Education, Sustainability and the Ecological Social Imaginary

Education, Sustainability and the Ecological Social Imaginary
Author: Jeff Buckles
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2018-05-23
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3319744429

This book analyses the evidence for global change, and suggests that the Earth is going through a profound transformation, caused in large part by human action. Land, oceans, polar regions and the atmosphere are all being deeply affected by the human population's lifestyle: what should the educational response be to these various aspects of global change? To answer this, the values of an ecological response are developed, leading to the notion of an 'Ecological Social Imaginary', which looks at how humans can change their way of living to one that is more in harmony with the planet that they live on and depend upon. To enable this, an ecological form of education, Connective Education, is proposed. This focuses on how the human and natural world can be connected for the benefit of humankind and all living and non-living entities, joining head, hand, heart and spirit to the web of life. It is argued that through Connective Education, a particular type of person is formed: one who is able to take their place in the human and natural world, and in this way truly connect with their planet. The book will be essential reading for those working in the fields of Education and Environmental Studies.

Education, Sustainability and the Ecological Social Imaginary

Education, Sustainability and the Ecological Social Imaginary
Author: JEFF. BUCKLES
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2019-06-18
Genre:
ISBN: 9783030089924

This book analyses the evidence for global change, and suggests that the Earth is going through a profound transformation, caused in large part by human action. Land, oceans, polar regions and the atmosphere are all being deeply affected by the human population's lifestyle: what should the educational response be to these various aspects of global change? To answer this, the values of an ecological response are developed, leading to the notion of an 'Ecological Social Imaginary', which looks at how humans can change their way of living to one that is more in harmony with the planet that they live on and depend upon. To enable this, an ecological form of education, Connective Education, is proposed. This focuses on how the human and natural world can be connected for the benefit of humankind and all living and non-living entities, joining head, hand, heart and spirit to the web of life. It is argued that through Connective Education, a particular type of person is formed: one who is able to take their place in the human and natural world, and in this way truly connect with their planet. The book will be essential reading for those working in the fields of Education and Environmental Studies.

Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies

Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies
Author: Michael A. Peters
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2022-04-22
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3030950069

The book presents a cross-disciplinary overview of critical issues at the intersections of biology, information, and society. Based on theories of bioinformationalism, viral modernity, the postdigital condition, and others, this book explores two inter-related questions: Which new knowledge ecologies are emerging? Which philosophies and research approaches do they require? The book argues that the 20th century focus on machinery needs to be replaced, at least partially, by a focus on a better understanding of living systems and their interactions with technology at all scales – from viruses, through to human beings, to the Earth’s ecosystem. This change of direction cannot be made by a simple relocation of focus and/or funding from one discipline to another. In our age of the Anthropocene, (human and planetary) biology cannot be thought of without (digital) technology and society. Today’s curious bioinformational mix of blurred and messy relationships between physics and biology, old and new media, humanism and posthumanism, knowledge capitalism and bio-informational capitalism defines the postdigital condition and creates new knowledge ecologies. The book presents scholarly research defining new knowledge ecologies built upon emerging forms of scientific communication, big data deluge, and opacity of algorithmic operations. Many of these developments can be approached using the concept of viral modernity, which applies to viral technologies, codes and ecosystems in information, publishing, education, and emerging knowledge (journal) systems. It is within these overlapping theories and contexts, that this book explores new bioinformational philosophies and postdigital knowledge ecologies.

Fittingness and Environmental Ethics

Fittingness and Environmental Ethics
Author: Michael S. Northcott
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2023-02-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1000844889

This volume focuses on ‘fittingness’ as an ethical-aesthetical idea, and in particular examines how the concept is beneficial for environmental ethics. It brings together an innovative set of contributions to argue that fittingness is a significant but under-investigated facet of human ethical deliberation with both ethical and aesthetic dimensions. In widely diverse matters – from architecture to table manners – individuals and communities make decisions based on ‘fittingness’, also expressed in related terms, such as appropriateness, prudence, temperance, and mutuality. In the realm of environmental ethics, fittingness denotes a relation between conscious embodied persons and their habitats and is of relevance to judgements about how humans shape, and take up with, the non-human environment, and hence to ethical decisions about the development and use of the environment and non-human creatures. As such, fittingness can be of great benefit in reframing human relationships to the non-human, stimulating a way of living in the world that is fitting to the preservation of its fruitfulness, goodness, beauty, and truth.

