A “Strong” Approach to Sustainability Literacy: Embodied Ecology and Media
Abstract
:1. Introduction: The Embodiment Turn and Sustainability
2. The Main Argument
2.1. Strong/Weak (Sustainability) Literacy
(I)t is unclear exactly how the definitions employed by Marcinkowski for UNESCO (1991: environmental literacy defined in terms of knowledge, understanding, attitudes and active involvement) and Disinger and Roth (1992: environmental literacy defined as nominal, functional and operational) are related when neither is developed from any extensive prior debate about literacy. Indeed, Roth (1992) admits to the term lacking precise definition although he claims to have coined it in 1968. Roth’s rationale for his operational definition is built on a general awareness of expanding concepts of literacy, but this is not located within any broader philosophical or theoretical framework.(p. 90 in [12])
An environmental education which runs independently of an exploration of cultural, aesthetic, personal and even irrational views of the environment will prove insufficient to our needs, as it will harness not ‘hearts and minds’ but merely part of the mind, in a limited range of contexts, and with a limited view of the Earth as essentially mechanical and liable to breakdown (the catastrophic view of nature) but not to improvement. The development of a strong conception of environmental literacy thus has the potential to result in an increased care for the world in a way that conventional models of environmental education alone cannot.(p. 96 in [12])
‘Sustainability literacy’ follows in the footsteps first of ‘environmental literacy’ and then ‘ecological literacy’. The thrust has been away from a narrow focus on [issues such as] environmental pollution, towards wider concerns with how the environment can provide basic necessities for current and future generations. As a consequence, the trajectory has been for definitions of the new form of ‘literacy’ to become less specific and more general in scope.(p. 12 in [18])
2.2. Our Proposal for Sustainability Literacy Education
Further Points of Clarification and Differentiation
From its beginning, biosemiotics was defined by [Thomas] Sebeok [48] […] as a modelling theory and, while useful for cognitive theories as well, it does not impose any particular assumption about cognition. Thus, from this perspective, a theory of learning does not necessarily imply a discussion on cognition. An educational theory and system can conceive learning in terms of signification only.
3. (Bio)Semiotic Contributions
3.1. Culture/Nature Conceptions: Towards Umwelt
3.2. Umwelt, Affordances, Resources
4. Digital Media Embodiment
4.1. Critical Media Literacy and a Link to Sustainability Literacy
4.2. A Strong Sustainability Literacy, Diagrammatic Model
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
- Lakoff, G.; Johnson, M. Metaphors We Live by; University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, USA, 1980. [Google Scholar]
- Lakoff, G.; Johnson, M. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought; Basic Books: New York, NY, USA, 1999. [Google Scholar]
- Varela, F.; Thompson, J.J.; Rosch, E.E. The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience; The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA; London, UK, 2016; pp. 172–173. [Google Scholar]
- Stjernfelt, F. The semiotic body: A semiotic concept of embodiment? In Semiotic Bodies, Aesthetic Embodiments, and Cyberbodies; Nöth, W., Ed.; Kassel University Press: Kassel, Germany, 2006; pp. 13–48. [Google Scholar]
- Shapiro, L. Embodied Cognition; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2019. [Google Scholar]
- Stables, A. Sign(al)s: Living and learning as semiotic engagement. J. Curric. Stud. 2006, 38, 373–387. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Stables, A. Be(com)ing Human: Semiosis and the Myth of Reason; Sense Publishers: Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2012. [Google Scholar]
