12. What’s in a Name? Deconstructing “Nonhuman” through Multiple Lenses and Implications for Futuring Environmental Education

• In Event: Nature-connectedness and the More-than-human in Environmental Education - Environmental Education SIG Structured Poster Session

Abstract

The term nonhuman is a catch-all that is often used in Environmental Education (EE) to denote the myriads of diverse denizens of the natural world. And yet, scholars indicate problematic connotations associated with this language, nonhuman (Oakley, 2019; Spannring, 2017). For example, nonhuman defines other animals as negative (Oakley, 2019; Spannring, 2017) whilst centering and thereby privileging human. Nonhuman is also a colonizing term that subsumes an immense amount of diversity (e.g., species, eco-systems, environmental conditions) into a single, silent, and deeply static container. Moreover, nonhuman as defining by negation can be boundary forming, and alienating. With these connotations recognized, nonhuman often runs contradictory to the assumptions and positionings of many EE researchers and their work.

The purpose of this interdisciplinary conceptual analysis paper is to explore the limits, dangers, and potential replacement options for, nonhuman, using multiple theoretical perspectives, and to offer implications for doing EE. Our central question is: When deconstructing nonhuman through the lenses of Feminism/Ecofeminism, Critical Theory/Critical Race Theory, and Posthumanism/Anti-Colonial, what are the challenges, dangers, limits thereof, how might another term better support a different orientation towards other beings, and what are the implications for EE research?

Authors

• Sean Blenkinsop, Simon Fraser University

• Megan Tucker, Simon Fraser University