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The Denaturation of Environmental Education: Exploring the Role of Ecotechnologies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2015

Annette Gough Open the ORCID record for Annette Gough [Opens in a new window]  and
Noel Gough
Annette Gough*
Affiliation:
School of Education, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Noel Gough
Affiliation:
School of Education, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
*
Address for correspondence: Annette Gough, School of Education, RMIT University, PO Box 71, Bundoora Vic 3083, Australia. Email: annette.gough@rmit.edu.au
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Abstract

This article explores the changing ways ‘environment’ has been represented in the discourses of environmental education and education for sustainable development (ESD) in United Nations (and related) publications since the 1970s. It draws on the writings of Jean-Luc Nancy and discusses the increasingly dominant view of the environment as a ‘natural resource base for economic and social development’ (United Nations, 2002, p. 2) and how this instrumentalisation of nature is produced by discourses and ‘ecotechnologies’ that ‘identify and define the natural realm in our relationship with it’ (Boetzkes, 2010, p. 29). This denaturation of nature is reflected in the priorities for sustainable development discussed at Rio+20 and proposed successor UNESCO projects. The article argues for the need to reassert the intrinsic value of ‘environment’ in education discourses and discusses strategies for so doing. The article is intended as a wake-up call to the changing context of the ‘environment’ in ESD discourses. In particular, we need to respond to the recent UNESCO (2013a, 2013b) direction of global citizenship education as the successor to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005–2014 that continues to reinforce an instrumentalist view of the environment as part of contributing to ‘a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world’ (UNESCO, 2013a, p. 3).

Keywords

environmental educationenvironmentUNESCOnaturedenaturationecotechnology
Type
Feature Articles
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 32 , Issue 1: 18th AAEE Biennial Conference - Sustainability, Smart Strategies for the 21st Century , March 2016 , pp. 30 - 41
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2015 

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