Refusing to settle for pigeons and parks: urban environmental education in the age of neoliberalism

Derby, Michael W.; Piersol, Laura; Blenkinsop, Sean

doi:10.1080/13504622.2014.994166

Cited by 37 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…This objectification is reinforced when nature falls within the language of corporate enterprises (e.g. Rolston 2015), instituting management or mastery over environment (Bonnett 1999;Derby, Piersol, and Blenkinsop 2015). This process results in modes of thinking and acting that are counterproductive to solving environmental problems (Wee and Mason 2016).…”

Section: Disputing Inclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While ethical considerations about economic and social equality dominate ESD (Kopnina 2012), animal welfare issues or deep ecology are marginalized (Kopnina and Gjerris 2015). Essentially, much of sustainable development rhetoric exhibits a robust anthropocentric bias (Crist 2012;Cafaro and Primack 2014;Cafaro 2015;Terborgh 2015;Kopnina 2016c), also present in ESD (Bonnett 1999;Kopnina 2012Kopnina , 2013cKopnina , 2014bKopnina , 2015aKopnina and Meijers 2014;Derby, Piersol, and Blenkinsop 2015;Kopnina and Cherniak 2016). As many ESD researchers have noted, due to this anthropocentrism as well as a number of other factors, sustainable development needs to be approached with caution.…”

Section: Privileged Discourses and Alternative Ways Of Addressing (Unmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teaching Sustainable Development Goals in The Netherlands: a critical approach

Kopnina

2017

Environmental Education Research

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Faculty social and Behavioural sciences, institute cultural anthropology and development sociology, leiden university, leiden, the netherlands ABSTRACT One of the main outcomes of the Rio + 20 Conference was the agreement to set Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The most common terms in the17 goals are economic growth, resilience and inclusion, all of which are critically examined in this article. This article discusses how these goals are reflected within existing sustainability programs at a vocational college, and at the undergraduate and postgraduate university levels in The Netherlands. Within all three institutions the author has integrated lectures on sustainable development with specific emphasis on the SDGs. The aim was to engage students in critical discussion, allowing reflection on the issues and paradoxes that characterise the larger discourse of sustainability. The case studies illustrate how curriculum aimed at this awareness can be developed stimulating the students' recognition of critique of economic development, inclusion and resilience. As a result of the courses, the students were able to develop a certain degree of critical, imaginative, and innovative thinking about sustainable development in general and the SDGs in particular. Cradle to cradle and circular economy approaches were named as more promising for current production systems. This article concludes with the recommendation as to how the SDGs can be critically taught.

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Section: Disputing Inclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Privileged Discourses and Alternative Ways Of Addressing (Unmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Sustainable Development Goals in The Netherlands: a critical approach

Kopnina

2017

Environmental Education Research

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“…Urban and suburban greenery is presently "sustained" by constant "management" (Kopnina 2013(Kopnina , 2015b) that diminishes urban biodiversity (McDonough and Braungart 2002). As a result, much of the urban "wildlife" is restricted to "pigeons and parks" (Derby, Piersol, and Blenkinsop 2015). The artificiality of controlled environments also appears to fit the urban dwellers' sense of modern esthetics.…”

Section: Reflection and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plastic flowers and mowed lawns: the exploration of everyday unsustainability

Kopnina

2018

Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and

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In human-controlled environments and in cultivated landscapes, the plants accommodate social, cultural and economic needs. This article will focus on the use of plants for agriculture, urban planning, forestry, environmental education and indoor decoration in The Netherlands. This exploration, based on literature review and observations, reveals mostly anthropocentric, instrumental and unsustainable practices. In urban landscapes plants are pushed to the margins, if not entirely eradicated. This article shows that moral recognition of plants is an ethical imperative, which is also critically important to achieve environmental sustainability. In line with ecocentric ethics and in the interest of long-term sustainability, this article suggests alternative, more ethical and sustainable ways of relating to plants in The Netherlands and beyond.

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“…Critics of such approaches, however, worry that the loss of an objective "nature" will undermine our ability to contest environmental degradation altogether (see e g., Derby, Piersol, & Blenkinsop, 2015). Yet abandoning the overarching conceptual category does not necessitate abandoning focus on the specific entities designated by this category, nor does it mean, for all but the most extreme constructivists, giving up the conviction that there exists a biophysical reality (to some degree) independent of human perception, as some critics have interpreted (e.g., Kidner, 2000).…”

Section: Toward a Political Ecology Of Environmental Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connection with nature is an oxymoron: A political ecology of “nature-deficit disorder”

Fletcher

2016

The Journal of Environmental Education

106

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It has become commonplace to argue that greater "connection with nature" is needed to mobilize support for both biodiversity conservation and environmentalism generally, and hence to call for more effective environmental education to achieve this. I employ a political ecology lens to problematize this increasingly conventional wisdom by highlighting the ways in which a sense of separation from "nature" is in fact paradoxically reinforced by the very environmental education and related practices employed to overcome it. In response, I call for greater interrogation of the concept of "nature" as well as the political-economic structures driving environmental degradation.

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Refusing to settle for pigeons and parks: urban environmental education in the age of neoliberalism

Cited by 37 publications

References 12 publications

Teaching Sustainable Development Goals in The Netherlands: a critical approach

Teaching Sustainable Development Goals in The Netherlands: a critical approach

Plastic flowers and mowed lawns: the exploration of everyday unsustainability

Connection with nature is an oxymoron: A political ecology of “nature-deficit disorder”

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