Hope and grief in the human geography classroom

ABSTRACT

Human geographers engage students in learning about a world characterized by environmental and social disarray. It follows that our students are exposed to deeply confronting topics: climate change, global inequality, food insecurity, and racism, to name a few. Prompted by scholarly debate on the effects of painful emotions elicited by public climate change communication, we asked human geography students at the University of Wollongong about their experiences of our teaching. Via focus group discussions, we invited them to consider which emotions “belong” in our classrooms and how difficult emotions might be managed to minimize harm. The students explained that they expected to feel distress as part-and-parcel of their chosen area of study and found being confronted a productive experience. With regard to pedagogical practice, they considered the responsibility for managing difficult course-related emotions to be distributed, and identified a range of strategies to prevent painful emotions from corroding their wellbeing. Some of these strategies, particularly making room for difficult emotions – by acknowledging, holding onto, and working through them in our classrooms – will be challenging as more universities turn to online teaching.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion
• teaching
• university
• climate change
• social justice
• trauma

Acknowledgments

We thank the Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space (ACCESS) at the University of Wollongong for funding this study. We extend our appreciation to the students who shared their valuable insights during focus group discussions, and to the reviewers and special issue editors for their helpful feedback. Our thanks also go to Professor Lesley Head for her generosity in allowing us to borrow from the title of her book, Hope and Grief in the Anthropocene.

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data are not available.

Notes

1. Our university’s ethics application asks: “Does the project involve the risk of emotional distress, social or financial harm, [or] physical harm…Consideration should also be given to how any risks for researchers will be managed”.

2. We follow Cowles' (1988) description of a sensitive topic as any topic that may potentially elicit distressing emotions.

3. “The grief felt in relation to experienced or anticipated ecological losses” (Cunsolo & Ellis, 2018, p. 275).

4. The cumulative effect of exposure to traumatic material, and of making empathic connections based on trauma narratives (Agllias, 2012).

5. Concerns include that they limit academic freedom, infantilize students, avoid challenging students, and allow them to avoid required tasks. See Stringer (2016) for discussion.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space (ACCESS), University of Wollongong.