Conference | The Ecologies of Education: Interrogating Environment, Society, and Subjectivity

In his seminal book, Félix Guattari argues that one could not tackle industrial pollution or other environmental concerns without situating the problem of ecology at the center of three registers—the environment, social relations, and human subjectivity. Under closer examination, ecology may be seen as the return to oikos—our home, our habitat, our planet—that calls for a practice of respect and care in all three aforementioned meanings.

In fact, it is quite significant that Isabelle Stengers sees the idea of ecology as the matter or practice—i.e., the ecology of practice—which, along the lines of Gilles Deleuze, may be called the ‘thinking par le milieu’—an attempt that refers to the double meaning of milieu, both the ‘middle’ and ‘the surroundings’ or ‘habitat.’ According to Stengers, “‘Through the middle’ would mean without grounding definitions or an ideal horizon. ‘With the surroundings’ would mean that no theory gives you the power to disentangle something from its particular surroundings, that is, to go beyond the particular towards something we would be able to recognize and grasp in spite of particular appearances.”

This event expresses concern with the ideas of education that operate on the triple meaning of ecology. What are the new ways for us to learn from, through, and within the environment? What can a more diligent and observing interaction with milieus teach us? What are the novel forms of subjectivity that emerge in this process? In what sense does the environment appear as a challenge for justice? How can the ecologies of education address the problem of the redistribution of social and economic power? What is the role of art in this project of education? What future can be brought by this reconsideration of teaching and learning?