Refusing to settle for pigeons and parks: urban environmental education in the age of neoliberalism

Abstract

The institutionalization of neoliberal reforms that began to take hold in the 1970s were by and large ‘common-sense governance’ by the 1990s. While the growing predominance of neoliberal discourse and marginalization of alternatives in environmental education is disconcerting on the level of policy, this paper explores an equally troubling phenomenon: the deepening of a neoliberal logic, such that it pervades the way we understand and relate with the world. Specifically, this paper draws upon an experience at a recent environmental education conference whereby participants were invited to explore three place-based inquiries inspired by Aldo Leopold in an urban environment: what is happening here? what has happened here? and what should happen here? Although the intention of the workshop was to explore some of the challenges involved in implementing a critical pedagogy of place, many of the participants seemed unwilling to criticize the way in which an urban downtown core suppresses the more-than-human aspects of place. We contend that environmental education is a key arena for debating the limits of neoliberalism and explore how these well-intentioned, but ultimately uncritical responses, run the risk of being appropriated by the ecologically destructive logic-informing neoliberal natures.

Keywords:

• place-based education
• urban environmental education
• wilderness
• wildness
• decolonization

Notes

1. Although the comments employed in this article are based on actual statements, we would like to address them as representative of ‘common sentiments’ that we have encountered within the field. This article is not aiming to single out any specific individuals, rather we are focused on thinking carefully about what we do and say while asking questions about our shared assumptions and practices.

2. We acknowledge that we are skirting a rather flummoxed distinction here between wilderness/wild/wildness and nature/natural world. Our sense is that the term ‘nature/natural world’ has become a nebulous catchall that often subsumes the term ‘wilderness,’ such that metropolitan parkettes, suburban ‘green spaces,’ the Gobi desert, and the great ice sheets covering Greenland are all bundled into a single convoluted and useless category.

3. Despite these sweeping historical generalizations and the establishment of neoliberalism as the most powerful ideological project to arise in recent decades, neoliberalism should not be considered either inevitable or necessarily hegemonic. As McCarthy and Prudham (2004) have reminded us, neoliberalism has been roundly criticized and resistance efforts have responded to its diverse strategies with equally context contingent and localized forms of refusal and dissent (for case studies see Heynen et al. 2007).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.