Climate change and education in shades of blue: between darkness and light with agential realism and object-oriented ontology

Abstract

Climate change education is infused with images of light. Scholars in the field tend to emphasize hope, sustainability, and solution. They foreground knowledgeable humans who construct better worlds and thereby bind themselves to modern understandings of human being and becoming. I draw on agential realism and object-oriented ontology to contest the metaphor of light, the focus on hope, and the modern premises they rely on—particularly in the context of massive sustainability crises such as climate change. The ethical dimension of agential realism and object-oriented ontology—their call for care and solidarity—offers an alternative to hope, one that aligns well with Kropotkin’s concept of mutual aid. Instead of opening a pathway to sustainability, I understand education as a sphere of human being and becoming that should have its foundation on care and solidarity. As an alternative to the metaphor of light, I develop a metaphor for education in times of crisis: an education ‘in shades of blue.’ Blue is an existential color. It relates to dystopian and utopian images, to issues of power and force, and to solidarity and care.

Keywords:

• Climate change education
• hope
• solidarity
• care
• mutual aid
• SDG 4: Quality education

Introduction

Education is considered key for tackling climate change (UNESCO 2010, 2020) and moving toward more sustainable communities (UN 2015). In a world impacted by climate change, education is assigned a crucial role—to be a light in the darkness. The question I raise in this article is whether education can measure up to this role and how exactly it can respond to climate change and other sustainability crises.

Education can be understood as the endeavor of being and becoming human (Ricken and Masschelein 2010). It is, hence, deeply intertwined with epistemological, ontological, and ethical perspectives. How we approach the idea of being human influences how we understand and frame education. In the Western world, educational thinking has been infused with enlightenment ideas (Ricken and Masschelein 2010). This is evident, for example, in the prevailing focus on knowledge, emancipation, and progression, which reflects—exactly—a quest for light (Stock 2021), and which sets rational, knowledgeable humans against the rest of the non-human world (usually perceived as passive and controllable). However, these ideals have been challenged in educational research and they work poorly in times of crises, upheavals, and ecosystem dissolutions, during which established structures give way and lifeworlds become less predictable.

Exploring education and its potential in times of crisis calls for philosophies that look beyond enlightenment images of the human and align with the present context of crisis. In this article, I draw on agential realism and object-oriented ontology, two philosophies that offer fruitful perspectives to examine education and, hence, human being and becoming—especially in times of crisis. Developed by Karen Barad, agential realism draws on insights from quantum physics. Object-oriented ontology is a rather diverse field, and I will discuss it primarily by drawing from Timothy Morton. These two philosophies are often subsumed under the new materialist paradigm (see e.g. Gamble, Hanan, and Nail 2019; Tompkins 2016) that opposes the traditional Western conception of matter as atomistic and passive (Gamble, Hanan, and Nail 2019). Both philosophies grant matter a form of agency, emphasize the enmeshment of the human with the non-human, and challenge the image of rational humans and their supremacy over other forms of being. In addition—and this is crucial for the perspective I develop in this article—these philosophies emphasize an ethics of care and solidarity.

Despite their commonalities, agential realism and object-oriented ontology present fundamentally different epistemological and ontological outlooks. Agential realism emphasizes process, relations, and knowing subjects, while object-oriented ontology is more inclined to form, highlights stability, autonomy, and essence, and assumes that the world cannot be known directly.¹ Both philosophies are established in environmental and sustainability education. Drawing on them in tandem, I aim to illustrate that there are multiple philosophies available that question the metaphor of light in educational thinking and offer an alternative view on education, especially in times of crisis.

I present two arguments. First, I argue that agential realism and object-oriented ontology challenge the image of knowledgeable humans capable of skillfully crafting better worlds. They expose a rift between the current educational ambitions to tackle climate change and the premises education rests on—between what we want education to do and what education can achieve—thereby problematizing education’s fascination with light and, eventually, the idea of educating for a specific purpose, such as sustainability. The alternative agential realism and object-oriented ontology offer, I suggest, is a Bildung-perspective: being and becoming human in a world rife with struggles and contingency.

Second, in a dystopic world and a world that humans can never fully master, agential realism and object-oriented ontology offer care and solidarity as a critical counterpoise. Care has been especially criticized as being merely therapeutic and overlooking the structural challenges that cause distress (Amsler 2011). My take is different. Understood as what Kropotkin (1902) called mutual aid, solidarity and care can contradict dominant, exploitative, and threatening forces. I suggest that care and solidarity can be the pillars of education in times of crisis. I address education broadly, involving formal, non-formal, and informal education and offer some implications for formal education.

