Rewilding Technology

Abstract

This paper is rooted in the ecological crisis of our contemporary world. Rather than rejecting educational technology (edtech) as too environmentally damaging to use, it draws on critical utopian approaches, feminist science fiction and conservation projects to suggest ‘rewilding’ as a frame for designing and using edtech with a view to ameliorating technology’s long-term inequitable planetary impact. After briefly describing projects for rewilding nature, the paper turns to the specifics of rewilding edtech. It first highlights pragmatic suggestions for more sustainable edtech practices. It then suggests that the concept of ‘sustainability’ limits current practices, and proposes that a more radical and utopian rewilding can herald an education beyond sustainability. Rewilding edtech prioritises decelerating and degrowth, regenerating and relating, hospicing dying worlds and birthing new possibilities.

Bildung für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung im Umbruch?

“…But are these kinds of change sufficient for the multiple crises we are currently facing? In this chapter, aligning with an emerging body of critical work on the nexus of educational technology (edtech) and degrowth, low tech or other systemic transformations, my response is: no (see, e.g., Grünberger, 2021;Grünberger et al, 2021;Macgilchrist, 2021;Scherrer, 2022;Selwyn, 2021;Selwyn et al, 2020). The kind of research and edtech noted in the previous paragraph, which arguably takes an "instrumental approach" to ESD , does not address the planetary dimensions.…”

“…To imagine justiceoriented approaches to new ways of making and using edtech, I have written about "rewilding" technology. Rewilding edtech focuses on deceleration and degrowth, on regeneration and decolonial relations, on newness amidst the toxic debris of the world (Macgilchrist, 2021).…”

The critical study of digital platforms and infrastructures: Current issues and new agendas for education technology research

“…For example, the mining of cobalt, an essential mineral in the production of rechargeable batteries, has serious environmental and social impacts in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, where children as young as six years old work in dirty and dangerous artisanal mines (Faber et al, 2017). In fact, many education researchers now argue there is a need to move beyond the idea of as any notion of sustaining current practices would continue to wreak social and environmental havoc (Facer & Selwyn, 2021;Macgilchrist, 2021). This has led to the digital degrowth and rewilding movements, which call for a radical rethink of how we are using educational technologies.…”