- Lacković, N.; Olteanu, A. Rethinking educational theory and practice in times of visual media: Learning as image-concept integration. Educ. Philos. Theory 2020, 1–16. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Campbell, C.; Olteanu, A.; Kull, K. Learning and knowing as semiosis: Extending the conceptual apparatus of semiotics. Sign Syst. Stud. 2019, 47, 352–381. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Campbell, C.; Olteanu, A.; Feil, S. Peircean anti-psychologism and learning theory. Chin. Semiot. Stud. 2021, 17, 175–197. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Colucci-Gray, L.; Camino, E.; Barbiero, G.; Gray, D. From scientific literacy to sustainability literacy: An ecological framework for education. Sci. Educ. 2006, 90, 227–252. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Stables, A.; Bishop, K. Weak and strong conceptions of environmental literacy: Implications for environmental education. Environ. Educ. Res. 2001, 7, 89–97. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- United Nations General Assembly. Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; A/RES/70/1; United Nations General Assembly: New York, NY, USA, 2015. [Google Scholar]
- Morton, T. Being Ecological; Penguin: London, UK, 2018. [Google Scholar]
- Bringhurst, R.; Zwicky, J. Learning to Die: Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis; University of Regina Press: Regina, SK, Canada, 2018. [Google Scholar]
- Olteanu, A.; Stables, A. Learning and adaptation from a semiotic perspective. Sign Syst. Stud. 2018, 46, 409–434. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Blewitt, J. Education for sustainable development, natural capital and sustainability: Learning to last. Environ. Educ. Res. 2005, 11, 71–82. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- A Jickling, B.; Wals, A.E. Globalization and environmental education: Looking beyond sustainable development. J. Curric. Stud. 2008, 40, 1–21. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Bengtsson, S.L.; Östman, L.O. Globalisation and education for sustainable development: Emancipation from context and meaning. Environ. Educ. Res. 2013, 19, 477–498. [Google Scholar]
- Cullingford, C.; Blewitt, J. The Sustainability Curriculum: The Challenge for Higher Education; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2013. [Google Scholar]
- Kress, G. Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Multimodal Communication; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2010. [Google Scholar]
- Sweetser, E. Introduction: Viewpoint and perspective in language and gesture: From the Ground down. In Viewpoint in Language: A Multimodal Perspective; Dancygier, E., Sweetser, E., Eds.; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2012. [Google Scholar]
- Martinelli, D. A Critical Companion to Zoosemiotics: People, Paths, Ideas; Springer: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2010. [Google Scholar]
- McLuhan, M. Understanding Media: Extension of Man; The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 1994. [Google Scholar]
- Elleström, L. A medium-centered model of communication. Semiotica 2018, 224, 269–293. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Olvitt, L.L. Education in the Anthropocene: Ethico-moral dimensions and critical realist openings. J. Moral Educ. 2017, 46, 396–409. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Bonnett, M. Environmental Consciousness, Nature and the Philosophy of Education: Ecologizing Education; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2020. [Google Scholar]
- Lacković, N. Postdigital Living and Algorithms of Desire. Postdigital Sci. Educ. 2020, 1–3. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Locke, S.; Russo, R.; Montoya, C. Environmental education and eco-literacy as tools of education for sustainable development. J. Sustain. Educ. 2010. Available online: http://www.jsedimensions.org/wordpress/content/environmental-education-and-eco-literacy-as-tools-of-education-for-sustainable-development_2013_02/ (accessed on 15 February 2016).
- McBride, B.B.; Brewer, C.A.; Berkowitz, A.R.; Borrie, W.T. Environmental literacy, ecological literacy, ecoliteracy: What do we mean and how did we get here? Ecosphere 2013, 4, 1–20. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Biesta, G.J. Letting Art Teach; ArtEZ Press: Arhem, The Netherlands, 2017. [Google Scholar]
- Towler, P.; Saunders, M.; Bamber, V. (Eds.) Tribes and Territories in the 21st Century: Rethinking the Significance of Disciplines in Higher Education; Routledge: Abingdon, UK, 2012. [Google Scholar]
- Gal, S.; Irvine, J. Disciplinary Boundaries and Language Ideology: The Semiotics of Differentiation. Soc. Res. 1995, 62, 967–1001. [Google Scholar]
- Roy, R. Place-Based Environmental Education—A Fieldhouse Feasibility Study for the Vancouver Park Board; Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation. 2014. Available online: https://sustain.ubc.ca/sites/default/files/2014-13_VPB%20Fieldhouse%20Feasibility%20Study_Roy.pdf (accessed on 10 December 2020).