Along with these two arguments, I develop an alternative metaphor for education that captures the context of crisis: an education ‘in shades of blue.’ The form of this metaphor is inspired by object-oriented ontology, in which metaphors arise from ascribing sensual qualities to an object that are unlikely, yet possible (Harman 2018). For the object of ‘education in times of crisis,’ the color blue can be one such quality. As I will point out, blue relates to utopia and dystopia, it resonates with issues of power and force, and it connects to unity and solidarity.²

First, I present my concern more thoroughly: I illustrate how, in climate change education, notions of light are intertwined with the discourse on hope and, ingrained in it, problematic, modern images of human being and becoming.

Climate change education and the issue with light

Educational thinking, Stock (2021) argues, is haunted by the metaphor of light. Indeed, any attempt to imagine education and educational aims, he states, easily slips into a dark–light dichotomy. With its focus on environmental flourishing and equity, environmental and sustainability education shares education’s general quest for light. The light of sustainability shines in the future as a promise of education—hence, an education for sustainability.

This light does not shine any less in the literature on climate change education. A supreme example is the discourse on hope. In times of great worry, such as climate change, hope is considered vital. Hope, as Li and Monroe (2019) highlight, is a positive feeling, associated with wellbeing, and capable of fostering purposeful actions. This line of thinking is often subsumed under the concept of ‘constructive hope’ (Ojala 2012, 2015), which, in addition to worrying about climate change and positing a positive emotional stance, underlines trust in actors and laypeople. Accordingly, Ojala (2016, 52) understands hope—because of its potential to trigger change and confront worry—as “a light in the darkness, or rather a light that illuminates the darkness.”

Much of the literature that links climate change education with hope relies on Snyder’s (2000, 2002) hope theory, which combines three elements: realistic goals, pathway thinking, and agency. Hope-focused climate change education is commonly rooted in these three dimensions. Ferguson (2022), for example, argues that education should foster positive visions of the future; Stevenson and Peterson (2015) highlight the need to inform students about the possible routes of action for climate change-related issues; and Li and Monroe (2019) emphasize trust in individual and collective efficacy.

These examples represent a larger body of research that has developed around visions of the future and trust in individual and collective action (see Baldwin, Pickering, and Dale 2022; Finnegan 2022; Trott 2020; Vandaele and Stålhammar 2022). Crucially, this literature is tangled with ideas of “solution” (Li and Monroe 2019, 1), “problem solving” (Kerret et al. 2020, 436), and notions of “sustainability” (Trott 2020, 532). The logic of hope, thus, tends to play on the idea of the rational human who is capable of envisioning and bringing about a better world.

Now, what if the future does not hold much light—or not for everybody? What if the future is darker than the present? These are not rhetorical questions. They acknowledge the reality of climate change: the loss of human and non-human lives, threatened livelihoods, rise in sea level, increased floods, heat waves, trauma, displacement, diseases, malnutrition, and the deepening of existing inequalities that go hand in hand with the development of new ones (IPCC 2023). Despite best efforts, the future may not hold the light one may hope for.

The field’s affinity with light is a difficult one. An ever-returning issue are wicked problems: unstructured problems that are complex and tangled with other sustainability issues, that cannot be solved based on existing knowledge, and that are embroiled in conflicting values and interests (Block, Goeminne, and Van Poeck 2018; Block, Van Poeck, and Östman 2019). Climate change—a ‘super wicked’ problem (Cross and Congreve 2021; Lazarus 2008)—blows up the scale of these challenges.

Since light is a problematic metaphor for climate change education in particular and education in times of crisis in general, the rest of this article attempts to move toward an alternative metaphor that allows to perceive education and its role differently. Recent publications have drawn attention to the darker side of human being and becoming. One example is dark pedagogy (Lysgaard and Bengtsson 2020; Lysgaard, Bengtsson, and Hauberg-Lund Laugesen 2019), which, among other things, draws on speculative realism to develop an education in dark times. Saari and Mullen (2020) introduce the concept of ‘dark place’ to discuss the uncanny nature of places. Other examples are Affifi’s (2020) aesthetic approach to darkness and Affifi and Christie’s (2019) account of a pedagogy of death. I do not aim to engage with darkness as such; yet, in line with this literature, I aim to overcome the focus on light in climate change education. To this end, I draw on agential realism and object-oriented ontology.

Moving toward alternative views: climate change as apparatus and as hyperobject

Exploring human being and becoming in times of crisis demands perspectives that acknowledge uncertainty and humans’ limited potential to control the world and that, thus, move beyond enlightenment ideals. Agential realism and object-oriented ontology offer such perspectives. When applied as lenses to frame climate change, they highlight disaster, alienation, and loss, on the one hand, and utopian potential, on the other. Crucially, agential realism and object-oriented ontology oppose the idea that better worlds can be crafted based simply on sufficient knowledge. In a world in distress, their ethics of care and solidarity are vital.

