Queering Environmental Education: Beyond Identity Politics

• In Event: Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Expanding on Queer Research and Practice in Environmental Education

Abstract

This paper inserts itself into the renewed interest about queer perspectives in environmental education (EE) research. It aims to build upon the seminar work of Russell and colleagues (2002) within the field and sets itself the objective to expand on the notion of “queering practices” that Russell's work introduced. Given that more than one decade has passed since then, this paper raises the issue of why queer theory and queer perspectives has not attained a broader appeal and has not gained a stronger foothold within the field. The paper makes the argument that queering should be understood as an practice in environment that is antithetical to the discursive establishment of identity through practice. Thereby the paper aims to address an existing problem within critical environmental education research where critiques draw on a notion of power and domination while this acknowledgment of power and domination at the same time withholds the theoretical possibility for resistance. For the feminist debate within the field this problem resurfaces in the critique of patriarchal economic systems that subjugate both the environment and women. The paper aims to reconceive this critique and to conceive of a space of resistance.
The paper is aimed to revitalize the debate on the relevance of queer theory for conceiving of environmental education in relation to learning as well as identity creation as part of these learning and teaching experiences. With its aim to move beyond identity politics the paper hopes to make queer theory relevant to a wider audience of environmental education researches. Especially, it envisions to provide a theoretical framework for conceiving how queering practices are constitutive aspects of subjectivity and social change. The paper orients itself towards the work of Laclau (1990,1996), Derrida (1978, 1982, 1988, 1998) in order to conceive of the how the construction of identity depends on acts of identification, that are never a pure reproduction but are characterized by and dependent on iterability. Further, it aims to link the conception of iterability to queer theory (Butler & Scott 1992, Butler 1997).
The method of the paper is based on a critical engagement with literature cited above that constitutes the theoretical framework as well as research papers addressing gender and queer theory within the field of environmental education research (e.g. Russell et al. 2002, Gough 2003). The data for analysis consists, as described above, of theoretical references that are drawn upon in order to conceive of a theoretical reconfiguration as well as publications relevant to gender and queer theory within the field of environmental education research.
Within the paper, a reconceived framework of queering allows for a reconceptualization of a concept usually conceived in terms of identity politics. Thereby the paper is envisioned to become relevant to a wider audience as well as to explain coexistent tensions in learning practices, where every practice of learning can, to varying degrees, contribute to individual and social change as well as continuity.

Author

• Stefan Bengtsson, Uppsala University