Teaching Human Geography Sustainability: The Concept of the Anthropocene as a Didactic Tool for Higher Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2024.2.83.96Keywords:
Anthropocene, human geography, higher education, sustainability, knowledge productionAbstract
Thesis. This critical reflection outlines the didactical challenge of teaching human geography in higher education, focusing on the concept of the Anthropocene as a tool for highlighting sustainability issues.
Concepts. The critical reflection discusses the diverse knowledge production traditions, including modernist, postmodernist, and post-postmodernist approaches. It highlights the importance of understanding the ontological and epistemological assumptions underlying these frameworks, in relation to human geography, the concept of the Anthropocene and sustainability.
Results and conclusion. The suggestion is a fourfold strategy for improving human geography education: emphasizing the relevance of knowledge production, understanding its impact on the student-teacher relationship, enriching teaching with epistemological discussions, and presenting the Anthropocene as a contested ontological concept rather than a predefined framework.
Originality. This critical reflection offers a novel perspective on human geography higher education in how the concept of the Anthropocene can be used for didactic purposes. The paper argues that the concept of the Anthropocene can function as a didactic tool for higher and human geography education, by drawing out the human element within scientific knowledge production.
Downloads
References
Adorno, T. W., & Horkheimer, M. (1972). Dialectic of enlightenment (J. Cumming, Trans.). Herder and Herder. (Original work published 1947)
Arsovski, S., Dymitrow, M., & Brauer, R. (2021, 3–5 May). Universities, the categorical imperative and responsible research [Conference presentation]. 19th Annual STS Conference:“Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies”, Institute of Interactive Systems and Data Science of the Technical University of Graz, the Inter-University Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture (IFZ), and the Institute for Advanced Studies of Science, Technology and Society (IAS-STS), Graz, Austria.
Bengtsen, S. S. (2018). Supercomplexity and the university: Ronald Barnett and the social philosophy of Higher Education. Higher Education Quarterly, 72(1), 65-74. https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12153
Bhaskar, R. (2008). A realist theory of science (1st Edition). Routledge.
Bladh, G. (2020). GeoCapabilities, Didaktical analysis and curriculum thinking–furthering the dialogue between Didaktik and curriculum. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 29(3), 206-220. https://doi.org/10.1080/10382046.2020.1749766
Bloor, D. (1991). Knowledge and social imagery. University of Chicago Press.
Bonnett, M. (2013). Normalizing catastrophe: Sustainability and scientism. Environmental Education Research, 19(2), 187-197. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2012.753414
Brantley, S. L., McDowell, W. H., Dietrich, W. E., White, T. S., Kumar, P., Anderson, S. P., Chorover, J., Lohse, K. A., Bales, R. C, Richter, D. D., Grant, G., & Gaillardet, J. (2017). Designing a network of critical zone observatories to explore the living skin of the terrestrial Earth. Earth Surface Dynamics, 5(4), 841-860. https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-5-841-2017
Brauer, R. (2020). Understanding collective knowledge production: What lessons can be learned from controversy?. In M. Dymitrow & K. Ingelhag (Eds.) Anatomy of a 21st-century sustainability project: The untold stories (pp. 78-85). Chalmers University of Technology.
Brauer, R. (2023). Research Impact Education: A Systems Perspective on Two Competing Views of Higher Education. Trends in Higher Education, 2(2), 374-388. https://doi.org/10.3390/higheredu2020022
Brauer, R., & Dymitrow, M. (2017). Human Geography and the hinterland: The case of Torsten Hägerstrand's 'belated' recognition. Moravian Geographical Reports, 25(2), 74-84. https://doi.org/10.1515/mgr-2017-0007
Brauer, R., & Dymitrow, M. (2022, 19–22 June). Geography’s three problems seen through the prism of one educational challenge [Conference presentation]. 9th Nordic Geographers Meeting, Joensuu, Finland.
Brauer, R., Dymitrow, M., Worsdell, F., & Walsh, J. (2020, 11–13 September). Maculate reflexivity: Are universities losing the plot? [Conference presentation]. 7th Education Culture Society Conference: “Problems of contemporary education related to cultural and social change”, Foundation Pro Scientia Public/University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland. https://youtu.be/sGAkEjdwW1I?si=cbQ-AqvkJ2PYxisn
Castree, N. (2014). The Anthropocene and the environmental humanities: Extending the conversation. Environmental Humanities, 5(2), 233-260. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3615496
Chalmers, A. (2013). What is this thing called science? (4th Edition). McGraw-Hill Education.
Chesterton, G. K. (2013). Orthodoxy. Moody Publishers. (Original work published 1908)
Collins, H. M., & Evans, R. (2002). The third wave of science studies: Studies of expertise and experience. Social studies of science, 32(2), 235-296. https://doi.org/10.1177/030631270203200200
Collins, H., & R. Evans (2008). Rethinking expertise. University of Chicago Press.
Dymitrow, M., & Brauer, R. (2018). Meaningful yet useless? Factors behind the retention of questionable concepts in human geography. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 100(3), 195-219. https://doi.org/10.1080/04353684.2017.1419071
Feyerabend, P. (2020). Against method: Outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge. Verso Books. (Original work published 1975)
Fleck, L. (1986) The Problem of Epistemology. Cognition and Fact. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 87, 79–112. (Original work published 1936)
Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge. Pantheon. (Original work published 1969)
Gieryn, T. F. (1999). Cultural boundaries of science: Credibility on the line. University of Chicago Press.