Agential realism

Barad’s (2007) agential realism builds on insights from quantum physics and suggests that they are relevant beyond the microscopic level. Supported by and contributing to post-structural, feminist, and post-Marxist perspectives, Barad presents a range of epistemological, ontological, and ethical claims.

One major premise of agential realism is that matter is indeterminate and becomes determinate only through other matter (Barad 2007). Accordingly, there is no essence of matter, as nothing exists prior to or independent of other matter. The smallest ontological unit for Barad is, hence, a phenomenon. Phenomena, Barad explains, comprise entangled matter that is intra-acting. In quantum physics, entanglement denotes the oneness of two particles despite them being different entities. Respectively, intra-action refers to action within a phenomenon—that is, within matter—and not between two independent objects. Through intra-action, matter constantly comes into being, is mutually constituted, and acquires its characteristics in dynamic and unpredictable ways.

Vital to intra-action is the apparatus—a concept Barad borrows from Althusser and revises in a Foucauldian spirit. Apparatuses draw boundaries between entangled matter (Barad calls this process agential cuts) and, as such, produce a specific world: they define possible relations and intra-actions while similarly excluding others. These exclusions are not final, as the indeterminacy of matter always leaves room for potentially different configurations.

One example of Barad’s apparatus is the climate, which, seen as an apparatus, makes cuts and thus defines possible material-discursive practices—thereby shaping habitats and, by extension, inter-species relations and migration patterns. Now, climate change implies an ongoing change in this apparatus. Accordingly, the material-discursive practices shaped by the specific cuts of the climate to begin with are constantly changing too: habitats, inter-species relations, and migration patterns.

These ongoing changes have drastic consequences for human and non-human subjects and their ability to navigate the world. Knowledge and knowledgeable bodies, according to agential realism, develop through intra-action. The ongoing reconfigurations of material-discursive practices, however, imply new relations and, therefore, new phenomena that these knowledgeable bodies are part of. In these new relations, the knowing bodies that emerged from previous intra-actions may no longer provide guidance and become dysfunctional. Because of climate change, subjects find themselves in an alien world.

Apparatuses themselves, Barad further explains, are phenomena—matter that is agentic and thus intra-acting. As such, apparatuses are constantly reconstituted by specific practices, as is the climate. Part of the climate as apparatus are physical and chemical processes that, in turn, are influenced by the processes of human communities—by social, economic, and cultural systems. Eventually, these systems can also be considered apparatuses and, thus, consist of material-discursive practices. Importantly, Barad argues, apparatuses can be reworked through “subversion, resistance, opposition, and revolution” (Barad 2007, 218).

Transgressing social, economic, and cultural apparatuses that promote climate change and that put many life forms at risk seems to be reconcilable with the ethical core of agential realism. Due to the entanglement of humans with a multitude of others, Barad calls for an ethics of care—an attentiveness and responsiveness to the “proximal relationship to the other” (Barad 2007, 391). In an entangled web, the proximal other encompasses all subjects, whether locally near or distant.

This is where things become complicated. Although Barad’s ethics of care would support a critical inquiry into social, cultural, and economic systems to understand how specific practices are configured and productive of climate change with the aim to oppose and rework them, Barad herself is critical of any attempts to govern the world for any given purpose. Since any action always entails a host of others, the exact relations that such reworked apparatuses produce cannot be anticipated—that is, although social, economic, and cultural patterns can be transformed and such changes will affect the climate, the climate cannot be recreated in line with a distinct, pre-defined scheme.

In sum, in the alien, apocalyptic world of climate change, social, cultural, and economic apparatuses may be challenged and reworked. The concrete outcome of their reworking, however, is uncertain. As I will elucidate later in this article, in this alien world, Barad’s call for care is vital.

Object-oriented ontology

Object-oriented ontology seeks inspiration from continental philosophy and is grounded in Kant’s notion of the thing-in-itself and the idea that one can only perceive the surface aspects of other objects. The real objects remain, ultimately, hidden. They withdraw from perception and human reason, remaining inaccessible and unknowable.

Object-oriented ontology holds that objects are more than their effects and less than the sum of their parts. Objects can be carpets, stones, humans, or events, such as the Civil War (Harman 2018). Climate change can be considered what Morton (2013) calls a hyberobject. A hyperobject sticks to other objects and exists above and beyond human scales. Humans can catch glimpses of it, but they cannot fully understand and grasp it—the world of climate change, in other words, is a world stuck in catastrophe, one that is beyond human perception, comprehension, and control; it is the world of dark ecology (Morton 2018b), a world in which humans must accept their vulnerability and live with uncertainty (Lysgaard and Bengtsson 2020; Lysgaard, Bengtsson, and Hauberg-Lund Laugesen 2019).

