration of western science and environmental education with relevant African science. Additionally, this study will discuss how African researchers and their counterparts in the global north can tap into the vital and time-tested resources of the African indigenous science system. The effects of climate change and environmental hazards on the socio-economic activities of Africans will also be reviewed. However, it expresses optimism that indigenous knowledge and practice can contribute toward managing natural resources, environmental protection, and climate change adaptation in Africa. Possible ways of achieving these will be suggested in the full paper.
Nadine Wagener-Böck (Kiel University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper gives insight into unexpected, but familiar epistemic practices of ESD in formal education and schooling in Northern Germany and problematizes the benefits and pitfalls when doing ethnographic research in this field.
Paper long abstract:
In Germany ESD for formal education and schooling is a vibrant topic: The responsible ministry initiates and coordinates the implementation, teacher educators model competencies and accompany offers from extracurricular providers, who design project days, workshops, and competition. However, critical voices point out that ESD is hardly possible in its current form. Existing ESD concepts for schools fit into the modern school as “institution of normalization” (Ball, Collet-Sabé 2021: 4). By this they contrast with transformative education as a process that is open to the future. As a result initiatives not only fail, but can even relativise their own motives and goals. (Budde/Blasse 2023) Against this background my paper engages with alternative educational programs that argue with bodies of knowledge from an all too familiar origin, this is ethnography.
My talk is based on ongoing research in educational programs offered to teachers in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s northernmost federal state. I will take my initial confusion and astonishment concerning the familiarity of epistemic practices, e.g. narrative research, in the field as a starting point to unravel the different strands of shared interest and stance. I will analyse friction that becomes visible because normativity drives ideas of education, the future and the environment when working with teachers outwith the standard curricula, but also forms fieldwork relations. In doing so I will consider the following question: What are the benefits and pitfalls of anthropological perspectives when it comes to unexpected but familiar approaches to sustainability education in the field?