Developing environmental agency and engagement through young people’s fiction

Abstract

This article explores the extent to which stories for young people encourage environmental engagement and a sense of agency. Our discussion is informed by the work of Paul Ricoeur (on hermeneutics and narrative), John Dewey (on primacy of experience) and John Macmurray (on personal agency in society). We understand fiction reading about place as hermeneutical, that is, interpreting understanding by combining what is read with what is experienced. We investigate this view through examples of four children’s writers: Ernest Thompson Seton, Kenneth Grahame, Michelle Paver and Philip Pullman. We draw attention to notions of critical dialogue and active democratic citizenship. With a focus on the educational potential of this material for environmental discussions that lead to deeper understandings of place and environment, we examine whether the examples consistently encourage the belief that young people can become agents for change. We also consider whether the concept of heroic resister might encourage young people to overcome peer pressure and peer cultures that marginalize environmental activism. We conclude by recommending the focused discussion of fiction to promote environmental learning; and for writers to engage more with themes of environmental responsibility and agency.

Keywords:

• environment
• experience of place
• young people’s fiction
• moral development
• citizenship
• responsibility
• agency

Notes

1. From his notebook, displayed in the Truro Museum, 2007.

2. The outdoor theme has been developed in stories by others. Grey Owl (1935, 1937), a hunter‐trapper environmentalist in Canada, featured wilderness and its animals. The scouting movement and the philosophically more cooperative Woodcraft Folk (Paul 1951) linked story to practice. Other writers have used Seton’s technique of animal biography to good effect: Church (1941) with squirrels, Adams (1972) with rabbits and Horwood (1980) with moles.

3. http://www.newlanark.org/download/upload.46.rtf.

4. Some of these stories can be found at http://fiction4children.blogspot.com/2009/08/jake.html.