Ecology of Encounters: the Logic of Composting as an Educational Response to Environmental Collapse
Abstract The article examines the interconnectedness of human, non-human, and environmental relations within the posthumanist discourse amid the ecological crisis. It reminisces about an environmental awakening during the 1970s due to the energy crisis, chemical pollution, and the nascent field of environmental studies, setting a backdrop for the exploration of how current education can tackle ecological, environmental, and climate challenges. It critically engages with posthumanist thought, advocating for a shift from human-centric to more inclusive relationality that encompasses the non-human and the environment. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s notion of “compostist” versus “posthumanist,” the article argues for an embodied, entangled relationality responsive to living in a damaged world, critiquing humanist traditions for contributing to ecological crises through prioritizing humans over other life forms. At its core, the article proposes an “ecology of encounters” as an educational framework, emphasizing the generative potential of encounters extending beyond human interactions to include the more-than-human. It suggests education can cultivate interconnectedness and mutual transformation, challenging assumptions of human separateness and superiority. The text explores theoretical perspectives like new materialism, actor-network theory, and critical animal studies, advocating for educational practices attuned to complex, dynamic life relations. By likening education to composting, it posits that education can transform, enabling new subjectivities and relationalities for navigating environmental breakdown. In summary, the article calls for reimagining education in response to the ecological crisis. By adopting a compost relationality recognizing all life forms’ interconnectedness, it contends that education is pivotal in fostering relationships and understandings vital for addressing post-climate change era challenges, necessitating a radical reevaluation of the human-nature divide and a commitment to transformative educational practices.
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Bingham, C., & Sidorkin, A. (2004). No education without relation. Peter Lang Publishers.
Braidotti, R. (2019). Posthuman knowledge. Kindle edition.
Coole, D., & Frost, S. (2010). New materialism: Ontology, agency, and politics. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11cw2wk
Dixon, J. B., & Cassidy, E. (1998). Virtual futures; Cyberotics, technology and posthuman pragmatism. Routledge.
Gilbert, S. F., Sapp, J., & Tauber, A. I. (2012). A symbiotic view of life: We have never been individuals. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 87(4), 325-341. https://doi.org/10.1086/668166
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the chthulucene. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11cw25q
Haraway, D. (2017). Symbiogenesis, sympoiesis, and art science activisms for staying with the trouble. In A. Lowenhaupt Tsing, N. Bubandt, E. Gan & H. A. Swanson (Eds.), Arts of living on a damaged planet: Ghosts and monsters of the Anthropocene (loc 3418-3859). Kindle edition.
Harman, G. (2018). Object-oriented ontology: A new theory of everything. Pelican. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.997
Horlacher, R. (2015). The Educated Subject and the German Concept of Bildung: A Comparative Cultural History. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315814667
Jackson, Z. I. (2015). Outer worlds: The persistence of race in movement “beyond the human.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 21(2-3), 2015-2018.
Latour, B. (2007). Reassembling the social: An introduction to Actor Network Theory. Oxford University Press.
Latour, B. (2017). Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime. Polity Press.
Latour, B. (2018). Down to Earth: Politics in the new climatic regime. Polity.
MacCormack, P. (Ed.). (2014). The animal catalyst: Towards ahuman theory. Bloomsbury.
Machado de Oliveira, V. (2021). Hospicing modernity: Facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. North Atlantic Books.
Margulis, L. (1998). Symbiotic planet. Basic Books.
Masschelein, J., & Simons, M. (2013). In defence of the school. A public issue. E-ducation, Culture & Society Publishers.
Massumi, B. (2015). Politics of Affect. Polity.
Mika, C. (2017). Indigenous education and the metaphysics of presence: A worlded philosophy. Routledge. Kindle edition. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315727547
Noddings, N. (2013). Caring: A relational approach to ethics and moral education. 2nd Edition. University of California Press.
Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and the mastery of nature. Routledge.
Säfström, C. A. (2023). Education for everyday life: A Sophistical practice of teaching. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4109-4
Semetsky, I., & Masny, D. (Eds.) (2013). Deleuze and Education. University of Edinburgh Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748669455
Todd, S. (2022). Reframing Education Beyond the Bounds of Strong Instrumentalism: Educational Practices, Sensory Experience, and Relational Aesthetics. Educational Theory, 72(3), 333-347. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12534
Todd, S. (2023). The touch of the present: Educational encounters, aesthetics and the politics of the senses. SUNY Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781438492193
Todd, Z. (2016). Relationships. Society for Cultural Anthropology. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/relationships
Vance, G. (2022) Nomads: How climate migration will reshape our world. Flatiron Press.
Wilson, H. F. (2017). On Geography and Encounter: Bodies, Borders, and Difference. Progress in Human Geography, 4(4), 451-471. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132516645958
Yunkaporta, T. (2019). Sand Talk: How Indigenous thinking can save the world. Text Publishing.
Zalloua, Z. A. (2021). Being posthuman: Ontologies of the future. Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/97813501511233
Todd, S. (2024). Ecology of Encounters: the Logic of Composting as an Educational Response to Environmental Collapse. Teoría De La Educación. Revista Interuniversitaria, 36(2), 43–58. https://doi.org/10.14201/teri.31915
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