Dismantling white supremacy in environmental studies and sciences: an argument for anti-racist and decolonizing pedagogies

Abstract

Many academic disciplines are presently striving to reveal and dismantle structures of domination by working to reform and reimagine their curricula, and the ethics and values that underpin classroom settings. This trend is impelled by momentum from the Black Lives Matter movement in tandem with a worldwide call from Indigenous scholars and their allies for more equality in research and epistemological plurality. We contribute to such efforts through applying perspective and analysis concerning anti-racist and decolonized approaches to teaching environmental studies and sciences (ESS). This article discusses the opportunities and challenges of embracing a decolonized and anti-racist approach with an emphasis on courses in higher education in North America. We conclude with guidance for educators about strategies for incorporating such approaches.

A Clear and Present Pedagogy: Teaching About Planetary Crisis (When You're in a Planetary Crisis)

“…2021; Pihkala 2020a, 2020b; Ray 2020; Russell and Oakley 2017). These concerns join other well‐worn critiques, including extensive work by scholars of environmental justice, documenting severe blind spots in the framing and formation of mainstream environmental curricula and troubling legacies with respect to race, class, gender, Indigenous self‐determination, and social inequities more broadly (Bratman and DeLince 2022; Curnow and Helferty 2018; Finney 2014; Holifield et al. 2009; Tuck et al.…”

“…To this end, we illustrate how eclectic traditions of radical critique, including pedagogical interventions by radical scholars themselves, are being mobilised to shape diverse educational responses to intensifying planetary change. Building on observations noting the "radicalizing power of climate science" (Klein 2019:23; see also Castree 2017;Stein et al 2022), and amid ongoing efforts to reform environmental education to address the complicities and exclusions perpetuated in more mainstream approaches (Andreotti 2021;Bratman and DeLince 2022;Curnow and Helferty 2018;Stein 2019;Stein et al 2017;Tuck et al 2014), we examine a peculiar alignment of conditions: circumstances prompting some educators to seek out ways of teaching capable of fostering political horizons better matched to the radical implications of contemporary ecological devastations. As educators and students come together to confront the momentous nature of these crises-making explicit precisely the sorts of radical implications long foregrounded by critical geographers as core features of the historical present-what kinds of political imaginations are being forged through these encounters?…”

“…Building on observations noting the “radicalizing power of climate science” (Klein 2019:23; see also Castree 2017; Stein et al. 2022), and amid ongoing efforts to reform environmental education to address the complicities and exclusions perpetuated in more mainstream approaches (Andreotti 2021; Bratman and DeLince 2022; Curnow and Helferty 2018; Stein 2019; Stein et al. 2017; Tuck et al.…”

Forging just ecologies: 25 years of urban long-term ecological research collaboration

“…This does not deny that people have inherited characteristics, but that the hierarchy exploiting those characteristics, such as skin color or other aspects of physiognomy, is entirely a social product. In the United States, the hierarchy is derived from the ideology of white supremacy (Pulido 2015 ; Bratman and DeLince 2022 ). In other countries, light-complexioned people are afforded higher social status, regardless of any racial classification.…”

Doing environmental justice: Prospects for sustainable engagement—From classroom to fieldwork

“…These prospects speak to how we can diversify environmental studies. However, there remain significant obstacles in the power relationships, institutional authority, and culture, as well as how non-campus places can be sites for learning and engagement (Bratman and DeLince, 2022; Taylor et al, 2022; Miriti et al, 2020; Trisos et al, 2021; Rudd et al, 2021; Lerback et al, 2022). These prospects do not require large sums of money but rather require the will, perseverance, community, and collectives to engage and transform our futures.…”