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The Designation of a Deleuzian Philosophy for Environmental Education and Its Consequences…

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2019

David R. Cole*
Affiliation:
Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
*
Corresponding author. Email: david.cole@westernsydney.edu.au

Abstract

The philosophy of Gilles Deleuze has become popular in recent moves to embed approaches such as the new materialist and the posthuman in environmental education. Certainly, a newfound respect for the material universe, including the comprehension of the human place in it, and the tendency to a posthuman theoretical position, are both important given the contemporary environmental crisis, named as the Anthropocene. However, this article will argue that both these philosophies do not go far enough. This is because they must retain a political, social and critical edge if they are to be effective, and this edge can be too easily disregarded in the pursuit of increased engagement with the material and everything not human. In contrast, this article will put forward a Deleuzian approach to environmental education, based on the intellectual quadrant of Spinoza-Marx-Nietzsche-Bergson (Figure 1). It will be argued that only by fully connecting these often conflicting and disparate philosophies that a workable new synthesis for environmental education and a cartography for learning can be achieved. The Deleuzian approach to environmental education will be exemplified through an analysis of current environmental practises in schools as assemblage.

Type
Article
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Cambridge University Press

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