Exploring posthuman pedagogies: the practice and ethics of decentring the human

Authors

• Raichael Lock University of Manchester, Manchester Institute of Education, U.K.

Keywords:

practice, decentring, ethics, environmental education

Abstract

Philosophical posthumanism attempts to decentre the human so that in a world dominated by humanity we can learn to understand the complex interdependencies in which we are embroiled. This paper examines the practice of decentring the human as an ethical pedagogical method for environmental education working with two posthumanist pedagogies, firstly Taylor’s (2013) common worlds and secondly Lenz Taguchi’s (2010) intra-active pedagogy. Instances of decentring are drawn from researching the practices of the Manchester Environmental Education Network (MEEN), an environmental education charity working with inner-city schools on the ‘Workshops for Wildlife’ project. As encounters with other beings can be unpredictable the project included pupils’ stories of animal encounters. But can such tales decentre humans into re-imagining ethical human/animal relations? Working with the ethics of encounter, inclusion and diffractive methods this paper explores how responsive pedagogical practices decentre the human.