DustPapers

Paper on Concept-Based Environmental Education

Global Environmental Education: Eco-Vision and Blind Spots
Dustin Kunkel

Introduction

I was walking down to the rusty-brown river when my friend caught up with me and said sadly, “Don’t go. It’s not worth it.” Only yesterday we’d caught little “shiners” and stuck them on hooks to swing in the murky water under the bank. Many times we’d risen early in the morning to shake dew from the elephant grass, watch the sunlit path for basking snakes, push our way through the sugarcane that dripped red ants and hid scuttling marsh crabs to find--on the end of our line--catfish the size of our arms. To a 13-year old boy--Magic! Kwakuvi told me some men from our village (on the outskirts of the massive city Kumasi, Ghana, West Africa) had poured a pesticide into the water, watched the fish float to the surface, and were drying and smoking them for food and sale in the village. The pesticide was DDT.

At the age of 13, I didn’t know words like “sustainability,” or “biodiversity.” Yet, I knew something had gone wrong—it wasn’t just my own selfish loss of a good fishing adventure. Though I lived there for 17 years of my life, I had a “blind spot” in my vision of African environmental values. My Western upbringing kept me from noticing it, and I walked away from the river and all it represented, never to return. I wish I could go back and ask questions like these:

Where did the DDT come from? Why was it available in a West African nation when it was outlawed in most “developed” nations? What happened to the entire ecosystem as a result of pouring DDT into the local river? What happened to the people who ate of the fish? What chain of events, motives, and values led these Ghanaian men to the nearest river to kill every living thing in it? What chain of events, motives, and values allows the Western world to remain aloof from this scenario and then, over a relatively short time, become very ready to enact global change through “education for sustainability” (Agenda 21, 1992)?

My experience can be useful in a number of ways:
1. A practice in cognitive perspective—“looking in” at environmental education by exploring themes in Sub-Saharan eco-values and social science theory.
2. An entry into discussion of “educational practice” in so-called “developing nations;”
3. A synecdoche--a figure of speech in which the word for part of something is used to mean the whole.

By entering into this “part” of the “whole,” I will examine some presuppositions—and “blind spots”--in Western thought on “educating for environmental sustainability and biodiversity” with specific reference to “concept-based environmental education” in “developing nations,” particularly, Ghana.

Eco-Values
This paper makes some assumptions: that one is conversant with the basic thrust of Agenda 21 (1992); that there is recognition of the growing understanding that it is not whether we have values, but what values we bring to the dialogue on environment (Higgins, 2000; Allison, 2000, Evanoff, 2005, Miller, 2005). This perspective is summarized by Pepper: “the definition of the cultural filter makes it clear that the philosophies and history of the group . . . assume prime importance in the filter, and therefore in man-environment studies . . . [this leads us to] ask what ‘reality’ is, and what ‘facts’ are, and how we can possibly know, objectively, ‘facts’ about our ‘real’ environment . . . we cannot know the world as it is (the ‘noumenal’ world)” (1984, p. 8).

This approach to values is essential to follow my argument: Western value-laden concepts of sustainability and biodiversity mask key “blind spots” towards non-western valuative concerns for landscape, environment, and the people’s and cultures therein. We often say that we are open to these paradigms. However, Western ontological and epistemological positions often frame and manage the global environmental debate, potentially ignoring what whole continents may know. Before we enter a discussion of “concept-based practice,” it is vital to recognize environmental value-laden positions. We must step outside our paradigm and confront our “blind spots,” unlike the 13-year old boy who walked away from the river and the questions it posed.

