Staying With the Traces

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: A Critical Cartography of Theory in Environmental Education: Lines, Knots, and Knotting

Abstract

This presentation ‘stays’ with the ‘traces’ in posthuman and Aboriginal knowings as an attempt to situate theory in environmental education and its research. Through a conceptualisation of theory as ‘knots’ in the vast fabric of knowledge, and these efforts to ‘stay-with’ as methodology, we sense/work in/through traces whereby theory may engage with embodied patterns of human and non-human relationality across place and time. This grounding of theory illuminates diverse epistemologies and ways of knowing that are indeed knotted together. Our approach challenges the perpetuation of reductionist humanist perspectives, including the nature/culture binary, within environmental education. Through enacting widening arenas of identification and relationality we offer an exploration of an alternative pedagogical approach, one that will provoke environmental educators to ‘stay-with’ expanding possibilities. With a focus on place and arts-based educational research methodologies, staying with the traces necessitates a slow and deep engagement within both theory and practice.

Authors

• Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, Southern Cross University

• Simone Miranda Blom, Southern Cross University

• Maia Osborn, Southern Cross University

• Thilinika Wijesinghe, Southern Cross University

• Shae Brown, Southern Cross University

• Adrienne Brown, Southern Cross University