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.
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