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Knowledge production & environmental discourses

Knowledge Production and Environmental Discourse

Stephanie Salgado Altamirano

Florida International University

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Knowledge production & environmental discourses
Introduction

“Along with the other social sciences, sociology was developed to understand
social and economic transformations occurring in Europe during the late
nineteenth century. It was a response to the need to manage the social disruptions
caused by rapid urbanization and the conversion of the rural peasantry to forms
“free labor.” To accomplish this, sociologists identified the social transformation
produced by these forces of change as “civil society” and this became their
justifying purview.”

“Sociological analysis was not cut out of whole cloth. It emerged from the fabric
of European (white) Enlightenment thought, which proposed reason and
rationality as the exclusive preserve of the modern subject. The European man
was declared to be the vanguard of this modernity. The relative absence of reason
and rationality guiding the behavior of the “uncivilized” races explained their
confinement to traditional societies. This racial distinction, formalized by the
social sciences, proved quite important for the “management” of European civil
society. It solidified the commitment of white Europeans to the inequalities and
exploitation of capitalism by “manufacturing” a sense of their own naturalized
difference, which separated them from the racialized Global Majority. Racial
distinction was presented as a product of historical evolution out of which
different moralities, ethical practices, and behavior were forged.”

(Hintzen Sociology’s Plight N.d, 1-2)

Cultural hegemony has been shaped and molded by colonialist incentives and
perspectives. European colonialism, and current-day Western imperialism, have found multiple
ways in which to enforce their colonial agendas of domination on different societies and cultures
across the globe. Among these colonialist incentives is the need to sustain hegemonic cultural
and global power through knowledge production. Knowledge production is a critical component
in controlling and coercing individuals into these colonialist agendas. One way in which
knowledge production has been enforced on people is through cultural genocide through forced
assimilation into European and Western educational systems. From the European educational
system emerged several academic fields that have made an impact in shaping our understanding
of the world, spiritually, materialistically, economically, politically, and socially.
Through colonialization and cultural genocides around the globe, most of our current-day
understanding is shaped by the educational system derived from Eurocentric and Western
knowledge. Modern-day academic fields emerged from European society, which aimed at
understanding, organizing, and developing the “notion of a necessary and natural hierarchical
organization of modern society” (Hinzten n.d, 1). Among these academic fields are
Anthropology—which studies different cultures and people— and Sociology—which studies
societies. Both fields created hierarchal systems which aimed at classifying societies and
individuals into systems that matched the European mentality of rationality and efficiency. In the
case of sociology, its “foundational thinking [rests] on the notion that ‘modern’ (meaning
civilized) European society [is] the highest stage of human development. Organized as civil
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society, it was racially differentiated from “traditional” (meaning uncivilized) territories
occupied by the Global Majority” (n.d, 2). These two fields have played an essential role in the
way in which we come to understand ourselves and the world around us.
Western and European dichotomies of civilized versus uncivilized, developed versus
undeveloped societies have created and still create unequal power relationships in which only a
selected few get to be heard and taken seriously in academia and in the creation of knowledge.
Therefore, from its inception and through colonialization, almost, if not all, the theorists who
have made an impact in academic fields and knowledge production have been Western European
men. European theorists, such as Auguste Comte, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Emile Durkheim,
have made an impact in shaping societies’ understanding, values, morals, and perceptions. Their
theories and their knowledge have become the cultural hegemonies, limiting and universalizing
lived experiences of the collective. This is problematic because not only does it silence voices
and different perspectives, but it also threatens the survival of multiple communities, societies,
and cultures around the world. Among those who have been facing and continue to face cultural
genocide through academia and knowledge production are Indigenous communities.
Western and European ideas of civilization, modernity, development, success, economic
growth, and prosperity—created and discussed by multiple Western European theorists—as the
cultural hegemony not only threaten Indigenous peoples and their cultures but it also threatens
the overall survival of the human population, as well as other living beings on the planet.
Capitalistic, developmental, and economic discourses addressed by theorists such as Max Weber
and Karl Marx have also shaped our societal relationship with the physical environment around
us. Within these discourses and frameworks of what it means to be a civilized society driven by
economic interests lead to materialistic and consumeristic social behaviors that are not
sustainable and viable for the planet.
Therefore, European and Western knowledge produced and discussed in academia by
social theorists has an impact and threatens the survival of all living beings, humans, especially
Indigenous and subsistence societies, and the planet. The goal of this paper is to examine the
ways in which sociology, scholars, theorists, and academics all play an essential role in
knowledge production and how that shapes our relationship and understanding of “others” and
the physical environment around us, as well as how academia sustains systems of oppression,
colonialism, and racism. And the role that social scientists and scholars have in either upholding
or changing complex systems. In particular, this paper will look at the ways in which discourses
surrounding cultures, modernity, development, and capitalism ultimately lead to cultural and
ecological genocide through an environmental discursive lens. It will do so by exploring the
ways in which sociology as a field and with its theorists have shaped our understanding through
knowledge production, capitalism, and development, and through the creation and representation
of the “other.” It will then look at how all of that manifests itself in environmental education, its
movement, and its discourses by providing a cultural and historical analysis of the field; and
provide a case study that explores the ways in which environmental discourses are inherently
Western and colonial. Finally, this paper will conclude with what steps we can take in order to
move away from complex systems that uphold colonialist values and principles.

