Synopsis
The importance of diverse activities, skills development and reflexivity about writing for everyday learning processes is widely accepted in educational scholarship. Yet the study of associated practices of composing, recording, inscribing and communicating environmental knowledge has not yet received sustained attention in environmental education research.
In order to develop critical understandings of the role of writing in environmental learning and ecological knowledge production, this study investigated written records elaborated by a group of citizen scientists tracking and documenting the migration of the monarch butterfly in Mexico. Informed by insights from New Literacy Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis, the thesis offers ethnographic insights into their writing practices as follows.
First, through a focus on socio-cultural practices, the research developed understandings of how lay people participate in the construction of ecological knowledge as they write reports on monarch butterfly migration. In addition, an intertextual analysis of their texts was linked to the sociocultural conditions of production, and considered how the texts were produced, circulated and consumed. Next, key aspects highlighted in the study included a focus on the linguistic features of texts related to the decisions that authors made about the use of a particular vocabulary, its formal structure, and phrasing. The study also afforded insights into how the writing of reports related to situated knowledge production, through interviews and participatory observation with the authors.
Data from each study phase helps develop an analysis of the role of social and cultural settings, and the material and cultural resources available to citizen scientists. Key findings in this instance reveal that instead of producing simple scientific reports, these particular citizen scientists prefer to compose hybrid documents, incorporating data about migration using scientific language, as well as own local narratives, stories, and social experiences. In this, the key features of a text’s construction are strongly indexed to expressions of interest and concern, and accessible cultural and linguistic resources. Such results underscore that the cultural context of participants matters, as does the way authors appropriate language and scientific knowledge in diverse ways, alongside the importance of their own experiences in the construction of situated meanings about nature.
Acknowledgement
The original name of the thesis was “Escribir y participar en una investigación ambiental colectiva: el caso de Correo Real”. Special thanks to Judy Kalman, my supervisor, and to Rocío Treviño for her support through the development of this research.
Supervisors: Judy Kalman
Conferring University: CINVESTAV, Department of Educational Research.
Year of award: 2019