Introduction

Abstract

The original call for papers for this special edition on Eco-pedagogy and Digital Nature Connections began by noting young people’s growing frustrations with the escalating ecological crisis, reflected in the world-wide 2019 take up of Greta Thunberg’s impassioned climate strike initiative. The viral reach of Greta’s provocation also attests to the legacy impact of earlier initiatives, such as the 2015 global student climate strike, supported by Avaaz and 350.org, plus Suzanne Dahliwal’s/Tar Sands ongoing efforts to campaign for Indigenous environmental rights, and Ridhima Pandey’s 2017 legal action against the Indian government for failing to address climate change. This special edition aims to acknowledge the ways that education (and re-education) efforts both within and beyond the walls of the academy can align with these sorts of grass roots actions. Eco-pedagogy (Åhlberg, 1998; Freire & Brasília, 2000) has always been linked to broader collective aspirations for a sustainable ecological and political future characterised by social justice, as much as environmental care. That broad view is similarly adopted in this special issue to include social change efforts in digital culture networks, assemblages and ecologies more generally. Our increasingly mediated world is characterised by a complex interplay of participation, sharing, curation, surveillance, subversion, exploitation, exclusion, inclusion and diverse individualism, as much as networked collectivism. Eco-pedagogy in these contexts can help to promote a balance between these various flows of influence. In order to fall into conversation with everyday culture however eco-pedagogy also needs to be flexible, which involves being structured and precise when required, but also perhaps less guarded and more open at times, informal, portable, personal, variable and even playful.

Keywords