The Contested Space of Animals in Education: A Response to the “Animal Turn” in Education for Sustainable Development

The so-called “animal turn”, having been on the agenda for around 15 years in the humanities and social sciences, is gaining force also in the educational sciences, typically with an orientation toward posthumanist ontologies. One particular space where educational “more-than-human” relations are debated is the field of education for sustainable development (ESD). This paper responds to two recent contributions to this debate, both positioned within ESD frameworks. The purpose of this response is two-fold: First, to give a critical account of the knowledge claims of the two articles, their overlaps and divergences, as well as their implications for pedagogical practice and their potential consequences for the position of animals in education and in society at large. The meaning and usefulness of analytic tools such as “critical pluralism” and “immanent critique” in relation to animals in education is discussed, as well as whose realities are represented in ESD, revealing contested spaces of teaching and learning manifested through an “enlightened distance” to anthropocentrism in-between compliance and change. The second purpose is to sketch a foundation of reflective practice for critical animal pedagogies, offering a critical theory-based form of resistance against recent posthumanist configurations of the “animal question” in education and beyond.

New Directions and Virtues in Sustainable Materialist Movements

After extensive examination of the specifically political motivations of sustainable materialist movements, this chapter focuses on what is new and unique about these movements, and what differentiates them from past notions of environmentalism and ethical or political consumerism. We discuss three key unique properties or strategies of the movements: that they are explicitly focused on collective action, engage a specific notion of systems-based and material sustainability, and embody a prefigurative politics or practice that is based in everyday material needs. Sustainable materialist movements also illustrate a set of key values or virtues, including humility, critical pluralism, and a political boldness that pushes beyond classic and limited notions of political action.

Extreme Intentionalism and its Rivals

The defence of extreme intentionalism is concluded by attacking its main rivals in the analytic tradition: ‘modest’ intentionalism, hypothetical intentionalism, and value-maximizing theory. First a source of apparent support for all three is addressed: the thought that extreme intentionalism takes an implausible stance towards unsuccessful authorial intentions that a fiction should have specific content. The author argues that in fact, extreme intentionalism is better positioned to accommodate unsuccessful intentions than its rivals. This is followed by general criticisms of hypothetical intentionalism and value-maximizing theory, with a particular focus on the extent to which each can accommodate the plausible thought that fictions often contain reliable testimony, and can act as a respectable source of belief. Also in this chapter the issue of ‘post hoc’ meanings is discussed; and how extreme intentionalism, though a monistic position, is compatible with many of the critical judgements which have tempted some towards critical pluralism.