As objects constantly withdraw, object-oriented ontology challenges positivist notions of knowledge. Harman (2018), instead, advocates for indirect knowledge and the imaginary exploration of objects via metaphors. He offers the example of a “wine-dark sea,” where a sensual quality (‘wine-dark’) is attributed to an object (‘sea’) that is usually not associated with it but entails a degree of resemblance. Such metaphors open up the imaginative realm, and they offer a space to accommodate images of different, more livable worlds. The sea may be, as in Harman’s example, wine-dark; yet, the world, its communities, and one’s life can be imagined as bright and paradisaic. This, despite ongoing climate change, makes for a world buoyed by utopian images. Though these metaphors can lead to denial when mistaken to be representative of the world, they also allow to conceive the world otherwise.

In the world of dark ecology, humans can be seen as largely constituted and aesthetically traversed by non-human objects. Humans, hence, co-exist with non-humans and are part of a form of ecological communism that Morton (2017) calls the symbiotic real. Morton (2018b) claims that, ever since humans settled in Mesopotamia and with the rise of agriculture—or agricologistics—humans have become increasingly alienated from the symbiotic real by reducing non-human others to calculable entities and means of production to promote human wellbeing. With its “technical, planned, and perfectly logical approach to built space” (p. 42). Morton argues, agricologistics not only impoverishes images of the non-human but is also at the root of social injustices, capitalism, and climate change. Global agricologistics can be thus considered another toxic hyperobject. For Morton (2017), acknowledging the symbiotic real would imply solidarity—enhancing the pleasure of non-human objects and a “feeling-with and being-with” (p. 18) that opposes the premises of agricologistics.

In sum, in Morton’s account, the world of climate change is largely toxic, beyond human control and understanding. While Barad calls for care, Morton suggests solidarity.

Climate change in shades of blue

This short framing of climate change through the lenses of agential realism and object-oriented ontology complicates the idea that humans can produce a better, more sustainable world as an answer to climate change. Indeed, the perspectives developed above are difficult to reconcile with the metaphor of light. I suggest that a different metaphor, grounded in the color blue, may be more appropriate. I develop this metaphor in the following sections.

An apt image with which to begin this metaphor is the blue hour. The blue hour denotes a particular time of twilight with blue light. This dim blue robs the world of most of its details but does not render it unrecognizable. The world remains perceivable but is less available to the human eye than during the day. This image reflects well the alien, mystical, yet, still familiar world of climate change, and humans’ limited ability to navigate and control the world. In a similar context, Lysgaard, Bengtsson, and Hauberg-Lund Laugesen (2019) speak of a ‘twilight zone’—a zone between all-encompassing knowledge and total ignorance. Similarly, Morton (2018a) refers to the blue arctic winter light to illustrate humans’ restricted ability to fully understand and master the world.

Blue is the color of utopia. It is an existential color that reflects the longing for something absent (Levitas 2007, 2013), an ideal, far-away place. It is the color of dreams (Pastoureau 2001). In this sense, the picture taken by astronaut William Anders—Earthrise—depicts what may be one of the utopias of our time: a light blue and peaceful planet slowly emerging from the darkness of the universe. Blue is also the color of grief and melancholia (Joy and Buell 2013; Levitas 2007). When we feel blue, we are depressed. During Picasso’s depressive phase at the beginning of the twentieth century, he painted mostly pictures in warm blue and green colors. The light and dark shades of blue, thus, reflect respectively the utopian and dystopian connotations of the color.

These connotations make visible vital aspects of human being and becoming during climate change as previously framed. Through the lenses of agential realism and object-oriented ontology, the world of climate change appears as a toxic and alien one, a dystopian world in dark blue shades. However, this world does not exclude the light blue, utopian shade of flourishing and just communities. Even in the dystopian outlook of climate change, utopia is always present. In agential realism, better worlds dwell in the existing one as the potential inherent in matter. In object-oriented ontology, metaphors allow to imagine the world otherwise.

By placing human being and becoming between dystopia and utopia—between light blue and dark blue shades—agential realism and object-oriented ontology also situate it between a range of possible emotional responses: on the one hand, feelings of depression, mourning, fear, and anxiety; and on the other, feelings of hope and longing. Crucially, the potential inherent in matter and in utopian images cannot be actualized through reason. In agential realism, flourishing and just worlds cannot be rationally teased out from matter. Likewise, in object-oriented ontology, utopian metaphors do not undo hyperobjects, such as climate change.