Hägerstrand, T., Ellegård, K., Svedin, U., & B. Lenntorp (2009). Tillvaroväven [Tapestry of Existence]. Formas.
Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Vintage.
Hashemnezhad, H., Heidari, A. A., & Mohammad Hoseini, P. (2013). “Sense of place” and “place attachment”. International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development, 3(1), 5-12.
Holt-Jensen, A. (2018). Geography: history and concepts (5th Edition). Sage.
Huijbens, E. H., & Gren, M. (2021). They say “our house is on fire”–on the climate emergency and (new) Earth politics. In E. T. Harper. & D. Specht (Eds.), Imagining Apocalyptic Politics in the Anthropocene (pp. 15-33). Routledge.
Jazeel, T. (2012). Postcolonial spaces and identities. Geography, 97(2), 60-67. https://doi.org/10.1080/00167487.2012.12094340
Johnston, R. (2008). Geography and the social science tradition. In N. Clifford, S. Holloway, S. P. Rice, & G. Valentine (Eds.) Key Concepts in Geography (2nd ed., pp. 46-65). Sage.
Johnston, R., & Sidaway, J. D. (2015). Have the human geographical can(n)ons fallen silent; or were they never primed?. Journal of Historical Geography, 49, 49-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2015.04.017
Kraft, V. (2015). The Vienna circle: The origins of neo-positivism. Open Road Media.
Kuby, M., Harner, J., & Gober, P. (2013). Human geography in action. John Wiley & Sons.
Kuhn, T. S. (1997). The structure of scientific revolutions (3rd Edition). University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1962).
Lambert, D., Solem, M., & Tani, S. (2015). Achieving human potential through geography education: A capabilities approach to curriculum making in schools. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 105(4), 723-735. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2015.1022128
Latour, B. (1993). We never have been modern (C. Porter, Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1991)
Latour, B. (2014). Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene. New literary history, 45(1), 1-18.
Latour, B., & Chakrabarty, D. (2020). Conflicts of planetary proportion–A conversation. Journal of the Philosophy of History, 14(3), 419-454. https://doi.org/10.1163/18722636-12341450
Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1987). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Princeton University Press.
Laurie, N., Smith, F., Bowlby, S., Foord, J., Monk, S., Radcliffe, S., Rowlands J., Townsend J., Young L., & Gregson, N. (2014). In and out of bounds and resisting boundaries: feminist geographies of space and place. In Women and Geography Study Group (Ed.), Feminist Geographies (pp. 112-145). Routledge.
Law, J. (2004). After method: Mess in social science research. Routledge.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Basil Blackwell. (Original work published 1974)
Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1979)
MacIntyre, A. C. (1969). Hume on ‘is’ and ‘ought’. In W. D. Hudson (Ed.), The Is-Ought Question: A Collection of Papers on the Central Problem in Moral Philosophy (pp. 35-50). Macmillan.
Meyer, J., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving Student Learning – Ten Years On (pp. 412-428). OCSLD.
Mol, A. (1999). Ontological politics. A word and some questions. The Sociological Review, 47(1), 74-89. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1999.tb03483.
Nairn, K. (2005). The problems of utilizing ‘direct experience’ in geography education. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 29(2), 293-309. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098260500130635
Nietzsche, F. (1974). The gay science (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Vintage. (Original work published 1882).
Pritchard, D. (2020). Educating for intellectual humility and conviction. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 54(2), 398-409. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12422
Sauer, C. (2008). The morphology of landscape. In T. Oakes & P. L. Price (Eds.) The cultural geography reader (pp. 108-116). Routledge.
Schopenhauer, A. (2018). The art of being right (T. Bailey-Saunders, Trans.). BoD–Books on Demand. (Original work published 1831).
Shapin, S., & Schaffer, S. (2011). Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (New in paper). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1985)
Soja, E. W. (2008). Thirdspace: Toward a new consciousness of space and spatiality. In K. Ikas & G. Wagner (Eds.), Communicating in the third space (pp. 63-75). Routledge
Sokal, A. D. (2000). A physicist experiments with cultural studies. https://physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/lingua_franca_v4/lingua_franca_v4.html
Solem, M., Stoltman, J., Lane, R., Bourke, T., Chang, C. H., & Viehrig, K. (2018). An assessment framework and methodology for a Trends in International Geography Assessment Study (TIGAS). Geographical Education (Online), 31, 7-15.
Swyngedouw, E., & Ernstson, H. (2018). Interrupting the Anthropo-obScene: Immuno-biopolitics and depoliticizing ontologies in the Anthropocene. Theory, Culture & Society, 35(6), 3-30. https://doi.org/10.1177/026327641875731
Walshe, N., & Healy, G. (2020). Geography education in the digital world. Routledge.
Whatmore, S. (2017). Hybrid geographies: rethinking the ‘human’ in human geography. In B. Braun & K. Anderson (Eds.), Environment (pp. 411-428). Routledge
Wittgenstein, L. (2019). Philosophical investigations (G. E. M Anscombe, Trans.). Basil Blackwell. (Original work published 1958)
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Rene Brauer
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
CC-BY
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. All authors agree for publishing their email adresses, affiliations and short bio statements with their articles during the submission process.