Artistic Partnership Contribution To Agroecology Education

Author(s):

Corinne Covez(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

15. Research Partnerships in Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

15 SES 08, Case Study (Part 3)

Paper Session continued from 15 SES 07

Time:

2017-08-24

09:00-10:30

Room:

K6.16

Chair:

Magali Hardouin

Contribution

The aim of this proposal is to consider the partnership experienced through an artistic project on agroecology that took place in the North-Pas-de-Calais region in 2015-2016 in the eight highschools of the French Agricultural Training System. The Sensitive dimension of partnership through an artistic musical project has already been introduced (Covez, 2015). Since 2012, the agroecology has become the priority of the institution. Each agricultural region has therefore created an Educational and Agroecological Transitory Plan. The programs tend to contain it, as the basic line is to “otherwise producing learning and otherwise teaching learning”. The partnership in the framework of Sustainable Development has also been studied (Covez 2009) showing the intercultural competencies developed through a French/English circus practice. Now, as the French agricultural institution made of agroecology its priority, the aim of the project has been to introduce an artistic practice to better understand the concept of agroecology itself. This time the framework is the “human agroecology” that emphasises “the social representations that structure the relations between individuals, social groups, their practices and environments” (R. Audet, C. Gendron 2012). The systemic and critical agroecologies are actually not sufficient to analyse the representations and socio-cultural practices that have to be taken into account so as to modify them. Then the human agroecology has only been studied on cultural subjects, for instance collective gardens (Muramatsu 2010). Actually the question is related to the human ecology which has rarely explored the social and cultural representations and practices that could be influenced, changed or improved by another approach (Audet 2012). So, this is also an international challenge for human agroecology . Besides thanks to the agroecology based on the territory and the people, our aim is to approach in some measures the “Partnership Action-Research” that showed in different countries how to empower the communities and to develop the collective autonomy (Faure & alii 2010). PAR elaborated so as “to produce new knowledge, solve a problem identified by the actors and reinforce the actors’ capacities to a bigger autonomy” (Selemna 2010), seems to perfectly correspond to the agroecological transition.

So the question is: “Does an artistic practice partnership contribute to an agroecology education ?”. Actually there is no definition of agroecological education as such. The focus is on training to realise change in different agricultural producing areas. For us, transition to agroecology would therefore mean training to a internationaly interesting constant collective change. Besides, this artistic partnership has been selected as project of the future by the French Ministry for the 50^th anniversary of the “animators-teachers” responsible for the project.

The hypothesis is that artistic partnership represents a tool for educational change in respect to agroecology. On the one hand, the representations may change the understanding of the complex agroecological concept. On the other hand, the artistic partnership may help creating an educational situation that can enable the awareness of the need of change. The expected benefits are cognitive, social and friendly-environmental with intellectual but also sensitive aspects. Whereas the impacts of the agroecological programs are aimed to be more technical, professional or economical, the contribution through an artistic purpose is more socio-cultural. Actually we would like to get a better understanding of this artistic and educational practice and its educational perceptions of agroecology through art, as a change of way of living. The difficulty lies on the tension to get open to sensitivity and intellectually complex dimension of agroecology. Accepting the sensitive process inside us enriches but also provoke some unbalance and change that we have to face to keep on partnering, acting and creating. Accepting the systemic agroecology is quite demanding too.

Method

The methodological approach is exploratory and considered as a first step as we are submitting a big regional “Hauts de France” project based on a partnership action-research with art students aiming to work in the different highschools on cultural or artistic practices upon agroecology. This action belonged to an “artistic support mission” disposal based on a partnership between the Agricultural, Food-processing and Forest Direction and the Cultural Affairs Regional Direction. Eight highschools have participated to the project which involved 80 students between 15 and 17 and two artists, but also 10 teachers specialized in projects building called the Socio-Cultural Education “animators-teachers”. The action objective was to improve the understanding of the general agroecology concept through an artistic practice. Then the partnership has been mostly based on the objectives of the local students, artists and teachers according to the territory of the highschool (rural, urban, agricultural, horticultural...). Each workshop has also been connected to its specific context such as its technical, professional or sociocultural dimensions (food-processing, gardening...). On the organisation point of view, the workshops have been set up for duration of 2 weeks time. The first one was focused on the discovery of the artist practice and the agroecology understanding. The second, six weeks later was based on the artistic practice for 10 max students in order to create a show or exhibition. The artist specialised in culinary theatre has worked on an interactive creative direction in four highschools. The design artist has accompanied the students in creating an interactive exhibition in the glasshouse of four other establishments. The fact is that the theatre was on a more emotionally and socially axis developed. On the contrary, the designer better worked on the agroecological concept so as to make it live through the exhibition. The methods have been first to take into consideration the artistic results but also analysing the report that has been made by the partners, and their interviews. On the one hand, the photos of the design exhibition and the theatre performance help understanding the students’ creation about agroecology. On the other hand, the interviews with teachers, artists, administrative staff and students participate to better understand their evaluation of the disposal, its complexity and effects. These methods enabled exploring and developing social, sensitive but also cognitive effects.

