Utopia and Ecopedagogy: Socio-environmental Justice, development, Citizenships, and Planetary Sustainability as Education Praxis of Possible Futures

• In Event: Toward a more equitable world: Solidarity, discourse and climate justice.

Proposal

Educate for another possible world is to the rise of what does not exist yet, of utopia, of the “possible not yet seen” (Paulo Freire). (Gadotti, 2008, p. 20)
Education saturated with possibilities of utopian futures provides the goals for students to reach for but most often never fully attain,(Torres and Teodoro, 2007). Freire (1992, 2000) argued that prevalent fatalism within education is inherently dehumanizing because, among other aspects, it vacates our unique ability of unfinishedness from being able to dream and act towards achieving dreams. All that comprises Earth, including living beings, adapt and evolve to their surroundings, but humans determine our actions through reflexivity (Freire, 2000). Within ecopedagogical groundings, it is also with all of Nature, as “us” being part of Earth/Nature (Gadotti, 2008a; Misiaszek, 2012, 2020a).
Opposingly, taught fatalistic ideologies in which students are viewed as, and view themselves as, finished deprives them of any hope in bettering themselves, their private spheres, and bettering the world. Humans’ and societies’ unfinishedness that Freire stresses allow for transformability guided by “our” unceasing historical reflectivity and dreaming of possible futures (Freire, 2000). Education absent of these characteristics is dehumanizingly fatalistic (Freire, 2000). Within ecopedagogical frameworks, such education is also deplanetarizing by helping to sustain and intensify inseparable environmental violence and social violence (socio-environmental connectivity), anthropocentrism, and local-to-planetary unsustainability (Misiaszek, 2018, 2020a). Friere (1970, 1992, 1997, 2004) argued that teaching, especially within banking education models, indoctrinates fatalistic ideologies that falsely justify dehumanization and deplanetarization (see Freire, 1997; 2004).
I will discuss the need for utopic (environmental) pedagogies to disrupt fatalism emergent from oppressive forms of citizenships (local-to-global-to-planetary); top-down hegemonic Development (as opposed to bottom-up development); epistemologies of the North; neoliberalism, (neo)coloniality, and globalizations; and some specific forms of oppressions (e.g., racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, xenophobia, global South/North).
Planetarizing utopian pedagogies, Deplanetarizing fatalistic pedagogies
Utopia within ecopedagogy is planetarizing beyond humans by teaching through possibilities of disrupting unsustainable actions because of socio-environmental justice and peace issues within the world (i.e., anthroposphere), and the well-being and sustainability of the rest of Nature. In other words, ecopedagogical dreaming is not anthropocentric but planetary. Environmental pedagogies too-frequently fail because they are fatalistic banking education models absent of authentic dialogue full of students’ dreams and collectively, dialectically sharing them, as well as through problem-posing activities. Teaching through ecopedagogical futures (i.e., utopias) must be rooted in globally all-inclusive socio-environmental justice and valuing the rest of Nature outside of humans’ needs and wants. Misiaszek (2014, 2018) has termed this planetarizing need, including framings of education and utopia, as world-Earth de-distancing by acknowledging that too much of (environmental) education distances us and our world from the rest of Earth. This includes distancing (sustainable) development from the rest of Nature, and globally-all-inclusive authentic development.
Ecopedagogy and D/development: Brief Framings
Earth outside of humans (i.e., non-anthroposphere) can be conceptualized as finished in that it adapts and evolves without socio-historical self-reflectivity towards “development.” This is highlighted by Freire (2000) stating that “while all development is transformation, not all transformation is development” (p. 161). In short, humans transform towards development goals while the rest of Nature transforms toward equilibrium, or balance, and for immediate-to-species survival. Freire’s discussions on unfinishedness provide utopic ideologies that can lead to development and, in turn, counter Development, with the understanding that world-only development cannot be untethered. Utopic development is inclusive of not denying others’ unfinishedness and development, and Earth’s sustainability.
Teaching for Praxis for development
As true for all critical pedagogies and research (Apple, Au, & Gandin, 2009; Gadotti, 1996), ecopedagogical work is for praxis with just gaining “environmental knowledge” as not enough without action. Determining a “better world” is impossible within fatalism indoctrinated within (environmental) pedagogies because the world is only taught to be seen how it is currently, including all global present oppressions and planetary unsustainability.
Without hope within teaching ecopedagogical praxis is impossible. Utopic dialogue within ecopedagogical spaces is critical in problematizing what are the utopias for everyone within the spaces and bringing local-to-global voices/perspectives outside the space. Emergent ecopedagogical praxis must not shift socio-environmental oppressions to “others” but towards ending them globally-holistically within planetarization.
Development and Citizenships
Disrupting (environmental) teaching which normalizes the masses as hosts and commodifies the rest of Nature for a few to Develop requires teaching to disrupt the normalization of such instilled notions as without alternatives. Such disruptions are difficult because of the treadmill of hegemony sustained from these taught notions and these notions further entrenched from neoliberal education bolstered from hegemony.
Othering divisions, in part, are caused by taught distancing ideologies of “us” versus “them,” with the “them” inclusive of Nature overall. Distancing most frequently aligns with socio-historical oppressions; I will briefly focus on citizen:non-citizen distancing. I argue the need for utopic, critical global citizenship education (GCE) in which there is no “non-citizen” with planetary citizenship education (PCE) that has citizenship as inclusive of all of Earth, as well as Earth as a citizen. A key aspect of ecopedagogical work is conceiving of citizenship in the pluralized citizenships to “…indicate[s] the multiple spheres of citizenship, with specific attention to its education and the complicated connections with environmental pedagogies and praxis” (Misiaszek, 2020a, p. 6). Ecopedagogically teaching and reading through the commonalities and differences of self-to-planetary utopias emergent from local-to-global citizenships collectiveness within our world with local-to-planetary collectiveness and beyond anthropocentric understandings is essential for praxis toward a just, peaceful, and sustainable world.
The valuing of diversity grounding of critical GCE and PCE is essential (Misiaszek, 2015) for stepping toward the utopic goal of understanding through multiple and diverse citizenship spheres.. This includes Santos’ (2018) arguments of needing reflexivity and teaching through ecologies of knowledges to counter epistemologies of the North rooted in coloniality, patriarchy, and capitalism. Pedagogies saturated in hope are essential for students to construct goals to guide their actions towards a better world, countering engrained fatalism from teaching through epistemologies (e.g., epistemologies of the North (Santos, 2016, 2018; Takayama, Sriprakash, & Connell, 2017)) which sustain/intensify hegemony and dominance of Nature.

Author

• Greg William Misiaszek, Beijing Normal University