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Staying-with the traces: mapping-making posthuman and indigenist philosophy in environmental education research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2020

Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles Open the ORCID record for Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles [Opens in a new window] ,
Shae L. Brown Open the ORCID record for Shae L. Brown [Opens in a new window] ,
Maia Osborn ,
Simone M. Blom Open the ORCID record for Simone M. Blom [Opens in a new window] ,
Adi Brown  and
Thilinika Wijesinghe
Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles*
Affiliation:
School of Education, Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education (SEAE) Research Cluster, Coolangatta, Australia
Shae L. Brown
Affiliation:
School of Education, Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education (SEAE) Research Cluster, Coolangatta, Australia
Maia Osborn
Affiliation:
School of Education, Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education (SEAE) Research Cluster, Coolangatta, Australia
Simone M. Blom
Affiliation:
School of Education, Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education (SEAE) Research Cluster, Coolangatta, Australia
Adi Brown
Affiliation:
School of Education, Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education (SEAE) Research Cluster, Coolangatta, Australia
Thilinika Wijesinghe
Affiliation:
School of Education, Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education (SEAE) Research Cluster, Coolangatta, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: acutterm@scu.edu.au
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Abstract

We acknowledge and pay respect to the people of the Yugambeh Nation on whose Land we work, meet and study. We recognise the significant role the past and future Elders play in the life of the University and the region. We are mindful that within and without the buildings, the Land always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.1

This paper introduces staying-with the traces of inter/intra-subjective experience, with and within place, in mapping-making philosophy in environmental education. Through a conceptualisation of philosophy as concepts or knots in an infinite composition of knowledge, rather than separate knowledges, we use staying-with the traces2 as method, whereby our embodied patterns of human and more than human relationality across place and time may engage with philosophy. This grounding of philosophy foregrounds the diverse onto-epistemologies of posthumanism and indigenist3 ways of knowing, acknowledging tensions and searching for the possibilities of connectivity between them. Through an embodied arts-based walking practice, our approach challenges the perpetuation of reductionist perspectives, including nature/culture binaries, within environmental education. We stay with the traces of bird, meeting, tree, watery and concrete in mutual inseparable relation and becoming.

Keywords

posthumanindigenist knowingsmore than humanphilosophystaying-witharts-based education research methodologies
Type
Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 36 , Special Issue 2: Mapping-making philosophy in environmental education: Lines, knots and knotting , July 2020 , pp. 105 - 128
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© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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