What Isn’t Being Said/Researched
The current trend towards “deep ecology” and “systems theory” assumes indigenous peoples share the inherent values of environmental thinkers in the West (Weeks, 1993). Is this true? Indigenous people’s voices are relatively silent within academia, so how can we know this to be true? Compared to the rest of the world, especially the West, there is a paucity of research on the environment/ecology in Africa. Despite the fact that the University of Edinburgh has a “Center of African Studies,” the C.A.S. books took up a shelving unit only 30 feet long, in a five-storey main library. The sheer lack of research on Africa says something. Finding writing on environmental education in Africa, and more specifically, Ghana (a nation the size of the U.K.), yielded two books. In this narrowing funnel, we reach the critical question: is there any research into Ghanaian values towards ecology, environment, or sustainability? Eisner (1985)—and more recently Higgins (2000)--calls this the “null” curricula: The things we don’t teach, or leave out, say just as much about our education system as the things that we do.
Whilst questioning the “lack of research,” I am not including the types of data gathered in meta-analysis of large trends such as Sutcliffe’s 100 Ways of Seeing an Unequal World, which derives the vast majority of its data from governments (2005, p. 11). This type of information is useful for understanding where Africa sits in relation to other countries--by far, the highest in the world in refugees from civil wars, and the only socio-economic area in the world experiencing a continual, unrelenting drop in relative income for the last 200 years (pp. 101 & 115), and the continued “dumping ground” for industrial waste (Gourlay, 1992, pp. 5-15).

However, this information has none of the local, socio-ecological or values-based relevance that we are looking for, especially in regards to value-attitudes toward the environment. It simply measures where Sub-Saharan Africa is to the rest of the world in a number of categories.
More specifically, in Ghana, one cannot talk environment and ecology without mentioning cocoa production. In 1911, “the Gold Coast was the number one cocoa producing country” in the world (Mikell, p. 107). It was cocoa that built the new economy in Ghana in the ‘60’s and cocoa that destroyed it and the familial relationships most rural families experienced. Mikell is the only writer I’ve found who also highlights the inter-tribal conflicts between the dominant tribes (like Ashanti and Dagomba) and the minority and “northern tribes”--considered “country bumpkins” (p. 130). The men who killed the fish in the river with DDT were migrant northerners in a southern town, last-of-the-last to receive any social admittance.

Mikell makes a point that is worth quoting in full:

However, when there was an attempt to introduce or shape capitalist relations based on western notions of appropriate social processes, disjuncture often resulted. Strangers were not the only ones to make such mistakes. . . ‘returnee’ intellectuals. . . often had to be systematically reeducated before they were capable of really addressing local needs” (pp. 233-234).

With this in mind, it is appropriate to question the validity not only of Western intellectuals who speak for African valuative concerns, but also African intellectuals whose frame of reference has been altered by absence from the society they claim to represent. Mikell is looking back on events 60 years ago, but more recent evidence suggests that this continues to be the case: “one of the most revealing aspects of this study is the lack of correspondence between the views of government officials, and international agencies, and those of the local people in the area” (Nsiah-Gyabaah, 1994, p. xvii).

Of interest, Nsiah-Gyabaah’s research allocates exactly two pages to the “people’s beliefs and attitudes towards the environment” with an empirical method lacking in specificity and complexity (Likert scale) (pp. 153-154). The handful of other “environmental” studies situated in Ghana also look at specific environmental concerns with little or no attention paid to the socio-ecological values of the people who live in the landscape (Vercruijsse, 1988; Amanor, 1999; Obosu-Mensah, 1999). None of these researchers mention pesticide usage in their analysis of environmental concerns. One, however, points out the primacy of the global capitalist economy in “facilitating the commoditization of rural areas” which destroyed the social structure of rural communities (Amanor, p. 30); and Obosu-Mensah predicts “the most important players in the practice [of farming] will change from small-scale farmers to capitalists” (p. 213).

What does this mean in terms of large-scale trends? Rural areas will continue to lose what is left of their social cohesion as people are forced from the land into urban areas, and the people who are left are forced through a variety of pressures to produce more food on less land (Nukunya, 1992, p. 218). Furthermore, the capital to fund studies will direct that those studies focus primarily on Ghana’s role in the global economy. An excellent example of this kind of study is Determinants of foreign direct investment in Ghana, funded by The Department for International Development (Tsikata, Asante, & Gyasi, 2000), whose ulterior motives seem questionable. Exterior monetary pressure (ie. “foreign direct investment”) is primarily directed towards continued economic growth with little attention paid to the ideas of sustainability found in Agenda 21.

