Liberation as Dependence

Abstract

Bruno Latour argues that we are currently living in a New Climatic Regime, where binary oppositions like Nature/Culture and Subject/Object prevent the development of modes of politics capable of collective action. The New Climatic Regime requires the reconstruction of human relations with the more-than-human world, including the contemporary politics of education, which mostly developed in response to problems lumped under the category of ‘the social.’ Here, scholars have asked how education might play a role in emancipating individuals and groups from oppressive social forces. However, climate change is a different type of political problem, and one where the logic of emancipation appears to break down. This paper puts Latour’s thinking in conversation with Freire’s praxes of liberatory education to inquire into the role emancipatory education might play in engendering collective action towards climate change and other problems of the present.

Keywords

• Latour
• emancipation
• Freire
• climate change
• politics