Title Pending

• In Event: 34.067 - WITHDRAWN: Dismantling Hierarchies in a "Post-Truth" Era: Reenvisioning Equitable Educational Opportunities in International School Contexts

Abstract

In the wake of climate change, increasing environmental disasters, the anti-science Trumpocene, and other longstanding environmental injustice issues, science educators and scientists alike are called on to take on more vocal activist stances and pursuits in
the name of justice (Liboiron, 2017; Tolbert & Bazzul, 2017). Truly, “we need a new era
of monster slayers” (LaDuke, 2016). Indigenous, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, feminist, and environmental activists alike are igniting mass movements to disrupt market fundamentalisms and economic/environmental policies that kill, advocating instead for policies “embedded in interdependence rather than hyperindividualism, reciprocity rather than dominance, and cooperation rather than hierarchy" (Klein, 2014). Longtime American Indian and environmental activist Winona LaDuke (2016) writes, “I would like to see an elegant society, not a city of decay, and sorrow” (p. 298, 2016).” Activism is an intra-action with science and the sociopolitical, as we strive toward a more “elegant” presentfuture. In this paper and presentation, I describe examples from scholarly and pedagogical efforts to reveal lines of flight and fugitive spaces through youth/teacher participatory action research in science and education. I reflect on how activist approaches to science and education can “exploit the few remaining ‘cracks’” (p. 227) within increasingly neoliberal schooling contexts toward the critical transformation
of a world-in-common (Russell, 2015).


References
LaDuke, W. (2016). The Winona LaDuke chronicles: Stories from the front lines in the battle for environmental justice. Ponsford, MN: Spotted Horse Press.
Liboiron, M. (2017). Feminist + anti-colonial science. Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR). Available online at
https://civiclaboratory.nl/2017/12/29/feminist-anti-colonial-science/.
Klein, N. (2014). This changes everything: Capitalism vs. the climate. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Russell, B. (2015). Beyond activism/academia: militant research and the radical climate and climate justice movement (s). Area, 47(3), 222-229.
Tolbert, S., & Bazzul, J. (2017). Toward the sociopolitical in science education. Cultural
Studies of Science Education, 12(2), 321-330.

Author

• Sara E. Tolbert, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha University of Canterbury