Western and European knowledge production

Growing up in the Global South, it was taught to me from a very young age that education in the
United States and any European country was by far the most advanced and superior in the world.
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There was this perception that our ways of knowing and being were far more stupid than those
from the Global North, who were more intellectual and civilized than that of ours. Therefore, a
private American or European school in Honduras was the ultimate way to get you far in life.
There was a perception that anyone from those schools, specifically white-passing counterparts,
was far more civilized and modern than those “Indian” looking ones who attended public
schools. Before we were even taught how to speak or write in our native language, Spanish, we
were taught how to speak and write in English. Native language and knowledge were seen as less
than and therefore held in very low regard. Most of my upbringing was shaped by what was
considered modern and civilized according to Western standards. I now reflect on that and
realize how brainwashed and mentally colonized our minds were/are. Yet, given Honduras's
historical and political background, it is understandable why Western and European knowledge
has been ingrained in our minds as the ultimate one.
The reason why I start out with that personal story is to show how profound colonialism
has been and still is—that we consider anything that is American and European as the most
advanced and ideal way of being, especially when it comes to education. The ways in which
European and Western ideologies have penetrated and shaped/continue shaping our minds are
crucial things to be aware of. This is important because, as many scholars have addressed, it
threatens not just the survival of indigenous communities but also their culture, their identities,
and knowledge. Levene and Conversi (2014) “argue that the very nature of a neoliberal
globalization and concomitant nation-state building makes all subsistence societies vulnerable to
what amounts to structural genocide” (281). Therefore, this section of the paper will focus on the
ways in which academic fields, specifically sociology and its theorists, have had an impact on
this and how to this day, they can continue to sustain Western and colonial ideologies. This
section will also focus on the ways in which capitalism and development ideologies have shaped
our lives and dependence on exploitative practices towards both people and the planet.

Knowledge production and Colonialism

Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx, notwithstanding their location at opposite ends of these
concerns, both declared modern industrial Europe to be the most advanced form of
human development. Accordingly, members of the Global Majority must transform
themselves and their societies, through white tutelage and beneficence, into caricatures
(what one scholar called “shadows” and another a simulacrum) of whiteness. Otherwise,
they are condemned to what Indian scholar Dipesch Chackrabarty called the “waiting
room of history” as the inevitable fate of those without the capabilities, capacities, and
will to transform themselves into modern (European) subjects. This is the implication of
the sociological focus on both “rights” and “development” (Hinzten, n.d)/

