Mid Sweden University

We live in an uncertain time - with environmental destruction and injustices and at same time the same time, challenged and questioned institutions and norms of democracy (cf. Haraway, 2016; Orr, 2024; Peters, 2017; Pickering et al. challenged and questioned institutions and norms of democracy (cf. Haraway, 2016; Orr, 2024; Peters, 2017; Pickering et.al, 2020; Stengers, 2015, 2018, 2023). Hence, there is an urgent need to rethink living and learning democracy in education, maybe even rewilding democracy, if being able to seriously question status quo and business as usual in research and society. We promote education as a partner for change (Blenkinsop & Kuchta, 2024; Fettes & Blenkinsop, 2023) and, thereby, how education could contribute to exploring the meaning of eco-democracy. 

Consequently, eco-democracy acknowledges an ecocentric worldview and an intrinsic value for all humans and the more-than-human and strives towards mutually beneficial flourishing (Blenkinsop & Wilhelmsson, in press; Clark, 2017). Challenging democracy as solely a human endeavour, the main interest is understanding how eco-democracy could be lived, learned, and enacted through relational and emergent interactions between humans and the more-than-human world. 

Concerning a planned project with young students, our presentation aims to elaborate on the methodological implications of activating human and more-than-human encounters in teaching practice. Theoretically, we draw on post-human theorising (Malone, Truong & Gray, 2017); where human and more-than-human agencies emerge through encounters and relationships (Stengers, 2010). More specifically, we are inspired by the Wild Pedagogies tradition and ‘nature as co-teacher’ one of 8 touchstones that seek to amplify the voices of the more-than-human world and their educational significance (Jickling et al., 2018; Morse et al., 2018). Eco-portraiture will contribute as it offers tools for interpretation within a geographical place, including more-than-human perspectives, allowing aesthetic and underscoring ethical aspects (Blenkinsop et al., 2022). 

Methodologically, exploring living and learning eco-democracy in education through young students' relationships with more than humans inevitably captures the intricate entanglements of more-than- human students, researchers, and teachers' power relations and response-abilities. The contribution of our presentation will be discussing opportunities and pitfalls when trying to stay with the messiness and openness in entanglements without not turning a blind eye to power relations when aiming at letting all voices be heard.