Expected Outcomes

The aim is to see if there is any change in the awareness, understanding or living of the agroecology thanks to the partnership. We found out that the students, teachers, artists, or administrative head perceptions have positively changed. In fact the partnership between artists, teachers and the regional staff has been qualified as indispensible so as to build an agroecological project. It seems that the multi-partnership is only able to make things change bringing up crossing views and issues. The artistic practice also offered a performance that enhanced the awareness of agroecology. An administrative staff declared “The artistic practice gave a body to agroecology” making it more real, whereas the systemic concept is complex. The design exhibition showing different examples of the incoherence of our socio-economical and ecological world has been more analytic. So, the theatre performance and design exhibition, as artefacts have also been took into consideration as results. Finally, the internationaly interesting benefits have shown to be social, institutional and friendly-environmental with cognitive but also sensitive aspects. The “based-on territory” agroecology approach may represent an opportunity for partnership action-research aiming to correspond to the “otherwise producing, training” French transition to agroecology. Furthermore, this project allowed becoming more pragmatic, humanly realistic and modest in front of the concept complexity and socially interconnected, in order to make it work. It seems that the sensitive artistic practice partnership contributed to make agroecology more “real” allowing imagining it. To finish with, partnership in itself represents the basis to create an agroecological education aiming to collaborate for a collective change. This economical and technical focused education would benefit taking into consideration the sociocultural dimensions. So, from Pr V. Baumfield definition, we propose to explore “Artistically working together to find a sensitive agreed solution to a common problem or problematic situation, to live on”.

References

Audet, R. (2012). L’écologie humaine de Pierre Dansereau et la métaphore du paysage intérieur, Nature Sciences Sociétés, vol 20, N°1, Audet, R. & Gendron, C. (2012). « Agroécologie systémique, agroécologie politique, agroécologie humaine », in Agroécologie : entre pratiques et sciences sociales, Dijon : Educagri, p. 281-293. Bois, D. & Austry D. (2007). Vers l’émergence du paradigme du Sensible. Réciprocités, n°1, 6-22. Covez, C. (2006), Arts de l’éphémère et développement durable. Actes du colloque international « Le développement durable sous le regard des sciences et de l’histoire : de la réflexion aux pratiques éducatives et de formation », IUFM Nord-Pas-de-Calais IUFM Poitou-Charentes et EPISTEME Université de Bordeaux, IUFM Arras, [CD/Rom]. Tome 2, p 119-134. Covez, C. (2009). ), Pratiques de partenariat et de cirque interculturelles, in Masson P. & Pilo M. (dir.), Research Partnerships in Education, Case Studies. Lille : Book Edition (bilingual publishing), p. 188-196. Covez, C. (2015), “Orchestra in Prison: A Sensitive Change in Partnership”, congrès “Education and Transition. Contributions from Educational Research” ECER de l’EERA (European Conference on Educational Research), Université de Budapest (Hongrie), 8-11 septembre. Covez, C. (2016). Jeunes en détention et jeux d’orchestration: à l’écoute du sensible. Sociétés et jeunesses en difficultés, n° 17. https://sejed.revues.org/8264 Faure, G. Gasselin, P. Triomphe, B. Temple, L. et Hocdé, H. (2010). Innover avec les acteurs du monde rural : La recherche-action en partenariat, Gembloux : Edts Quae, CTA, Presses Agronomiques de Gembloux. Hall, E. Wall, K. Baumfield, V. & Higgins, S. (2015). Where is your warrant ? Looking for evidence of learning and partnership roles in a teacher inquiry network. In The notion of partnership in education: crossed looks. To be published. Merini, C. (2015). “Introduction”. In The notion of partnership in education: crossed looks. To be published Morin, E. (2014). Enseigner à vivre. Arles : Actes Sud. Muramatsu, K. (2010). « Collective gardens : an agriculture of the social » dans G. Faure & alii, Innover avec les acteurs du monde rural : La recherche-action en partenariat, Gembloux : Edts Quae, CTA, Presses Agronomiques de Gembloux, p.219-232. Selamna, N.-E. (2010). « La recherche-action, des origines à nos jours », dans G. Faure & alii, Innover avec les acteurs du monde rural : La recherche-action en partenariat, Gembloux : Edts Quae, CTA, Presses Agronomiques de Gembloux, p. 23-30.

Author Information

Corinne Covez (presenting / submitting)

DRAAF

ACTION CULTURELLE

VILLENEUVE D'ASCQ

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