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Avery Gordon, and Edward Said all contend that knowledge is a
product of history, as well as political and economic relationships that affect the ways in which
we come to understand the world and ourselves. Therefore, it is essential to understand how our
current day understanding of the world, others, and nature are shaped by the ideologies that have
been constructed through processes of historical, political, cultural, and economic events. While
there had been several events prior to the European colonialization, it is safe to assume that most
of our current-day ideas, values, morals, and perceptions about ways of being and being in the
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world have been shaped and molded by European colonialism and modern-day Western
imperialism.
These dominant ideologies manifest in all aspects of society. The most important and
impactful one (in my opinion) is knowledge production. Our educational system, especially at a
young age, plays a crucial role in how we come to be a part of the world and what we come to
believe as a part of our realities. Because of colonialism and Western imperialism, most of our
understanding of the world through knowledge production has been shaped through the lens of
Western and European men. With colonialism came the production of scientific knowledge in
which to study and try to understand different aspects of life. As mentioned in the introduction,
sociology and anthropology became two crucial fields in academia because they both explore the
relationship between societies, people, and cultures. However, these fields have their inherent
flaws—in that the people who originally started exploring these topics were those deemed
intelligent and of status, which were usually white men. Therefore, from the beginning, these two
fields of knowledge production have been shaped through the lens of predominantly white
European men. Not only that, but because white men were able to study the “other,” they were
placed on a pedestal where a hierarchy of most to least advanced in society—where white
European men were considered rational, modern, and civilized. Thus, it is essential to question
what constitutes legitimate knowledge?
In answering this question, Tickner and Smith (2020) explain that legitimate knowledge
is “entrenched [in] dichotomies [of] modern/traditional, scientific/unscientific,
rational/irrational.” These dichotomies have helped in the domination of Western knowledge
because it has established itself as the better, modern, scientific, and rational one versus that of
the colonized, whose knowledge is “deemed irrational, unreliable, unscientific and therefore
illegitimate” (7). Through colonialism, western knowledge and its theories have asserted
themselves as universal and superior to those “regarded as particular,” especially from the Global
South. These profoundly ingrained prejudices have affected the way we view ourselves within
the world and the way we approach different aspects of life and others.
Theorists like Foucault question these power dynamics in knowledge production through
discourse and governmentality. While we tend to think of power as something that is imposed on
us by an individual, organization, or institution with power and status, Foucault provides a
different perspective on this. He believes that power is not centralized in one thing (whether it be
an individual or institution). Instead, it is localized through discourses that manifest through
different agents. Therefore, as individuals and as a society, we become the subject and objects of
power through governmentality and surveillance. Foucault was also interested in understanding
how the use of scientific knowledge was another way in which to assert control over people. He
believed that knowledge and power could and can be used for or against us, and it has been
throughout the years (past and present).
On the other hand, we have people like Ann Laura Stoler. While she agrees with
Foucault’s analysis of power, knowledge production, and discourses, she sees the inherent
colonialist aspect of his theories. Being a white European man, Foucault was only focused on
specific aspects of society and did not account for colonialism, race, class, and gender. While
Foucault’s analysis is helpful in helping us understand how power and knowledge production
shape our society, it still plays into the flaws that come with Western knowledge production—
where colonialism is not addressed and where it tries to make itself universal knowledge.
With the above, I argue that colonialism is not an event of the past. Instead, it has taken a
different form—in this case, through its domination of knowledge production and universality.
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As Erickson (2020) argues, colonialism is a structure that “establishes itself in a place not
through a moment of conquest, but through an invasion that is a continual production of physical
and discursive infrastructures that stabilize and secure settler states.” Modern-day colonialism
manifests itself through power and knowledge production (Quijano 2000) even to this day.
Therefore, understanding the power that theorists, scholars, and academia have in upholding this
is important if what we intend to do is to bring change. In the section, I will discuss how because
of the above, we have to always consider positionality when it comes to knowledge production
and maintaining or questioning/destroying problematic systems.

