Undisciplining Environmental Communication Pedagogy: Toward Environmental and Epistemic Justice in the Interdisciplinary Sustainability Classroom

Abstract

This article moves beyond an understanding of environmental communication as merely the “translation” of scientific knowledge for the general public and advocates for environmental science and sustainability (ESS) educators to understand environmental communication as a critical practice with complex social, cultural, and political stakes. Due to the interconnectedness of environmental issues and social, political, and cultural contexts, environmental communication pedagogy is an important site of both environmental and epistemic justice. This article addresses the question: What forms of environmental communication pedagogy contribute to dynamic communication competencies for students while also promoting environmental and epistemic justice? The authors begin with a literature review of environmental communication and environmental justice research. Subsequently, they develop a theoretical argument advocating for an “undisciplining” of environmental communication pedagogy to promote critical thinking about the exclusionary politics of environmental knowledge production and communication. In doing so, the authors advocate for cultivating dynamic and ethically engaged real-world literacies for students through social and participatory media, including Wikipedia and podcasts. The article concludes with two sample assignments that instructors can adapt to their classrooms.

Indigenous Intergenerational Resilience and Lifelong Learning: Critical Leverage Points for Deep Sustainability Transformation in Turbulent Times

“…However, findings also indicate a kind of onto-epistemological rupture as newly learned ontological understandings (understandings of the nature of reality) start to diverge from lived epistemologies because of the diverse political ecologies or daily realities that people inhabit [27]. At the Summit, the emergence of onto-epistemological rupture or tension was most evident in the activities aimed at facilitating interpeoples and intergenerational resilience [43].…”

“…Within state structures of "capitalist accumulation" [36], lifelong learning has seemingly become synonymous with knowledge and information acquisition, with little apparent critique of the dominant cultural power relations and interests underlying knowledge production. Relatedly, Byrnes et al [27] (p. 30) note that many dominant environmental wellbeing strategies do little to challenge consumption patterns, "viewing environmental crises solely as challenges for science and technology". At best, such initiatives are oriented towards "shallow sustainability", which refers to targeting "often highly tangible but essentially weak leverage points…with little potential for [effecting] transformative change" [28] (p. 30).…”

“…Fortunately, critics, including sustainability scholars, have noted the fragmented and individualistic approach to knowledge acquisition' within modernist neo-liberally driven world economies [27,32], which contributes to our psychic fracturing and, as Byrnes et al note, our "collective inability to tell a coherent story about how we got here, where we need to go, and the paths we must forge to get there" [27] (p. 2). Recognizing deteriorating human social and human-environmental relationships to be largely a crisis of disconnect underpinned by reductionism and capitalism, in recent years, a significant number of western sustainability [27,37,38] and transformative sustainability educators [39][40][41][42] have rallied to develop theoretical frameworks and pedagogical practices that restore human and human-environmental relationality. Among other things, these approaches have emphasized the importance of holistic pedagogies which promote deep cultural shifts in ways of perceiving and being, the critical importance of political ecology, and the multilevel nature of change [27,39,41,43].…”

“…Recognizing deteriorating human social and human-environmental relationships to be largely a crisis of disconnect underpinned by reductionism and capitalism, in recent years, a significant number of western sustainability [27,37,38] and transformative sustainability educators [39][40][41][42] have rallied to develop theoretical frameworks and pedagogical practices that restore human and human-environmental relationality. Among other things, these approaches have emphasized the importance of holistic pedagogies which promote deep cultural shifts in ways of perceiving and being, the critical importance of political ecology, and the multilevel nature of change [27,39,41,43]. These pedagogical developments have coincided with the burgeoning digital economy and the proliferation of online learning, which tends to be more strongly associated with western cognitive approaches to learning, information acquisition, and individual behaviour change [44].…”

“…The cultural-ecological and climate crisis, and a growing urgency to limit the carbon footprint; • Economic recession and uncertainty, and increasingly tightly targeted funding favouring reductionist forms of science and techno-rationalism which purport knowledge to be objective and neutral [27];…”