Reimagining environmental education within academia: Storytelling and dialogue as lived ecofeminist politics

ABSTRACT

During this time of ecological crises, ecofeminist theory and practice is vital for challenging ecological and social injustice. We begin this article by briefly unpacking the critique of essentialism that has had a silencing and divisive effect on the field of ecofeminism. Through this exploration we reorient away from essentializing or discrediting ecofeminist work and toward maintaining a continual reflexivity as we navigate ahead. Our personal experience is offered as a type of lived politics. Through dialogue, storytelling, and intersectional analysis we reimagine the academic space, each other, and our relations with the natural world. We share our stories to illustrate how ecofeminism has helped us to revise what is possible and powerful in our environmental education practice.

KEYWORDS:

• academia
• dialogue
• ecofeminism
• intersectionality
• story

Notes

1. See Muhs, Niemann, Gonzalez, and Harris (2012) for important work on how this type of oppression intersects with race and class in destructive ways.

2. To clarify, dialogue can only work if all involved are willing to address power imbalances and forms of oppression or privilege being enacted within the group itself.

3. Part and parcel of this is making sure that access to wild spaces is available for all.

4. Classes in this program are for freshman undergraduates and are capped at 25 students. For more information about our program, visit: www.nau.edu/sus.

5. The public narrative is a tool adapted from the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) grassroots organizing tradition that is in use within our academic program. The First Year Seminar Action Learning Team Program at Northern Arizona University calls upon faculty, graduate facilitators, peer facilitators, and first year undergraduates to engage in democratic, community-based collaborative action (Coles & Scarnati, 2015; Curtis, 2011; 2012). The public narrative helps students build relationships and identify their passions.

6. Virtually all topics can be discussed in an instrumental manner that does not challenge the status quo, not only those directly focused on nature.