Positionality

According to the University of British Columbia’s website on Positionality and Intersectionality,

“positionality refers to how the differences in social position and power shape identities and
access in society.” Western dominant knowledge has been made to be generalized, apolitical,
objective, and separable from emotions—all of which sustain colonial power in that anything
that is not any of those things is deemed irrational, unreliable, and unsound. However, both
Collins (2000) and Ahmed (2004) argue that social factors such as race, class, gender, sexuality,
as well as emotions are all things that shape knowledge and how we navigate the world. Thus,
understanding one’s own positionality is essential in understanding how that comes to shape the
way we talk about things, view the world, and how come to produce knowledge, especially as
scholars and academics—because what we produce as knowledge has the ability to become
accepted forms of knowledge and truth.
This is specifically evident in what Talpade Mohanty refers to as “Third World
Feminism.” While talking specifically about feminism, Talpade Mohanty’s analysis of Western
feminism can be applied to different aspects of positionality. Just like Western feminism only
focuses on a particular type of woman (Western and European women) and how its practices
shape, exclude and fabricate specific knowledge that is associated back to colonialism through
the relationships of power it establishes itself in, sociology or any other academic field can fall
into this same trap. Not only that, but as discussed previously, Western knowledge production
also establishes itself as universal knowledge—which can be very dangerous and excluding of
people who do not fit the definition of what is being presented.
M. Durante (2017) discusses positionality as a methodology in which “researchers should
identify their own degrees of privilege through factors of race, class, educational attainment,
income, ability, gender, and citizenship, among others” (135). I argue here that positionality is an
essential aspect of knowledge production, especially for social scientists whose aim is to create
change and systems of equality. I will return to positionality when I talk more about how it
manifests itself through environmental discourse. However, in the next section, I will talk about
how positionality and knowledge production manifest through discourse and narratives and how
they have the ability to uphold and sustain colonial power.

Discourses and narratives

As I have been mentioning thus far throughout this paper, knowledge production and
positionality are essential things to understand as scholars and academics because they play an
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indispensable role in the ways in which we study, understand, and come to produce knowledge—
which ultimately impacts the ways in which society, people, and cultures are framed and
understood to the rest of the world. In line with Foucault’s analysis of social and power relations,
I also believe that knowledge production, power, and discourse go hand in hand and work
together. However, some elements are missing from his analysis, which is what Ann Laura
Stoler talks about—factors such as coloniality, race, class, and gender. Therefore, my stance
comes from a combination of both of their analyses. I believe that discourses play an essential
part in what we come to understand as reality. Therefore, it is necessary to know where, how,
why, and who is behind all of these discourses and knowledge production. Thus, the narrative
and discourses we have been exposed to from childhood play an important role in how we
understand society and how they are addressed or not addressed in today’s discourses.
Discourses have the ability to shape our understanding of the world and society in
multiple ways. For a while now, colonialism and Western imperialism have acted as the cultural
hegemony that shape and mold our realities through knowledge production and discourse. This
coloniality of power works through the discursive power of political economy, race and
ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and poverty, forming racial and social classifications, labor
control, wage labor, and extraction of resources and products. These colonial and dominant
discourses of knowledge have shaped and affected the displacement and humanism of other
cultures around the world, as well as the planet.
In her analysis, Gayatri Spivak talks about the intellectual exile (the colonized as the
object and “victim” of colonialization) and the subaltern (as the colonized subject and settler.
Both the intellectual exile and the subaltern have been affected by colonialist discourses.
Whereby the subaltern has difficulty shedding all the culturally ingrained prejudices and
understanding of knowledge, and where the intellectual exile’s humanism and sense of being has
been suppressed and defeated through Western interpretation of knowledge about the world.
Spivak's (1988) epistemic violence is important because it addresses the way in which hegemony
silences and or erases alternative perspectives, particularly from the “subaltern.”
In order to begin working on decolonization, Quijano contends that we need to challenge
Eurocentric assumptions of development, state formation, and national identity that hold colonial
power. We can learn from postcolonial women thinkers who have questioned the ways in which
Western European dominated social sciences have used ‘“scientific” justifications for the
normalization, naturalization, and legitimization of gendered violence and s relationship to racial
capitalism” (Hintzen, n.d). For that particular reason, I argue that understanding how the
knowledge is produced for these discourses in terms of who is behind it, who is allowed to create
it, share it, and speak about specific topics is important (Van Holstein & Head 2018; Schild
2019).
In the next section, I will be exploring the ways in which dominant colonial and Western
discourses lead to the silencing of the “subaltern” which ultimately tires to racism, exclusion, and
erasure of the “other.”