We are left with a number of unanswered questions at the close of this review of Ghanaian research (with inference that much of Sub-Saharan African wears the same sandals): How will we know about African values of landscape and the people within it? How will we determine what is changing in those values in the move from a rural to an urban (capital-based) society? How will we know if those values are similar, or very different from our own Western values of “sustainability?” What are the values of men who pour DDT into a river? How will we know if environmental education is culture-specific—or even appropriate at all--to local communities in Africa if we use a Western “measuring stick?”

Are We Always Right?
From the outset, it is helpful to notice that the “environment debate” in the West is mired in arguments over terminology. For example, Dobson spends much of his book making sure his readers understand there is a vast difference between “ecologism” and “environmentalism” (1990). Bonnett claims there are multiple definitions for “sustainability,” and states that, on at least one level, “its use is generally inherently anthropocentric in assuming the desirability of sustaining those natural systems that are conducive to human flourishing” (2004, p. 124). He further asserts a danger in the “ . . . Seductiveness in seeming to marry these two highly desired goals of sustainability and development, apparently bringing them into convenient harmony.” In fact, Bonnett sees the term “development” as even more problematic for its power as a “political ‘dream ticket’ in the area of environmental policy making.” He claims the terms as they stand in Western debate and policy-language are semantically, ethically, and epistemologically fraught with danger to an authentic discourse in sustainability that is open to divergent perspectives (p. 125).

Lest we think this has never happened before, W.E.F. Ward describes a change in semantics—but not necessarily purpose--that occurred in 1947 led by the Colonial Office conference of Britain and UNESCO when “mass education” was changed to “fundamental education” which was changed to “community development”—all in the space of 4 years (1959, p. 127). Ward claims the administrative and technical officials were cynical about the change, which was “nothing new” from their behind-the-scenes standpoint. If this was the case some 60-odd years ago, it might be useful to question whether the U.N.—and particularly the former colonizing nations--continues to do essentially the same thing via Agenda 21 today.

Moving beyond the terminology debate, Hofstede’s well-known social science research text reminds us that “ . . . International conflicts do reflect value differences” (2001, p. 432), and points out that “ . . . ethnocentrism can be very subtle, and it is certainly easier to recognize it in contributions from other cultures than in those from one’s own” (p. 18). Brookes points out that outdoor adventure education theory is disconnected from contemporary research in other fields, notably social psychology (2003, p. 418). With these key insights into cultural and epistemological “blind spots,” we can more readily critique current environmental thought:

On the forefront are writers like Orr and Sterling whose articulate essays provide good examples of environmental thinking. However, Sterling uses ½ a page to mention research in ‘developing nations’ in his book Sustainable Education (2004). One might argue this is simply ‘acting locally—thinking globally’ but the trend continues among other writers. In a debate framed as global, it would seem critical to access other perspectives from around the globe. The lack thereof is disconcerting. This suggests the ‘null curricula’ is in operation in environmental writing.

My own values coincide with Orr’s, but my 17-years experience in West Africa forced a closer look at his logic: on a single page in his introduction, he advocates the role of “global security” that conforms sovereign nation-states to the imperatives of the biosphere, yet seemingly contradicts this with “a strategy for change that can come only from an active, informed citizenry” (1992, p. 2). By demanding conformation, he begins to speak from a decidedly ethnocentric (not ecocentric) perspective—fine, if he qualifies it with a nod to other perspectives. However, he does not. Orr is an example of a western environmental thinker unaware of this “blind spot.” He speaks persuasively, writes decisively, engages in academic debate, and yet presumes (both explicitly and implicitly in his writing) that his Western heritage must lead the way to a global hegemony.

Orr promotes an “ecological literacy” (pp. 85-95)—beneficial for literate nations. What of the many nations with a majority illiterate populace? He seemingly contradicts himself in another essay by claiming, “the relationship between [higher] education and decent behavior of any sort is not exactly straightforward” (p. 149). In essence what he wants is another type of education, what the Greeks called “. . . Paideia, or that of the Renaissance person of wide understanding, competence, and commitment to the common good” (p. 84). It bears repeating that Mikell reminded us that many academically trained Ghanaians “had to be systematically reeducated before they were capable of really addressing local needs” (p. 233).