- Stables, A. Environmental literacy: Functional, cultural, critical. The case of SCAA guidelines. Environ. Educ. Res. 1998, 4, 155–164. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Moore, J. Barriers and pathways to creating sustainability education programs: Policy, rhetoric and reality. Environ. Educ. Res. 2005, 11, 537–555. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Somerville, M.; Green, M. Place and Sustainability Literacy in Schools and Teacher Education. In Proceedings of the Australian Association for Research in Education, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2–6 December 2012. [Google Scholar]
- Ansari, W.E.; Stribbe, A. Public health and the environment: What skills for sustainability literacy–and why? Sustainability 2009, 1, 425–440. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Sterling, S. Memorandum from Dr. Stephen Sterling. Environmental Education: Follow Up to Learning the Sustainability Lesson. In Fifth Report of Session 2004–05; House of Commons: London, UK, 2005. [Google Scholar]
- Meyers, E.; Erickson, I.; Small, R. Digital literacy and informal learning environments: An introduction. Learn. Media Technol. 2013, 38, 355–367. [Google Scholar]
- Scolari, C.A. (Ed.) Teens, Media and Collaborative Cultures. Exploiting Teens’ Transmedia Skills in the Classroom; Ce.Ge: Barcelona, Spain, 2018. [Google Scholar]
- von Uexküll, J. Theoretical Biology; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.: London, UK, 1926. [Google Scholar]
- Von Uexküll, J. A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans with a Theory of Meaning; University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN, USA, 2010. [Google Scholar]
- Hern, M.; Johal, A.; Sacco, J. Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life: A Tarsands Tale; MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2018. [Google Scholar]
- Tsing, A.L. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins; Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, USA, 2015. [Google Scholar]
- Campbell, C. Educating semiosis: Foundational concepts for an ecological edusemiotic. Stud. Philos. Educ. 2019, 38, 291–317. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Pikkarainen, E. Adaptation, learning, Bildung: Discussion with edu- and biosemiotics. Sign Syst. Stud. 2018, 46, 435–451. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Sebeok, T. Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics; University of Toronto Press: Toronto, ON, Canada, 2001. [Google Scholar]
- Kress, G. Literacy in the New Media Age; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2003. [Google Scholar]
- Stables, A.; Gough, S. Towards a Semiotic Theory of Choice and of Learning. Educ. Theory 2006, 56, 271–285. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Gough, S.; Stables, A. Interpretation as adaptation: Education for survival in uncertain times. Curric. Inq. 2012, 42, 368–385. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Hartley, J. (Ed.) Creative Industries; Blackwell Publishing: Oxford, UK, 2005. [Google Scholar]
- Lankshear, C.; Knobel, M. Introduction: Digital literacies—Concept, policies and practices. In Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices; Lankshear, C., Knobel, M., Eds.; Peter Lang: New York, NY, USA, 2008. [Google Scholar]
- Lacković, N. Inquiry Graphics in Higher Education: New Approaches to Knowledge, Learning and Methods with Images; Palgrave McMillan/Springer Nature: Cham, Switzerland, 2020. [Google Scholar]
- Haeckel, E. Generelle Morphologie des Organismus, Bd. 2: Allgemeine Entiwcklungsgeschichte; De Gruyter: Berlin, Germany, 1988. [Google Scholar]
- Von Humboldt, A. View of Nature: Or Contemplations on the Sublime Phenomena of Creation; Trans, O.E.C., Bohn, H.G., Eds.; George Bell and Sons: London, UK, 1878. [Google Scholar]
- Wulf, A. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World; Knopf: New York, NY, USA, 2015. [Google Scholar]
- Ingold, T. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill; Routledge: Abingdon, UK, 2000. [Google Scholar]
- Merchant, C. Radical Ecology; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 1996. [Google Scholar]
- Ljungberg, C. Wilderness from an ecosemiotic perspective. Sign Syst. Stud. 2001, 29, 169–186. [Google Scholar]
- Morton, T. Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics; Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2007. [Google Scholar]
- Tuck, E.; Yang, K.W. Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization Indig. Educ. Soc. 2012, 1, 1–40. [Google Scholar]
- Louie, D.W.; Poitras-Pratt, Y.; Hanson, A.J.; Ottmann, J. Applying Indigenizing principles of decolonizing methodologies in university classrooms. Can. J. High. Educ. Rev. Can. D’enseignement Supérieur 2017, 47, 16–33. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Battiste, M. Decolonizing Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit; UBC press: Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2017. [Google Scholar]
- Gibson, J.J. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception; Houghton Mifflin: Boston, MA, USA, 1979. [Google Scholar]
