Both within environmental education and educational theory more broadly, posthuman and new materialist perspectives have been at the forefront of a conversation that challenges the idea of human exceptionalism embedded in anthropocentric ways of relating to, with and in the world. Such projects are informed by notions of interrelationship, interconnectivity, and interdependency. On the surface such ideas might appear to dovetail with recent scholarship on ‘resonance’ and embodied relationality, insofar as both share a call for new forms of relationality in education. However, they are based on two different philosophical commitments: for ‘resonance’ theorists, humans are in a complex bodily relation ‘to’ the world (Rosa 2019); while for posthumanists/new materialists, humans are ‘of’ the world and ontologically on par with it (‘flat ontology’). This paper moves beyond both positions in appealing to what I see as an overlooked concept within education that is receiving new attention elsewhere, namely animism. While animism is perhaps more in line with posthuman/new materialist frameworks than Rosa’s notion of resonance, it is nonetheless suspicious of a flat ontology in which the ethical and political dimensions of interrelationality are often obscured. Drawing on the critical return to animism both in philosophy (Vetlesen 2019; Harvey 2013) and anthropology (Ingold 2011, Kohn 2013), this presentation explores what it can contribute to our concrete bodily pedagogical practices to better face the current ecological crisis. As scholars have noted, animism is not to be understood in its original pejorative sense of a ‘primitive belief’ which imputes spirit to more than human others. Instead, as Harvey notes, it is an embodied ‘practice’ that acknowledges both human and more than human others as particular ‘persons’; each of which has its own unique way of being, responding and acting in the world. As Vetlesen and Harvey make clear, animist practices reveal how myriad interrelationalities are embedded in relations of respect and responsibility. This paper first outlines the rationale for exploring pedagogical practices through an animist lens, specifically in relation to the current planetary crisis. It then examines how new ideas of animism promote concrete forms of relationality (bodily/sensory) that emerge in complex interactions or ‘meshworks’ (Ingold 2011) with both human and more than human others. Drawing specifically on the work of Vetlesen and Harvey, I draw out the ethical and political implications of these interrelationships. I conclude with an exploration of the pedagogical possibilities of animism, drawing on an example from classroom practice.

Harvey, Graham. 2006. Animism: respecting the living world. New York: Columbia University Press. ---. 2013. The handbook of contemporary animism. London: Routledge. Ingold, Tim. 2011. Being alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description. London: Routledge. Kohn, Eduardo. 2013. How forests think: toward an anthropology beyond the human. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rosa, H. (2019). Resonance: a sociology of our relationship to the world. Cambridge: Polity Press. Vetlesen, Arne Johan. 2019. Cosmologies of the Anthropocene : panpsychism, animism, and the limits of posthumanism. London: Routledge.