4th Global Conference
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Tuesday 5th July - Thursday 7th
July 2005
Mansfield College, Oxford
Session 5A: Introspections
Chair: Kel Dummett
Harmonics: The Emerging Field and its Ecological
Promise
Mark
Beatham
Foundations of Education,
Adolescent/Health Education,
State University of New York, College at Plattsburgh, USA
Environmental justice and sustainable global citizenship depend both upon the re-cognition of basic assumptions and upon an understanding of the true implications of Ecology, writ large (i.e., in its most generic and generative manner). This paper/presentation seeks principally to promote a re-imagination of the world based on the elements common to systems theory, ecology, neuroscience and development theory (with emphasis on adolescent development), network theory, consciousness studies, and some of the discoveries in some of the new sciences. These common elements will be referred to by the generic name “harmonics,” in order to imply (as in systems theory) a field of relations that lead to the generation of emergent properties, a “whole is greater than the sum of the parts” scenario. It is argued that “harmons” (or potential participants in harmonics, which is to say, all living beings) are denied access to their true potential in emergent fields so long as they are relegated, in theory and in action, to atomistic and mechanical functions. A significant understanding of the implications of “harmonics” encourages a broader and more substantive realization of life’s ecological potential. This paper/presentation will begin by questioning dominant atomistic assumptions about the world, how it works, and for whom it should work, typical to Western thought. I will then proceed to tie together several strands, from the different disciplines listed above, in my endeavor to identify important similarities and marvelous potential for sustainable ecology, if properly understood. I will emphasize some recent and promising research on adolescent development based on a systems approach, in as much as it will help to highlight some of the features and opportunities of this new “harmonics approach.” Finally, arguments will be made about the marvelous potential inherent in the realization of harmonics.
Arne Naess’s Concept of the Ecological Self:
A Way to achieve Healthier Self
Margarita
García Notario
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature,
Plattsburgh State University of New York
The Norwegian Arne Naess (1912- ) is
the founder of Deep Ecology, a
prominent environmental movement, especially developed in North America
and
Australia. Naess’s strong philosophical background, together
with a life-long
and profound empathy toward the natural world, originated a strong theoretical
and practical inquiry about environmental problems. Naess claimed
that such
problems are the result of our (human) way of thinking and feeling, and
that an
adequate re-affiliation with nature requires to accept the challenge
provided
by the insights offered by ecology both as science and as movement.
One of the concepts that arose from Naess’s singular philosophical
view was
what is known as the ecological-self. In this paper I would like
to present
the scope of this concept, given its profound relationship with the possibility
to achieve a healthier-self and, as a consequence, both a healthier human
and a
healthier environment.
In my paper, I would address, first, the
way in which the ecological
crisis has re-illuminated our material (natural) human dimension, and
invited
us to re-think both our physical nature and the way we relate to other
natural
beings. From Naess’s ecological perspective, the human being
is unavoidably a
contextual being and, although he/she is not entirely determined by his/her
context, he/she cannot occur without it either. Secondly, I would
like to show
how Naess’s reflections on the ecological crisis (profoundly rooted
in a
Gestalt view), gently take his readers toward a human re-encounter with
our
deepest emotions and feelings. This, in spite of what it usually
suggests, has
nothing to do in the Naessian view, with any separation whatsoever between
reason and emotions. My paper’s conclusion would point to
this proposed unity
of such distant concepts (according to many contemporary perspectives),
as an
efficient and adequate healing tool to re-create (or re-make) our relationship
with nature, which would unavoidably start with an improved understanding
and
acceptance of ourselves.
Ascribing Responsibility
Jutta
Nikel
Department of Education, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom
This presentation introduces an explanatory framework about the ‘ascribing of responsibility’ emerging from a three country doctoral study of student teachers’ understanding(s) of education, sustainable development (SD), and education for sustainable development (ESD). The study worked with final year student teachers from Denmark, England and Germany, using an interpretive methodology and a mixed method approach (survey questionnaire, semi-structured interviews including a narrative task). Such teachers are the practitioners expected to deliver the recently launched UN Decade of ESD (2005-14). ‘Taking responsibility’ or ‘being responsible’ are notions underlying a variety of the Conference’s sub-themes across the four main indicative themes. In particular, for theme 3, ‘teaching citizenship, identity and ethics’ cannot be separated from addressing questions of responsibility. The presentation aims to highlight the centrality of conceptions of responsibility in teaching related to sustainability and environments, alongside an analytical framework which allows differentiation between alternative rationalities when arguing for ‘taking/having/accepting responsibility’. The explanatory framework centres on student teachers’ decision-making processes for ‘ascribing responsibility’ which illustrates relationships between their understanding(s) of SD and learning. Two key dimensions are identified: the nature of the decision-making process as either principled or pragmatic, and the location of agency as either ‘personal’ or ‘social’. Examples of views of responsibility as subject to individual agency and to internalised de-localised values (e.g. ‘Do what you hold is right’), and as subject to collective agency and external realistic norms (e.g. ‘Do what society/expert agrees will be efficient’), besides others, will be discussed, alongside understandings of: individuals as ‘autonomous self’ or / and ‘socially, culturally and institutionally constituted subjectivities and identities’, and discourses on justice focusing on equality or on efficiency.