Blue can be further related to power and force—both in the human and non-human realm. The history of the color and its extraction from the indigo plant is tangled with colonialism—with powerful oppressive systems built on the exploitation of indigenous workers and Afro-American slaves (Pastoureau 2001; Prasad 2018; Sutro 2005; Taussig 2008). Beeson (1964) described the indigo plantation in eighteenth century English Florida as an “insalubrious place” (p. 215). The putrefying indigo leaves attracted large numbers of flies that could spread various diseases. Human settlements were far from the plantations and even animals could not be kept close to them. These associations with blue reflect the dreadfulness of human systems addressed in the above reading of climate change. They resonate with the toxicity of social, cultural, and economic apparatuses and they resonate with the hyperobject of agricologistics that upholds social injustices, capitalism, and domination. Another example of the relation between blue and force is the blue planet itself—Earth. As James Lovelock (2007) illustrated in The Revenge of Gaia, as climate change accelerates, the blue planet becomes an existential, inescapable threat to humans and many other life forms. This blue force resists human reason and any attempts to reverse it. Lovelock’s Gaia catches the enormity of hyperobjects such as climate change and agricologistics. These hyperobjects are impossible to escape; their toxic bodies stick to other objects, including humans. In their monstrosity, inaccessibility, and impossibility to be controlled, climate change and agricologistics challenge notions of free will and disempower narratives of human autonomy (see also Bengtsson and Van Poeck 2021).

This shade of blue—that of power and force—is what the reading of agential realism and object-oriented ontology above pushes to the fore: the need to rework cultural, social, and economic apparatuses and to find ways of living with the hyperobject of climate change and global agricologistics.

There is a last blue shade missing in this account. This shade relates to care and solidarity. Care and solidarity, I argue, can be one of the linchpins of education in times of crisis. To understand their particularities, I will briefly show how the perspectives on human being and becoming developed above trouble traditional paradigms in educational thinking—especially in times of crisis.

What education has got to do with it

Given the enormity of climate change, the complex apparatuses that constitute it, and the restricted capability of humans to produce a better world, it is not straight forward what role education can and should have as a response to climate change. Agential realism and object-oriented ontology reveal a rift between educational objectives and ambitions on the one hand and the premises for attaining those ends on the other—between the calls for education to produce a better, ideally sustainable world, and education’s actual potential to do so. The move from utopian images or from the potential inherent in matter to creating a just and flourishing world—especially in times of massive crises such as climate change—is an intricate, if not impossible, one. Indeed, this rift between the purpose of education and its premises challenges the entire endeavor of educating for sustainability. It turns attention to the largely dominant views in educational thinking: the idea that the world can be comprehended, mastered, and educated for. Of course, education, too, is an apparatus and comprises a hub of discursive practices that reproduce distinct ways of being and thinking, such as modern ideas of human being and becoming including the idea of humans as the sole constructors of the future.

Agential realism and object-oriented ontology, then, shift the field’s focus from a world of wicked problems—problems that cannot be properly solved—to educational thinking that is itself shot through with paradox (Todd 2016b). To deal with a crisis such as climate change, it will not be enough to summon education. Such crises challenge overall ideas of learning and being in the world, forcing scholars to rethink taken-for-granted notions in educational thinking and practices (see also Bostad and Kvamme 2019; Lysgaard and Bengtsson 2020; Lysgaard, Bengtsson, and Hauberg-Lund Laugesen 2019; Todd 2016a). The question, then, is this: how can we educate for a world that can never be fully understood and mastered and one that is in constant change or withdraws?

A more traditional answer would be that we should try anyway. After all, the basis for action is always just best guesses and sometimes these guesses—even in the world of climate change—may not be so bad. In a world in dark blue shades where sustainability is out of reach, a less bad world is still worth fighting for. Education, in this narrative, can be a vital tool in the attempt at transition. Though these are apt arguments, I hold this line of reasoning clings to an impoverished picture of human being and becoming (see also Newman 2022; Stein et al. 2023). I suggest an alternative perspective: Rather than educating for sustainability (or a less bad world), one possible approach would be to see education as the endeavor of being and becoming human with all the limitations this might entail—thereby recognizing that the world of climate change can be unpredictable and uncontrollable. It is a world filled with struggles, dormant potential, and contingency. What I want to call attention to in this context are care and solidarity.

Education in shades of blue: care, solidarity, and mutual aid

In a newly hostile, alien world, the ethical cores of agential realism and object-oriented ontology—care and solidarity—offer a critical potential. In educational research care, in particular, tends to be rejected as being therapeutic and nurturing passivity. Instead of encouraging the transgression of unsustainable and oppressive tendencies, care creates comfort in an uncomfortable world, thus sustaining the status quo (Amsler 2011). Such a perspective, however, reduces care to mere psychological means. Both care and solidarity, I suggest, can be world-making forces. This potential appears more clearly once their close bonds to Kropotkin’s concept of mutual aid are acknowledged.