Orr makes plain his answer to environmental problems:

Throughout history, humans have steadily triumphed over all of those things that managed us: myth, superstition, religion, taboo, and above all, technological incompetence. Our task now is to replace these constraints with some combination of law, culture, and a rekindled reverence for all life (p. 162).

What traction does this have with the “uneducated” young men who poured DDT into the river water? If they are living in a combination of “myth, superstition, religion, taboo, and technological incompetence” does that mean they are a second-class ethnicity?

Orr is dangerously close to falling into what Pepper calls “ecofascism” (1984, p. 204): It could be suggested that much of the West’s desire to see population reduction and “sustainability” in the “Third World” is not because of altruistic motives, but rather because of a ‘lifeboat ethic’ which requires that the rest of the world deal with its ecological issues so that we can continue to live the lives we desire—albeit “sustainably.” Pepper contends that the “ecofascist” may not be in pursuit of material or capitalistic wealth, but still desire a standard of living based on ecological values that involves pressing the rest of the world into his or her belief systems (pp. 204-214). “Ecofascists” used to think of the lifeboat on a smaller scale, for example, the state of California. Now, it might be suggested, the lifeboat is the globe, and the crisis of the “sinking ship” requires that we use “drastic measures.” Very few ecologists consider themselves “ecofascists.” Yet, in the case of fascism, it is the extent of the use of power that is the question.

The lifeboat paradigm presents a paradox: If the lifeboat is the entire earth we are pressed into deciding how the whole earth is going to “get on board” with us. The environmental rhetoric of two decades ago that reacted to the developing world as a ‘population plague’ and ‘flood of people engulfing the whole earth’ (Pepper, 1984) is gone—or gone underground. Did those environmentalists have a radical paradigm shift, or has U.N. conventions and quasi-legislation poured soothing oil on the troubled waters? Either way, the shift is of enough magnitude that it seems advisable to question the process, the product, and potentially the paradigm.

Most recently, Alan Greenbaum brings vital sociological perspective to this issue through his concept of “nature connoisseurship” (2005, p. 390). His paper is worth reading in its entirety because he situates himself as an environmentalist, yet critically questions its essence. Greenbaum calls “nature connoisseurship” an outgrowth of the bourgeois middle class who developed a “refinement of taste connected with judgments of intrinsic worth” to differentiate themselves from the “workers” and “high class” (2005, p. 390). Here is the “blind spot” of which Hofstede warns us: Western environmentalists are, in Greenbaum’s words, in “danger of projecting onto non-Western peoples what are distinctively modern Western (albeit counterparadigmatic) notions, while misrepresenting and marginalizing their actual views and environmental concerns” (p. 403). The danger is obvious: an elitism and lack of openness to other paradigms among those who claim tolerance.

Of significance to this discussion is Grove’s vast research into the colonial state and the origins of western environmentalism: Converging colonial values came together to provide a “new valuing of the tropical environment,” (1995, p. 475) yet almost completely missed listening to the values of indigenous people who lived in that environment. In other words, although the colonial powers borrowed some practices from the indigenous peoples, the rise of the environmental movement was concerned chiefly with the use and protection of the landscape, but not of the peoples--or their eco-values—living in that landscape. Are we continuing this centuries-old “blind spot” in the name of “earth connoisseurship?”

Where does “concept-based education” fit in all of this? We return for a moment to Orr’s request that we educate using “paidaiea” as a goal. Again, my own eco-values resonated to this claim, but Greenbaum’s sociological insight into “nature connoisseurship” caused me to pause. Pepper, also, critically examines “this ecocentric claim that the best way is provided through education” (p. 215). Ultimately, Pepper’s answer to the education problem differs from Orr’s in details, but not substantively: “the real way forward. . . must be through seeking reform at the material base of society . . . .” He calls this “the seeds of that alternative economy which has already been growing steadily out of the West’s economic depression” (p. 224).
If Pepper sees the only way forward through “seed communities” (the “best” we can hope for) in the West, what should we expect in so-called “developing” countries? Do we have a right to expect anything? And if we expect education, are we expecting it to line up with our own eco-values?