Racism, Exclusion, and Erasure

Sociologists contend that a society cannot exist without the individual and, in turn, an individual
does not exist without society. Therefore, society gives an individual’s life meaning—it helps
them and provides them with morals that need to be followed. Ideally, these morals are set for
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the betterment of society; and for there to be a set of morals to follow, the need for authority
comes into play. These authorities set systems of classification and hierarchies so that societies
can function correctly. I argue here that social scientists and theorists, as knowledge producers
and discourses makers, have the power and authority over what constitutes as moral and valuable
in society. Social scientists and theorists also play a crucial role in how we come to understand
ourselves, others, and society as a whole. Their knowledge production and discourses end up
framing our realities through the use of classification and hierarchies. And while the goal is to
produce knowledge that will help society achieve its moral and cohesive state, through these
classification systems and hierarchies, social scientists and theorists have played a crucial role in
either creating or adding to our societal problems, specifically racism, exclusion, and erasure.
In order to understand the inequalities and social issues that exist within our society, it is
important to understand who is behind knowledge production and discourse making. Stemming
from colonialism, both sociology and anthropology have played a crucial role in how we
understand and frame the “other.” As I had mentioned before, Western knowledge is entrenched
in dichotomies of modern/traditional, scientific/unscientific, rational/irrational which serve to
classify society members into hierarchies—where being modern, scientific, and rational are
above the opposite. However, as Hintzen (n.d) explains, the relationship between civil society
and whiteness rests at the foundation of white supremacist thought (2). White European men
(like Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Michel Foucault, and others) have been the
predominant theorists who have played an essential role in framing and defining our society’s
problems and the ways in which to view the world; because of this, our society and its problems
have been framed and shaped by white European men. This is problematic because the
knowledge that has been produced and is being produced by these theorists centers not just
whiteness but also men at the top of the hierarchy, labeling them as more modern, advanced,
civilized, and rational.
While there have been several academics, scholars, and theorists who have challenged
these dominating discourses and knowledge production, it does not take away from the fact that
they are deeply ingrained in our society—to the point where even to this day, they serve as a
form of colonialism to further displace and silence others. “Indian literary scholar, Gayatri
Spivak, has declared European metaphysics to be ‘sanctioned ignorance’ and an ideological
fallacy that has institutionalized the silencing and dismissal of the Global Majority and the denial
of their existence as full human subjects” (Hintzen, n.d). As Wynter (2000) explains, knowledge
production allows for the exclusion and underrepresentation of others. This exclusion and
underrepresentation of different voices and perspectives can lead to the erasure of communities,
their knowledge, and their culture.

Capitalism and development

Thus far, I have only been addressing the ways in which knowledge production and discourse
play an important role in our society through systems of classification and hierarchies which are
ultimately tied to colonial power, racism, exclusion, and erasure. However, it is also important to
discuss the political and economic systems that have affected and continue to affect those same
issues, like capitalism and development. In this section, I will discuss the ways in which Western
knowledge and discourses play into political and economic ideologies that end up also shaping
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our understanding of the world and what we come to believe as real. I will also discuss how
these also tie into colonial power of extraction, dispossession, exclusion, and erasure.
It is not possible to talk about capitalism and development without talking about Karl
Marx. Marx is known for critiquing capitalism because he believed that capitalism produces
inequality and therefore, he believed that communism was a way to create a fair society. To
Marx, a capitalistic society was a monopoly where there is always someone at the top and
someone at the bottom. The bottom person is always striving to better themselves while living in
a system that prevents that from happening; at the same time, the person at the top continues its
exploitation of the worker and gaining more than the worker.
Another theorist who discussed capitalism through the lens of modernity was Max
Weber. However, both Marx and Weber (being white European men) lack a critical race analysis
on capitalism. Hintzen (n.d) explains Weber’s analysis and how it ties into European and
Western domination in the following way:

