Practicing common worlding pedagogies

Abstract

Human consumptive activities following the industrial revolution have culminated into the Anthropocene, which scientists describe as an era of environmental instability caused by the human species. This research problematizes a human exceptionalist belief that our species is privileged above other beings which has led to self-serving acts that threaten the survival of our planet and its multispecies inhabitants. As I become increasingly concerned for children, I look to research that generates knowledge of living and dying well together with human-more-than-human difference during anthropogenic times.

One source of worldly knowledge comes from a group of anticolonial feminist researchers theorizing that children live and learn within common worlds. Through their research, they are disrupting developmentalist movements centering on the child that diminish children’s agency to practice relational ethics. By viewing children as worldly beings, we consider that it may be beneficial for them generate knowledge in relationship with other beings, entities, and forces inhabiting this colonized and ecologically damaged planet.

This thesis centers on my struggle to unlearn Western humanist thought and embrace common worlds thinking. Evidence gathered through this narrative research reveals shifts in my role as companion-educator-researcher as I practice common worlding pedagogies. Pausing to resist my embodied human centrism within a colonized education system becomes a powerful response that generates more worldly teaching practices.