Unsettling environmental management: reflections from two environmental studies graduates in Singapore

Abstract

Environmental and sustainability programmes in higher education have gained traction over the last several decades. More-than-disciplinary epistemologies and innovative pedagogies promise transformational learning to grapple with contemporary environmental challenges. Environmental programmes thus have implicit messages of social change. Evaluation, thus far, have tended to be methodologically partial, and neglects the student voice. In this paper, we present our co/autoethnography as two graduates of the Bachelor of Environmental Studies programme from the National University of Singapore. We critically reflect on our experiences in a capstone Environmental Studies module. Highlighting orthordoxies around discourses of ‘behaviour’, the valorising of quantitative knowledges, and the ‘tyranny of relevance’, we argue these neoliberal scripts limits the programme’s potential as an agent of social change. In concluding, we make the case for a more critical environmental education.

Keywords:

• critical thinking
• environmental education
• epistemology
• autoethnography
• Singapore

Acknowledgements

We dedicate this paper to our professors – Chew Fook Tim, Peter Ng and Leo Tan for their astute company during the seminars, and for encouraging us in this endeavour. Special thanks to Renee Lau and Priscilla Yeo for supporting the ENV4101 seminars, and for their help during our 4 years at NUS. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Notes

1. Launched in 2011, the BES programme offers a 4-year direct-honours degree in Environmental Studies, and is the first programme of its kind in Singapore and Southeast Asia. According to its office, the BES programme offers students ‘a broad-based and interdisciplinary approach to effectively address the societal and scientific needs for understanding complex, modern environmental issues’ (NUS 2015). Upon induction into the BES programme, students undertake a common multidisciplinary curriculum in their first two years, comprising modules from economics, geography, chemistry, biology, calculus and environmental engineering. From their third year onwards, BES students choose to specialise in either Environmental Biology or Geography. Notwithstanding, students from one specialisation are not restricted from taking modules from the other specialisation, provided they fulfil prerequisites (or can get faculty approval). Throughout the four-years, students also read compulsory BES-specific modules (or as we call them, ‘E-N-V modules’), which is environment-centric, e.g. environmental law, economics and policy.

2. We conceptualised this paper at the beginning of our final semester, completing a first draft of this paper before we graduated in July 2015.