A New Term
With this insight into cultures and eco-values, it is appropriate to ask, “Does ‘sustainability’ and ‘biodiversity’ and ‘concept-based education’ apply to peoples and their cultures as well as their environment?” Could we add the term ‘historidiversity’ as an environmentalist’s nod to the widening assumption that environments and peoples are situated not only in a present web of landscape relationships, but also in a web of relationships between people’s, landscapes, and values that stretch back to the colonial period, and beyond? Beside ‘deep ecology’ could we add ‘deep history?’

Many environmental thinkers are pushing for a massive change to meet the “global ecological crisis.” In the hurry to “man the lifeboat,” on what basis are we deciding whose eco-values are sustainable? Whose values are value-able? How “biodiverse” are ecological thinkers when it comes to ecological values? Who decides whose paradigm gets left off the boat? Are we using different language but the same approach as our colonizing ancestors in their paternal “care” for the nations they “conquered?” How care-full of our care are we in the midst of this crisis?

The Synecdoche
We return to the synecdoche at the beginning of this paper. My 17-years experience tells me this: The destroyers of the river, its ecosystem, and the people living in the suburban village connected to it as a food source were caught in a societal web that included a number of sticky threads. They were members of a minority tribe; they moved from a tribal “homeland” with spiritual connection to the land to a “no man’s land” on the outskirts of a city built on commerce; they were without work and needed food; they had no money; they had entered a cultural vacuum. One perspective screams, “eco-terrorism!” Their perspective begs something else. Whatever their values were that day, it was my blind spot that kept me from finding out. The fact remains, we do not know their values. A further question follows: does our own paradigm even admit the need to know their values? The lack of research is telling about our own concerns. Is the blind spot accidental, or purposive?

Blind Spots and Questions
We are faced with a number of contradictions in global environmental education if we begin to see this education taking place within a ‘deep history’ context: value-laden societies, local tribes, over-grown mega-cities in the “developing world,” and the historidiversity of the peoples and the landscapes. What does a move towards global ‘interconnectedness’ mean in respect to whose epistemology wins the day? Is the answer to the DDT question in all its detailed complexity really environmental education for sustainability? Could this concept work if transcribed into suburban/urban culture of Kumasi, Ghana? A recent class discussion found consensus among students and lecturer that transferring the ‘friluftsliv’ tradition from Norway to Scotland would entail massive cultural hurdles. How much actually transfers? To do the same for Sub-Saharan Africa would verge on the absurd.

In summary, there is a “blind spot” in the Western view of the environment and education regarding Ghana, and potentially, the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa: Our Western heritage from colonialism combined with our “nature connoisseurship” has the potential to place what we consider to be universal values (or “better” values) upon cultures and peoples who may think differently. Not recognizing this “blind spot” places us in the dubious position of being a small step away from what Pepper calls “ecofascism.” A major issue for most ecologically-minded westerners is to what degree we are prepared to make the rest of the world think like us. Do “eco-friendly” words like “education for sustainability” and “biodiversity” and “free trade” have much traction in non-western nations? It might be suggested that these words are used as a new sheepskin over the old wolf of industry, capitalism, and imperialism. How much of our “blind spot” is about devaluing the worth of non-western cultures and other ways of knowing and learning?

I will not give a simplistic educational answer to the synecdoche with which I began this paper for these reasons: First, due to word-limits, this paper provides a cursory introduction to a complex issue. Second, the “blindspot” requires “corrective lenses:” Paying attention to what we’ve overlooked, and paying attention to what other cultures actually value. My goal was to highlight the need for the educational questions to be posed conceptually within that landscape and peoples’ perspective—questions still waiting to be asked. Though I grew up there, I am too far removed (like Mikell’s academics who needed ‘reeducating’) to be of any practical use to the issue in this sense. Third, though it is appropriate in some circumstances to provide models, concepts, and answers; in this case the issue is big enough to warrant a blind spot beginning and a question-filled end.



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posted by Dust @ 4:39 AM