In Weber’s formulation, modernity, Western European whiteness, and capitalism

were inextricably linked as the end products of a uniquely European personality
and consciousness. This explains Europe’s material and cultural domination of the
world. Modern capitalist society was presented as the highest stage of historical
development, differentiated from the statatic, unsystematic disorderliness of the
traditional societies of the Global Majority. It emerged in the form of “Protestant
ethic” as the organized belief system among converts to the theology of John
Calvin, one of the founders of Protestantism. It was organized around forms of
efficiency, considered to be the motive force of the modern civilized capitalist
world, which was the endowment of God-given as a “gift of grace” to those
chosen to exercise His will on earth, revealed in the unfolding process of
European material accumulation.

Weber’s ideas have provided the very foundation for sociological thinking. They
have persisted and endured through his formulation of a European modern
rational, efficient, legal exercise of authority over “civil society” a constructed
abstraction that has become the episteme regnant of the discipline. The
relationship between civil society and whiteness rests at the foundation of white
supremacist thought.

Along those lines, political theory contends that the economy generates ideologies in which
society (both rich and poor) believes the things it teaches. In this case, capitalism teaches society
that materiality, development, modernity, and dominations are our realities and another way to
prove whether you are a moral or immoral member of society. However, it is important to
understand how these ideologies are constructed through knowledge production and discourse by
those at the top.
In this sense, colonialism manifests itself through modern-day Western imperialism,
capitalism, globalization, and power relations. Capitalism, development, and imperialism are
other ways in which hierarchies and classification exist that further create the conditions of
poverty, genocide, and erasure of other communities across the globe. Kevin Bales (2012) talks
about the ways in which economic and social conditions amount to modern-day slavery—where
those most vulnerable to new forms of slavery are the people who live in extreme poverty (which
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can be attributed to capitalism). Capitalism has also further exacerbated the displacement of
indigenous people and other communities from their lands and resources. Therefore, impacting
their means of survival, cultural traditions, and way of life.
Not only does capitalism lead to the exploitation of people, but it also leads to the
exploitation of the natural environment—which I will address in the next section.

Knowledge production and environmental education discourses

In this second part of the paper, I will look more closely at how environmental education, as an
academic field and producer of knowledge, also plays into all the things I have mentioned in the
first part of the paper. In this section, I will also provide a case study that looked at the ways in
which colonial power continues to manifest itself through knowledge production in
environmental educational discourse.

Why does knowledge production matter in environmental education?

It is evident that climate change is one of the most significant challenges we face today. Klein
(2014) explains that if we continue on our current path of allowing emissions to rise year after
year, climate change will change everything about our world. Therefore, we must begin changing
our relationship with nature and all of its living beings. However, it is important to note that,
even though human-induced climate change is happening right now and threatens the planet's
future, not all humans and communities are to blame equally. Through European colonialism,
Western imperialism, and since the rise of industrialization, it has been primarily Western and
capitalistic countries that have had the most impact on the planet's well-being. Yet, it is a
struggle that is being felt at different levels and rates across diverse communities. Therefore, it is
a battle that many people have become interested in. Among these are indigenous and
subsistence communities across the world. However, mainstream environmentalism is led by the
same Western and Eurocentric countries that have had the most significant impact on the
ecological and social crisis around the world. In their efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and
reduce human impact on the planet, the environmental education has (consciously or
unconsciously) taken a new form of colonialism and imperialism in which people’s knowledge
and voices are silenced regarding environmentalism; these same people and communities are
also expected to adopt Eurocentric conservation management styles to help sustain the planet.
Critical scholars acknowledge that environmental education lacks a critical race analysis
and generally does not include a history of colonial violence or political analysis of the
destruction of the environment (McLean 2013, 357). In not having these analyses, environmental
education continues to create ecological and social inequalities that can lead us to ecocide and
genocide of subsistence and indigenous communities worldwide.
In order to understand better how Western and European dominating discourses of
environmentalism impacts the well-being of our planet and the survival of different
communities, I will discuss the historical and cultural analyses surrounding the environmental
movement. I argue that environmental education continues to uphold colonial and white
supremacist narratives through knowledge production. I will specifically focus on how
knowledge production, rules of expert (as scientific expertise), conservation (as dispossession),
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and environmental conflict are expressed and revealed through environmental education and how
those shape our relationship and understanding of nature, and other communities. In the next
section, I will focus on a historical analysis of the environmental movement in the U.S which is
ultimately tied to colonialism and Western imperialism.

