Learning With, for, and as Queer Creatures

• In Event: 63.062 - Queer Eco-Pedagogies: Explorations in Nature, Sexuality, and Education

Abstract

For the authors of this paper, Karen Barad’s (2007) work on the queer performativity of nature calls to mind sociocultural and institutional discourses around “natural law,” hegemonic moralism, and varieties of “human” exceptionalism that we have experienced as restrictive or oppressive forces within our own lives. Appeals to our inherent soulfuness, “higher” orders of being, and superiority are supposed to chart a path for humans, orientating us toward proper livelihoods and occupations (broadly conceived). Yet, posthumanist articulations of queer ecologies and ethological accounts of diverse gender expressions and sexual performances suggest that a rigid conception of “nature” or “animality” (Chen, 2012) remains a troublesome arena for aligning human moral compasses or for constructing visions of and pathways toward future possibilities, becomings, or even utopias (Haraway, 2006; Muñoz, 2009). Our chapter traces our own experiential orientations and disorientations (Ahmed, 2006; Russell, 2013) around shared readings and reflections from queer theory, with particular emphases on queer ecologies, anecdotes in animal behavior, and writings on so-called natural processes such as “queer lightning” (Taylor & Blaise; Barad, 2007; Roughgarden, 2013). We reflect on the phenomenological, material, and ethico-political convergences and divergences of such (re)animated performances of diversity both personally and for the field of environmental education widely conceived. We offer our own self-reflections and dialogues within the context of higher education as paths forward for environmental educators interested in exploring the potentialities of queer work for decentering heteronormative, patriarchal, masculinist, Western, and anthropocentric hegemonies.

Authors

• Joshua James Russell, Canisius College

• Joy Riso, Canisius College

• Lindsey Bradley, Canisius College