Challenging amnesias: re-collecting feminist new materialism/ecofeminism/climate/education

Abstract

This paper discusses the apparent amnesia with regard to insights manifested in ecofeminist thought and applies a re-collective analysis to thinking on the implications of an ecofeminist new materialism for contemporary environmental education research, and curriculum practice. We engage with a conversation between feminist new materialism and the tropes of ecofeminism at this very unusual time in human history, making visible such interactions. Drawing attention to this and other apparent amnesias and, arguing from a genealogical perspective, we argue the scholarly and conceptual disruption caused by rapidly changing environmental (hence social and cultural) conditions can be fruitfully understood and analysed through a reconceived new materialist ecofeminism. This is especially important given the unequal impact of the climate emergency on women and the continued absence of a truly coherent focus on women’s interests – another amnesia – at this moment when the climate dominates all human and other than human life. In exploring the relationships between feminist new materialism, ecofeminism and the more-than-human, we theoretically + materially consider the conceptual challenges of confronting the climate emergency as viewed through the lens of articulating feminisms; and we promote possibilities for further conceptual and practical environmental education research.

Keywords:

• Ecofeminism
• feminist new materialism
• environmental education
• women
• climate
• more-than-human

Acknowledgements

We would like to sincerely thank the anonymous reviewers together with David Clarke, Jamie Mcphie and Alan Reid for their constructive suggestions for strengthening our arguments. We are very grateful for this feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Annette Gough

Annette Gough is Professor of Science and Environmental Education in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies and the School of Education at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Her teaching, research and publications focus on curriculum policy and development in science and environmental education, feminist, more-than-human, critical and poststructuralist research, research methodologies, and, most recently, child centered disaster risk reduction and resilience education. She is a past president and life fellow of the Australian Association for Environmental Education and co-editor of the Springer book series International Explorations in Outdoor and Environmental Education.

Hilary Whitehouse

Hilary Whitehouse is Associate Professor, Deputy Dean of the Graduate Research School, Fellow of the Cairns Institute, and a member of the University's Sustainable Development Working Group at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia. Her teaching, research and publications focus on science education, environmental education, education for sustainability, and research education - particularly change education, new ecofeminism and feminist new materialism. She is an executive editor of the Journal of Environmental Education, a member of the international advisory board for the Australian Journal of Environmental Education, and a life member of the Australian Association for Environmental Education.