Kropotkin (1902, 2019) claimed that cooperation and collaboration play a vital role in evolution—and a more important one for survival and flourishing than struggle. Based on this notion, he built his concepts of solidarity and mutual aid. For Kropotkin, solidarity is not acquired or learned. It is a “naturalist tendency” (Telios 2022, 40); a sociability inherent to the world. Mutual aid can be considered as diverse and enacted forms of solidarity (Nightingale 2015). Kropotkin embedded these concepts in a communitarian framework firmly grounded in the principle of equality. For him, individual wellbeing, freedom, and fulfillment were interdependent with that of the community (Kinna 1995; Nightingale 2015).

In his aesthetic account inspired by object-oriented ontology, Morton (2017) draws heavily on Kropotkin’s philosophy and weaves relations of solidarity across human and non-human spheres. For Morton, solidarity is a mode of fascination and enjoyment, of enjoying human and non-human others and giving them opportunities for perceiving joy. It entails a being-with and a feeling-with. Here, Morton challenges the dominant modern narratives of the non-human as ‘resource’ and envisions a sociability within the hyperobject of agricologistics that, overall, is foreign to it. As for the hyperobject of climate change, solidarity as a ‘feeling-with and being-with’ would encourage collectives grounded in a basic attention and commitment to human and non-human others with the potential to foster compassion and moments of joy in a largely toxic world.

Solidarity and mutual aid can also be fruitful conceptual tools for agential realism. In one of his writings, Kropotkin (1898) included atoms—the smallest material units known at this time. Through their myriad movements, he argued, atoms form wholes. Hence, Kropotkin saw force as distributed rather than being located at a singular center. His view is reconcilable with Barad’s claim that the world can only ever be grasped through collectives (see also Kuchinov 2022; Sandberg 2023). Moreover, Kropotkin allows us to see Barad’s notion of care not only as an ethical imperative that rises from the entanglement of subjects but also as an immanent possibility already present in all relations.

Much like Barad, Kropotkin was concerned with augmenting relations of solidarity (Nightingale 2015). Such an understanding of care as a form of mutual aid would encourage collectives of care and material-discursive practices that help humans and non-humans endure climate change and to find one’s bearings in an alien world. Such collectives could be built on an awareness of the multiple apparatuses that drive climate change.

The notion of mutual aid blends well with the metaphor of ‘shades of blue.’ Blue is perceived as a social color. From indigo, aniline was extracted, from which all the other colors could be synthetically produced (Taussig 2008). Blue, thus, links to multiplicity and diversity—a unity in diversity. It is seen as calm and peaceful. It is no coincidence that the flags of the European Union and the United Nations are blue (Pastoureau 2001). As such, the color blue grasps the core of mutual aid. This shade of blue contradicts power and force. In the face of threat and domination, mutual aid assembles a community of equals.

Mutual aid practices form collectives of non-domination and lift actions and ways of thinking that are otherwise barely encouraged—practices that oppose toxic apparatuses and develop within hyperobjects. In this sense, mutual aid is not exclusively a psychological means—through its potential to vitalize relations at the micro level, to form collectives of non-domination, and to raise awareness for apparatuses and hyperobjects, mutual aid is fundamentally ethical and political. It gives rise to multiple, collective, and embodied utopias (see also Sandberg 2020)—utopian practices—that exist side by side with utopian images and the potential inherent in matter. Mutual aid can be prefigurative, though—in line with the perspectives offered by agential realism and object-oriented ontology—the concrete practices that arise from it, cannot be determined in advance (Firth 2022; Gordon 2018).

Crucially, mutual aid provides a different point of entry than hope. The downside of putting hope at the center of education in times of climate change and other crises is its dependency on a perceived openness of the future and, with it, on bright—or, at least, less devastating—images, and a belief that they might be attainable (Ojala 2017). In this paradigm, the political subject, educational content, and action hinge on an orientation to the future and trust in informed, purposeful action. Learners who are reluctant to support ideas of a somewhat flourishing and just world and their own agency may need further encouragement to see how a tolerably livable world can come about. For this understanding of hope, the twilight in which we dwell, the massiveness of climate change, or the complex, intersecting apparatuses that constitute it are troublesome. Hope as an answer to climate change can mean getting stuck with idyllic images of the past (Sjögren 2020). It can be overly optimistic (Straume 2020) and, ultimately, further fuel the modern idea of human mastery over the world.

