Engaging in global connections: Young people’s environmental learning and agency in Northern Kenya

Author(s):

Nanna Jordt Jørgernsen(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

30 SES 12 B, Global Connections Supporting Young People's ESE Learning

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-05

09:00-10:30

Room:

B115 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Elisabeth Barratt Hacking

Contribution

In Education for Sustainable Development policy and practice, discussions of the global perspective often build on a perceived dichotomy between global/universal/scientific/abstract knowledge and local/ traditional/indigenous/practical knowledge. In this paper I propose that giving attention to global connections and friction (Tsing 2005) opens up for understanding environmental learning and agency as contextualized and situated navigations in complex landscapes constituted by travelling knowledge, thus qualifying both our understanding of environmental learning and of the global.

The objective of the paper is to explore how the concepts of global connections and global friction (Tsing 2005) may shed light on young people’s environmental learning and agency. In my Ph.D. research I analyse how young people from a pastoralist community in the Northern part of Kenya engage with their environment through appropriating, negotiating, reinterpreting and challenging trans-local ideas and practices related to environmental exploitation, conservation, and justice. In this paper I will discuss: 1) how such engagements with ‘the global’ may be analysed with inspiration from Tsing’s ethnographic work on global connections and friction, and 2) how this analysis contribute to discussions of the global within ESE research.

Theoretically, the paper seeks to combine Tsing’s ethnographic work on globalization and environment (Tsing 2000, 2001, 2005) with a situated learning perspective (e.g. Lave and Wenger 1991).

Method

The paper is based on field material from an ethnographic fieldwork in Laikipia North District, Kenya, which is an area characterized by arid or semi-arid land highly exposed to drought and climate change, a local economy based on pastoralism or agro-pastoralism, poor infra-structure, and a political history of isolation and marginalization by first the colonial powers and later the independent Kenyan nation state. Field work was carried out in the beginning of 2012 in a rural town centre in Laikipia North, and in the nearest larger town, Nanyuki. Building on the extended case method, the fieldwork aimed to explore and analyse the experiences of agents involved complex social and environmental situations and processes while considering the wider socio-cultural, political, economic and ecological contexts in which they are set (cf. Evens 2006, Christiansen et al. 2006). The methodological tools involved in this exploration included a range of qualitative data collection methods; notably participant observation, qualitative interviews, document analysis and participatory research methods.The fieldwork material consists of semi-structured interviews with young men and women, teachers, community leaders, civil society representatives and government officers; notes from participant observation; audio and video recordings of events and meetings; documents (policy documents, teaching materials, census data) from government and civil society; and excerpts of conversations on social media.

Expected Outcomes

My analysis takes as point of departure the observation that my young informants, who have participated in varied kinds of (intended and not-intended) environmental education activities, engage with environmental issues through navigations of ideas and practices which are linked to both local and trans-local understandings of environment. Rather than focusing on clashes between local and Western knowledge systems, or the effects of ‘global forces’ in a local place, I look at these ideas and practices as ‘knowledge that moves’ through messy, heterogeneous, and unequal global and trans-local connections and encounters characterized by friction (Tsing 2005:5-7). Tsing’s theoretical perspective inspires me to explore how my informants engage with several competing, travelling, environmental knowledge projects (cf. Tsing 2000, 2001) when involving with a specific livelihood practice in their area – harvesting of sand from (temporary) dry river beds. The preliminary analysis suggests that the competing environmental projects constitute and value the local and the global in different ways; that their co-existence create space for young people’s navigations and agency, but also that the possibilities for young people to navigate this space depends on their previous environmental learning experiences. In the last part of the paper I will bring Tsing’s perspective into dialogue with discussions on the global within ESER research (e.g. Gough 2012, Jickling & Wals 2008).

References

Christiansen, C., Utas, M. & Vigh, H. (2006). Introduction. In: Christiansen, Utas & Vigh (Eds.), Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthood. Social Becoming in an African Context.. Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala. Evens, T.M.S. (2006). Some Ontological Implications of Situational Analysis. In: Evens & Handelman (Eds.), The Manchester School: Practice and Ethnographic Praxis in Anthropology. Berghan Books Gough, N. (2012). Thinking Globally in Environmental Education. In: Stevenson, Brody, Dillon, & Wals (Eds.), International handbook on environmental education research. New York: AERA/Routledge. Jickling, B. & Wals, A. E. J. (2008). Globalization and environmental education: looking beyond sustainable development. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 40(1), pp.1-21 Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press. Tsing, A. L. (2000). The global situation. Cultural Anthropology, 15(3), pp.327-360. Tsing, A.L. (2001). Nature in the making. In: Crumley (Ed.). New directions in anthropology and environment: Intersections. Altamira Press. Tsing, A. L. (2005). Friction. An ethnography of global connection. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Author Information

Nanna Jordt Jørgernsen (presenting / submitting)

Aarhus University

Department of Education

Copenhagen NV

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