Being Nature: Interspecies Articulation as a Species-Specific Practice of Relating to Environment

• In Event: Dwelling and the More-Than-Human in Education

Abstract

In this paper one species-specific practice of human relating to environment – language, a literary form of interspecies articulation in particular – is discussed. It is argued that this practice is not distant from or distancing nature, rather it exemplifies our very being nature. Furthermore, this argument suggests that rather than steering people away from anthropocentrism categorically, it is essential to recognize levels of anthropocentrism and through environmental education to actually strengthen the default base of anthropocentrism. In research of human co-existence with the non-human world as perceived in everyday life, articulation is employed methodologically to refer to a process of acknowledging and communicating, in a meaningful and coherent form, one’s multisensory relations to his/her surroundings.

Author

• Pauliina Rautio, University of Helsinki