Mutual aid works differently. It does not ask for bright, positive images of the future and does not depend on emotional states. It is a quality of the present, and, unlike hope, it is unconditional. It works in the face of and despite a world entrenched in dark blue shades. It offers glints of light, relief, and a degree of protection, as it brings together humans and non-humans in an alien, mystical, and catastrophic world—across and in their diversity. Such a focus on mutual aid does not rule out hope entirely but nuances it considerably. The idea of ‘catastrophic hope’ may be one such form of hope—the faith that, despite a climatic disaster, “good things will continue to happen” (Abiral 2015, 97; see also Gordon 2018).

In times of crisis, education can be well served by embracing mutual aid. In the strange and chaotic world of climate change, mutual aid may start by acknowledging the human and non-human relationships that subjects are thrown into with others and inviting the many faces of mutual aid—solace, joy, sacrifice, love, and aid. In formal education, for example, this would imply creating spaces for relationships and encounters between teachers, students, administrational staff, families, school buildings, animals, plants, rocks, air, and water. It would connect schools with their communities and support diversity and ideals of socio-ecological justice while fostering an attentiveness for human and non-human others across the globe as well as for the vast apparatuses and hyperobjects that drive climate change and oppression.

If seen as the final conclusion regarding mutual aid’s role in education during ongoing climate change and other crises, the above points may seem vague. However, a degree of vagueness is necessary, given that education is embedded in different, highly diverse contexts in which the dark and light blue shades of climate change may manifest differently. Besides, the tradition mutual aid belongs to—social anarchism—commits to evolution instead of revolution (Springer 2016; Suissa 2006). Mutual aid, as seen from this view, does not come with a ready-to-hand program. It merely offers a principle and, with it, reconsidering practices. From this perspective, schools may be seen as sites where communities grounded in mutual aid can be created and as sites that allow experimenting with different practices—they can, in other words, be places of praxis (see also Morton 2018b; Verlie & CCR 15, 2020).

Building an education in times of crisis on mutual aid does not necessarily guarantee sustainability. Yet, it can support an ‘education for the end of the world as we know it’ (Stein et al. 2022).³ It does so in a double sense: it is a means of coping in difficult times (Ruitenberg 2020) when familiar patterns disappear—means that similarly contradict apparatuses and hyperobjects that produce not only this familiar world but also climate change.

Discussion and conclusion

Is education up to the task of dealing with climate change? The answer is not straightforward. What agential realism and object-oriented ontology highlight is not quite a pathway to sustainability or brighter futures. Rather, they challenge the modern paradigm inherent in the concept of sustainability—the overall optimistic and exclusive ideas of human agency, governance, and progress—and related educational agendas. While the field has been critical of ideas of sustainable development (e.g. Kopnina 2012; Stables 2001) and has been especially concerned about instrumentalization and indoctrination (Jickling 1992; Jickling and Wals 2012), the feasibility of the venture as such—to educate for sustainability—has been hardly scrutinized (see Selby 2006; Stables 2013 for exceptions).

Accordingly, what is commonly referred to as climate change education cannot be a mere add-on to existing educational accounts. The above argument encourages an awareness of taken-for-granted perspectives in the field, such as the overall optimistic expectations of education, its potential in dealing with climate change, and the focus on hope. One alternative offered in the argument above is an approach grounded in mutual aid. With mutual aid, attention is redirected from the promises of a better future and having faith in rational action to coping with present issues through means that reflect desired ends, through affinity (Day 2004, 2005), which paves the way for a different—and possibly more just, yet unknown—future.

In this context, it is important to acknowledge that many of the insights of this article are well-established in the field of environmental and sustainability education (see also Payne 2020). Modernity, its pitfalls in educational thinking, and the urge to reexamine educational practices and assumptions are familiar themes, especially in the posthuman strands of the field (e.g. Bonnett 2003; Lysgaard and Bengtsson 2020; Lysgaard, Bengtsson, and Hauberg-Lund Laugesen 2019; Stables 2001). Likewise, solidarity and care have been among the bearing pillars in environmental and sustainability education (e.g. Affifi and Christie 2019; de Haan 2008; Fien 2003; Jenkins 2021; Russell and Bell 1996; Schindel and Tolbert 2017; Verlie 2019). This article’s argument renews these insights, fuses them, and highlights them as particularly relevant for education in times of crisis. Central to this argument is Kropotkin’s understanding of mutual aid, which stresses the many-sidedness of enacted solidarity, its footing in profound equality as well as its potential to bridge psychological, ethical, and political concerns and to embrace the realms of the human and non-human.