- Roli, A.; Kauffman, S.A. Emergence of Organisms. Entropy 2020, 22, 1163. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
- Ingold, T. The temporality of the landscape. World Archaeol. 1993, 25, 152–174. [Google Scholar]
- Tomlinson, G. A Million Years of Music: The Emergence of Human Modernity; Zone Books: New York, NY, USA, 2015. [Google Scholar]
- Pijanowski, B.C.; Villanueva-Rivera, L.J.; Dumyahn, S.L.; Farina, A.; Krause, B.L.; Napoletano, B.M.; Pieretti, N. Soundscape ecology: The science of sound in the landscape. BioScience 2011, 61, 203–216. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Malavasi, R.; Kull, K.; Farina, A. The acoustic codes: How animal sign processes create sound-topes and consortia via conflict avoidance. Biosemiotics 2014, 7, 89–95. [Google Scholar]
- Hirst, P. Knowledge and the Curriculum; Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, UK, 1974. [Google Scholar]
- Dearden, R.F.; Hirst, P.; Peters, R.S. (Eds.) Education and the Development of Reason; Routledge & Kegan Paul: London, UK, 1972. [Google Scholar]
- Hirst, P.; Peters, R.S. The Logic of Education; Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, UK, 1970. [Google Scholar]
- Sebeok, T.; Danesi, M. The Forms of Meaning: Modelling Systems Theory and Semiotic Analysis; Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin, Germany, 2000. [Google Scholar]
- Olteanu, A.; Campbell, C.; Feil, S. Naturalizing models: New perspectives in a Peircean key. Biosemiotics 2020, 13, 179–197. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Lakoff, G. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind; University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, USA, 1987. [Google Scholar]
- Gualberto, C.; Kress, G. Social semiotics. In The International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy; Hobbs, R., Mihailidis, P., Eds.; Wiley-Blackwell: New York, YN, USA, 2019. [Google Scholar]
- Van Leeuwen, T. Introducing Social Semiotics; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2005. [Google Scholar]
- Kress, G.; van Leeuwen, T. Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication; Arnold: London, UK, 2001. [Google Scholar]
- Marrone, G. Farewell to representation: Text and society. In Semiotics and Its Masters: Volume 1; Bankov, K., Cobley, P., Eds.; De Gruyter Mouton: Berlin, Germany, 2017; pp. 105–119. [Google Scholar]
- Mills, K.A.; Unsworth, L.; Exley, B. Sensory literacies, the body, and digital media. In Handbook of Writing, Literacies, and Education in Digital Cultures; Mills, K.A., Stornaiuolo, A., Smith, A., Zacher, P.A., Eds.; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2017; pp. 26–36. [Google Scholar]
- Haas, C.; McGrath, M. Embodiment and literacy in a digital age: The case of handwriting. In Handbook of Writing, Literacies, and Education in Digital Cultures; Mills, K.A., Stornaiuolo, A., Smith, A., Zacher, P.A., Eds.; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2017; pp. 125–135. [Google Scholar]
- Kull, K. Choosing and learning: Semiosis means choice. Sign Syst. Stud. 2018, 46, 452–466. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Kull, K. Evolution, choice, and scaffolding: Semiosis is changing its own building. Biosemiotics 2015, 8, 223–234. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Faraj, S.; Azad, B. The materiality of technology: An affordance perspective. In Materiality and Organizing: Social Interaction in A Technological World; Leonardi, P.M., Nardi, B.A., Kallinikos, J., Eds.; Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK, 2012; pp. 237–258. [Google Scholar]
- Majchrzak, A.; Faraj, S.; Kane, G.C.; Azad, B. The contradictory influence of social media affordances on online communal knowledge sharing. J. Comput. Mediat. Commun. 2013, 19, 38–55. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Leonardi, P.M. Digital materiality? How artifacts without matter, matter. First Monday 2010, 15. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Treem, J.W.; Leonardi, P.M. Social media use in organizations: Exploring affordances of visibility, editability, persistence, and association. Ann. Int. Commun. Assoc. 2013, 36, 143–189. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Hopkins, J. The concept of Affordances in Digital Media. In Handbuch Soziale Praktiken und Digitale Alltagswelten; Friese, H., Nolden, M., Rebane, G., Schrieter, M., Eds.; Springer: Wiesbaden, Germany, 2020; pp. 47–54. [Google Scholar]
- Manovich, L. Software Takes Command; Bloomsbury: New York, NY, USA, 2013. [Google Scholar]
- Poulsen, V.S.; Kvåle, G. Studying social media as semiotic technology: A social semiotic multimodal framework. Soc. Semiot. 2018, 28, 700–717. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Orlikowski, W.J. Sociomaterial practices: Exploring technology at work. Organ. Stud. 2007, 28, 1435–1448. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Crawford, K.; Joler, V. Anatomy of an AI System Website. 2018. Available online: https://anatomyof.ai/ (accessed on 10 December 2020).