Encountering Education through Existential Challenges and Community

Encountering Education through Existential Challenges and Community
Author: Giles Barrow
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2023-08-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 100092954X

Directly inspired by Indian British activist Satish Kumar’s 2013 seminal work ‘Soil, Soul and Society’, this book rethinks education in line with thoughts around the current climate crisis, the purpose of education in a post-pandemic world, and the mental health of children, teachers and youth across societies. Acknowledging the realities of a world battling with the after effects of COVID-19, the author envisions a future for education that realises real-world solutions to contemporary existential, ecological and societal challenges that might otherwise be limited to an imaginary or idealist space. Offering a novel approach through a combination of narrative-based inquiry and auto-ethnographic study, the book provides a synthesis of ideas from both Kumar and political philosopher Hannah Arendt not usually linked to debates in sustainability education. Ultimately providing a critique of a predominantly Western-orientated, global education movement, this interdisciplinary book will appeal to scholars, researchers, and post-graduate students involved in education theory and the philosophy of education, as well as indigenous and sustainability education more broadly.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Law

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Law
Author: Emma Lees
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1296
Release: 2019-05-06
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0192508385

This Handbook is the first comprehensive account of comparative environmental law. It examines in detail the methodological foundations of the discipline as well as the substance of environmental law across countries from four vantage points: country studies from all continents, responses to common problems (including air pollution, water management, nature conservation, genetically modified organisms, climate change and energy, chemicals, waste), foundational components of environmental law systems (including principles, property rights, administrative and judicial organisation, command-and-control regulation, market mechanisms, informational techniques and liability mechanisms), and common interactions of environmental protection with the broader public, private, and criminal law contexts. The volume brings together the foremost authorities in this field from around the world to provide a concise, self-contained, and technically rigorous account of environmental law as a single overall system.

Critical Praxis and the Social Imaginary for Sustainable Food Systems

Critical Praxis and the Social Imaginary for Sustainable Food Systems
Author: Max Stephenson
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2024-09-26
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 2832554806

Scholarship and high-level diplomatic reports alike, including that of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2021, have highlighted the negative material and bodily inequities of our globalized industrial food system, one that is fuelled by a hegemonic politics of food access and availability. The effects of industrialized food systems on public health, human rights, food sovereignty, ecological sustainability for land and water, as well as for climate change are increasingly obvious. These ongoing challenges, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, have exacerbated existing social, economic, and political inequalities and vulnerabilities and placed them in the spotlight. The crisis in the Ukraine has also underscored how connected global industrialized food systems are to nation state geopolitical interests, international alliances, trade relations, and conflicts. The current industrialized resource-intensive food system has persisted because of a complex set of power relations, despite its continuing and deepening social, ecological, and cultural costs.

Environmental and Sustainability Education Policy

Environmental and Sustainability Education Policy
Author: Katrien Van Poeck
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2018-12-07
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1351401386

This timely collection surveys and critiques studies of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) policy since the mid-1990s. The volume draws on a wide range of policy studies and syntheses to provide readers with insights into the international genealogy and priorities of ESE policy. Editors and contributors call for renewed attention to the possibilities for future directions in light of previously published work and innovations in scholarship. They also offer critical commentary on the evolution of research trends, approaches and findings. Including a wide range of examples of ESE policy and policy research, the book draws on studies of educational initiatives and legislation, policy making processes and rhetoric, ideological orthodoxy and critique, curriculum making and educational theory, globalisation and neoliberalism, climate change and environmental worldviews, and much more. In addition, introductory commentary from the editors traces how ESE researchers have dealt with key trends, complexities and issues in the policy-practice-research nexus both conceptually and empirically. Throughout the collection, contributions illustrate how researchers might reimagine and reinvigorate policy research on ESE, including how working with other fields and diverse perspectives, ideas and expertise will aid the cross-fertilisation of a complex terrain of ideas, policy and practice. This book is based on a special issue of Environmental Education Research.

Neoliberalism and Environmental Education

Neoliberalism and Environmental Education
Author: Joseph Henderson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2018-10-08
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1315388766

This timely book situates environmental education within and against neoliberalism, the dominant economic, political, and cultural ideology impacting both education and the environment. Proponents of neoliberalism imagine and enact a world where the primary role of the state is to promote capital markets, and where citizens are defined as autonomous entrepreneurs who are to fulfill their needs via competition with, and surveillance of, others. These ideas interact with environmental issues in a number of ways and Neoliberalism and Environmental Education engages this interplay with chapters on how neoliberal ideas and actions shape environmental education in formal, informal and community contexts. International contributors consider these interactions in agriculture and gardening, state policy enactments, environmental science classrooms, ecoprisons, and in professional management and educational accountability programs. The collection invites readers to reexamine how economic policy and politics shape the cultural enactment of environmental education. This book was originally published as a special issue of Environmental Education Research.