Teaching Human Geography Sustainability: The Concept of the Anthropocene as a Didactic Tool for Higher Education

Authors

  • Rene Brauer Karelian Institute, Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies, University of Eastern Finland, 80130 Joensuu, Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6762-6716

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2024.2.83.96

Keywords:

Anthropocene, human geography, higher education, sustainability, knowledge production

Abstract

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.

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Author Biography

  • Rene Brauer, Karelian Institute, Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies, University of Eastern Finland, 80130 Joensuu, Finland

    A visiting scholar at the Karelian Institute at the University of Eastern Finland. He took both his bachelor’s and master’s degree in human geography at the University of Gothenburg. For his PhD he was awarded a scholarship at the University of Surrey, where he studied the research impact assessment element of the UK's Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014). Beyond human geography and higher education, his research interests lie within the sociology of scientific knowledge, epistemology, and ontology of social science research.

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Published

2024-09-25

How to Cite

Brauer, R. . (2024). Teaching Human Geography Sustainability: The Concept of the Anthropocene as a Didactic Tool for Higher Education. Journal of Education Culture and Society, 15(2), 83-96. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2024.2.83.96