In this renewed context, old dilemmas remain. Being in solidarity with some can imply refusing to help others or, even, harming them. Solidarity can exclude, making it not only a means of collaboration but also, potentially, of violence (Morton 2017). This is a vital issue once solidarity and care are extended to the non-human realm. While we may strive for all-encompassing empathy and compassion for the non-human, not all viruses, plants, animals, and geo-physical processes may be equally welcome by everybody in any place (see also Zimmerman, 1995). On a related note, another well-established concern must not be forgotten: that solidarity and care do not promote justice and more flourishing communities per se. In combination with the overall static, holistic, and protectionist conceptions of human and non-human communities, they risk becoming a breeding ground for misanthropy (Bonnett 2003; Bookchin 1987) and ecofascism (Thomas and Gosink 2021; Zimmerman, 1995).

Finally, my argument sustains a concern for ethical, ontological, and epistemological matters in environmental and sustainability education. Looking for new ways of living together in a changing world and educating for it, thus, needs to involve exploring new (and old) ways of understanding human being and becoming and how such understandings affect educational approaches. As for agential realism and object-oriented ontology, their idea of human being and becoming has been contested. A central point of concern is the muddling of action and agency—of deliberate, informed action on the one hand and merely affecting an environment on the other which ultimately blurs ideas of accountability and responsibility (Boysen 2018; Hornborg 2021; Kouppanou 2020; Lemke 2017). While their distinct accounts may be controversial, agential realism and object-oriented ontology still contribute to challenging rational images of human being and becoming, which is the precondition for breaking with the traditional metaphor of education as light and the prevalent focus on hope in climate change education.

Shades of blue

What remains are some concluding remarks concerning the notion of ‘shades of blue’ as a metaphor for education during climate change. The metaphor largely nuances the traditional image of rational humans and places them in a twilight zone. It acknowledges humans’ limited insights and restricted ability to govern the world.

An education ‘in shades of blue’ is situated between light and dark blue shades—between ongoing collapse and increasing injustices and images of a just and livable world. Implied in this in-between is a range of emotional responses, such as anxiety, fear, grief, hope, and longing.

An education ‘in shades of blue’ further acknowledges diverse forms of power and force as central for world-making—from the blue planet to agricologistics and educational systems. It highlights solidarity and care as uniting forces across multiple forms of being that may provide comfort and stability in troubling times and that stand in opposition to a largely toxic, alien, and exploitative world.

The photograph Four Shades of Blue in Antarctica illustrates this metaphor well. It pictures a light blue—almost white—iceberg that throws a dark shadow on an otherwise quiet, blue sea on a cloudy day. A similar motif can be found on the cover of Morton’s (2013) Hyperobject, on the cover of Anthropocene or Capitalocene edited by Jason W. Moore (2016), and on the cover of the Danish introduction to sustainability education (Lysgaard and Jørgensen 2020), with the latter picturing a white-blue plastic bag instead of the iconic iceberg. While the floating iceberg evokes association with climate change and the plastic bag is symbolic of the long-ranging and long-lasting destructive effects of human societies, these pictures remind us that only a fraction of these phenomena are directly perceivable and that they are so massive in scope that they cannot be controlled. The blue tones of the picture convey the utopian and dystopian dimensions inherent in climate change as well as the role of solidarity and care in an alien, mystical world.

Still, it may be too bold to claim that one metaphor can fill the gap in the diversity of educational angles and perspectives climate change calls for in different parts of the world for different people. A prismatic metaphor (see also Cohen 2013) may be more appropriate. I welcome this debate, which ultimately brings us back to the initial question: what should education strive for? What can it achieve—especially during climate change and other massive sustainability crises?

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisors, Elin Sæther and Torill Strand, for valuable suggestions and guidance, Stefan Bengtsson for crucial feedback on object-oriented ontology, and Beth Annwyl Roberts for help with language issues. I am also grateful for the critical and constructive comments of the reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Also, object-oriented ontology is more correctly understood as a form of immaterialism or negative materialism. See Gamble, C. N., Hanan, J. S., & Nail, T. (2019). What is New Materialism? Angelaki, 24(6), 111-134. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2019.1684704, Harman (2016). Immaterialism: Objects and Social Theory. Polity Press.

2 This metaphor is inspired by and advances Ruth Levitas’ work, which acknowledges the strong association of utopia with blue. See Levitas (2007). Looking for the blue: The necessity of utopia. Journal of Political Ideologies, 12(3), 289-306. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569310701622184 and Levitas (2013). Utopia as Method. The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society. Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137314253

3 The notion of an ‘education for the end of the world as we know it’ as envisioned by Stein et al. relates specifically to coloniality. The present argument is overall sympathetic to this perspective; yet, it does not take coloniality as its sole and primary starting point.