Walking With Children of the Anthropocene: Producing Common Accounts of the World

• In Event: Common World Pedagogies for the Anthropocene: A More-Than-Human Take on Environmental Education-as-Collective Action

Abstract

The objective of this presentation is to demonstrate an experimental new method and pedagogy that seeks to learn with rather than about, and to take action with, rather than on behalf of the common worlds in which we live. It will do this by screening an assemblage of experimental film sequences, shot by children. These film sequences produce collective [human and nonhuman] ‘common accounts’ of the world through movement, images and sound.

The work of science studies scholar, Isobel Stengers, provides the theoretical framework for the research that this presentation showcases. In a themed lecture series about responding to the Anthropocene, Stengers (2012) states: ‘The time is now over when we considered ourselves the only true actors of our history, freely discussing if the world is available for our use or should be protected’. She calls for an interruption to the kinds of thinking and practice that set us apart from nature, whether as its masters, its managers or its guardians. She proposes instead that we seek experimental new ways of producing [human and nonhuman] ‘common accounts’ of the world through practising ‘collective thinking’ in the presence of [non-human] others (2005:1002).

The research this presentation responds to Stengers’ (2005) call by adopting an experimental collective walking method (Ingold &Vergunst, 2008) with children. This walking method allows the children to slow down and to pay close attention to whom and what is there with them. It facilitates their capacity to ‘think collectively in the presence of others’. While walking, children film some of their encounters with nonhuman others. Collected together, these films provide ‘common accounts’ of the world. An assemblage of selected film sequences will be offered in the session, in order to demonstrate what such ‘common accounts’ might look like. The film sequences also provide a window into the different ways that children are ‘thinking collectively’ in the presence of the other living beings they encounter on these walks.

The scholarly significance of this presentation lies in the ways in which it pushes the boundaries of conventional research by demonstrating a variety of experimental collective [human and nonhuman] methodological and pedagogical strategies. It does so in response to the intergenerational environmental justice issues facing children of the Anthropocene. It seeks alternatives to the human-centric and dualistic forms of thinking that created the problem of anthropogenic ecological destruction that we bequeath to children.

Author

• Affrica Taylor, University of Canberra