Toward Posthuman Eco-Technologies: Restor(y)ing Nature and Undoing Anthropocentrism in Environmental Education Research

• In Event: 26.056 - Challenging the Discourse of Environmental Education: Tropes, Metaphors, Boundaries

Abstract

This paper explores two interrelated themes: (1) the ‘denaturation’ of environmental education and education for sustainable development discourses caused by the instrumentalization of environment produced by ‘ecotechnology’ and (2) The apparent contradiction in the literature of environmental education research that sees many environmental activists, philosophers, and educators represent anthropocentrism as an undesirable ethical position, whereas most reports of environmental education research privilege an anthropocentric gaze, which assumes autonomous human subjects as starting points for knowledge production and the focus of attention for data production and analysis. We offer posthumanist standpoints on subjectivity and technology as ways to resolve the questions, problems and issues raised by these themes.

Authors

• Noel Gough, La Trobe University

• Annette E. Gough, RMIT University