- Lacković, N. Thinking with digital images in the post-truth era: A method in critical media literacy. Postdigital Sci. Educ. 2020, 1–21. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
1 | For instance, such curricular orientations are often expressed by Outdoor Education literature and initiatives. Such curricular practices and educational experiences, though frequently important and transformational for students, often function to further emphasize the discontinuity of place-based educational opportunities with what “normally happens” in formal schooling. For illustration, in a City of Vancouver report on the feasibility of Place Based Environmental Education (PBEE) in city parks, Roy [34] observes that: “Public schools have, for quite some time, established outdoor education programs in “natural” areas in far away places, but this is often kept separate from the local urban context in which children grow up [...] In this model, children would experience wilderness over an intense period of time of a week to several weeks engaging in such activities as canoeing, hiking and bird watching separated from their regular indoor classroom activities. They would then return to their regular classroom setting to learn subjects such as geography, history and biology removed from any environmental context” (p. 8). |
2 | The taskscape concept was developed by anthropologist Tim Ingold (see the article “the Temporality of the landscape,” [67], and the book The Perception of the Environment [58]. Musicologist Gary Tomlinson [68] describes how the taskscape is more properly sonically conceived, over and against the more static designation landscape and its implicit visual connotations; an observation that helps to explain the development of soundscape ecology from out of landscape ecology [69], and the recognition within biosemiotics [70] of the semiotic importance of acoustic codes and soundscapes for interspecies and intraspecies communication and the health and flourishing of biodiversity: “the taskscape emerges from the varied actions of a social group, the mobile performance of these actions, their structuring of the lived environment, and indeed the sounds they make […] the taskscape is not external and static but changeable and manufactured, it is not so much seen, in the manner of an unmoving tableau, as made and heard. The taskscape creates from the rhythms of action sequences that form its own temporality, one based on moments of mutual attention commanded among its participants by movement and gesture” (our italics). |
3 |
Strong Environmental Literacy | Weak Environmental Literacy |
---|---|
Broad view of literacy (literacy as semiotic-engagement) | Narrow view of literacy (literacy as reading and writing) |
Broad view of text (everything can be seen as text [however, we need to learn how to “read” and connect these different “texts”, or, use and enact “semiotic resources”]) | Limited view of text (e.g., landscape cannot be seen as text) |
Environmental literacy is broader than environmental education | Environmental literacy is a subset of environmental education |
Bio/Eco-Semiotic, ‘Strong’ Sustainability Literacy Approach | Dominant/Classical Approaches to Literacy |
---|---|
-Model and Modelling, | -Text (text-encoding/decoding) |
-Umwelt/medium | -Environment (or learning environment) |
-Sign as dynamic (multimodal) event | -Sign as static (textual, abstract) representation |
-Sustainability as sustained ecosemiotic relationality | -Sustainability as attaining outcomes/targets/competencies |
-Nature/culture continuity | -Nature/culture discontinuities |
-(Bio/eco)-semiotically shaped modes/resources, affordances and competences | -Culturally (socio-linguistically) shaped modes/resources, affordances and competences |
-Equality of iconic signification to symbolic communication/processing | -Primacy of abstract symbolic processing (language, numbers, notation) |
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. |
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Share and Cite
Campbell, C.; Lacković, N.; Olteanu, A. A “Strong” Approach to Sustainability Literacy: Embodied Ecology and Media. Philosophies 2021, 6, 14. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6010014
Campbell C, Lacković N, Olteanu A. A “Strong” Approach to Sustainability Literacy: Embodied Ecology and Media. Philosophies. 2021; 6(1):14. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6010014
Chicago/Turabian StyleCampbell, Cary, Nataša Lacković, and Alin Olteanu. 2021. "A “Strong” Approach to Sustainability Literacy: Embodied Ecology and Media" Philosophies 6, no. 1: 14. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6010014