Becoming animate in education: immanent materiality and outdoor learning for sustainability

Abstract

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A Walk in the Park: Considering Practice for Outdoor Environmental Education Through an Immanent Take on the Material Turn

“…Indeed, some recent academic conferences are now dedicated to this concept, such as "Nature Connections…an interdisciplinary conference to examine routes to nature connectedness" (Nature Connections, 2015). Elsewhere we argue that a literal disconnection is impossible as we are of the same materials, forces and energies of the Earth (Clarke & Mcphie, 2014). Therefore, a re-connection is also impossible.…”

“…So, instead of performing an extended literature review on this emerging world view (see Clarke & Mcphie, 2014 for an initial exploration of process-relational philosophy in outdoor environmental education for sustainability) we shall attempt to explain this alternative ontological paradigm through a pragmatic approach that focuses on a single outdoor learning session of encounters in a park. Each encounter has a story to tell about our embodied material intra-relation with/of the world.…”

“…This has great implications for the manner in which we conceive of education for, as Spuybroek (2011, p. 182) notes, "we are not recipients but participants". There is great potential, then, in exploring animistic ways of seeing in environmental education (Clarke, 2014;Clarke & Mcphie, 2014.…”

“…More concisely, the material turn has been highlighted as being of particular significance to environmental education as a ready paradigm that decolonialises, dehierarchicalises and deterritorialises essentialist conceptions of the human relationship to the environment (Clarke & Mcphie, 2014. These properties are of particular importance in overcoming the limitations of sustainability education practice that straightforwardly seeks to tackle the crisis of perception of disconnection from nature.…”

“…(Gough, 2015, p. 160) Previously we have sought to demonstrate how a move from a metaphysics of transcendence, to a metaphysics of immanence in environmental education practice can help overcome the limitations of, and possible damage resultant from, pointillist (i.e. emphasising subjects and objects which are then connected) theory and practice, suggesting the need for a praxis of participation and performativity that moves beyond these essentialist notions (Clarke & Mcphie, 2014). …”