Historical analysis

After years of European colonialism, the dispossession of indigenous people from their native
lands, cultural genocide, and ecological damage, European settlers in the U.S began to take an
interest in environmentalism. Though the modern-day environmental movement is associated
with having its roots in the 1960s, environmental preservation dates back to the 1870s when
Yellowstone became the first U.S national park under President Ulysses S. Grant. In 1916,
President Woodrow Wilson forms the National Parks Service. In 1933, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt creates the Civilian Conservation Corps as part of his New Deal, in which “three
million men over nine years” were employed “to plant millions of trees, remove invasive plants,
and fight tree-killing insects” (“Earth Day to School Strikes: A Timeline of the American
Environmental Movement” 2022). While other events added to the environmental movement, I
highlight the above for a particular reason—environmentalism in the U.S has been about white
men attempting to preserve nature by taking people out of its conservation efforts. These
Western and Eurocentric perspectives of environmentalism became the dominating frameworks
in the U.S.
These settler-colonial ideologies have shaped our relationship with nature and its living
beings through Eurocentric standards and values of living and environmental conservation. In
this way, environmentalism partook in the systematic classification of dichotomies whereby
nature and culture are two separate things (like the rest of dominating Western dichotomies) by
displacing people and communities from their land to implement national parks. Neumann
(1998) discusses the ways in which conservation ideals, through the eyes of Western Eurocentric
men, play on the belief that nature should look like a picturesque, aesthetically pleasing
landscape and therefore “saved” from the destruction of people. However, these narratives
dismiss the fact that there are other worldviews about human-nature relationships and that many
communities have lived in harmony with nature for centuries. Not only that, but white
dominance in environmentalism also normalizes white subjectivities as the only legitimate
caretakers of the land (McLean 2013, 361). Wynter (2003) contends that social power struggles
are shaped by the over-representation of man which creates invisibilities and underrepresentation
of everyone else. In making the environmental movement and conservation an activity in that
only white man can make executive decisions and be considered a true environmentalist, it plays
into the positionality of privilege and colonialism. In that they are able to assert more power over
others, they are able to be part of the knowledge production, while others are seen as not
valuable for conservation efforts. In doing so, environmentalism limits itself to one point of view
while at the same time attempting to universalize its goals and methods.
Erickson (2020) believes that environmental discourses, as seen through the
Anthropocene, are “an attempt to place environmental collapse and change as the defining
problem of all humanity in the future to come [which in turn] legitimizes the continual colonial
assertion of jurisdiction through conservation” (112). Erickson terms this as green settler
colonialism or liberal settler colonialism, in which the environmental crisis is framed as a
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universal problem humanity faces while at the same time reinforcing and sustaining colonial
practices of dominating its environmental practices and concepts. Green settler colonialism is not
only problematic, but it is also dangerous for the survival of different cultures, traditions, and
knowledge. It is problematic because it does not address the historical and political impacts that
have led to the environmental crisis that we are in now. It asserts itself as innocent and separate
from a colonial past that has been exploitative of both nature and people. It is also dangerous for
the survival of cultures, traditions, and knowledge because it asserts itself as the “know-all” of its
practices and concepts; by maintaining these colonial practices, environmentalism limits who can
be considered an environmentalist by limiting whose knowledge gets deemed credible and
valuable to conservation. In its dismissal of diverse perspectives, mainstream environmentalism
sustains settler-colonial practices and justifications of racism, dispossession, and erasure through
justifications of conservation.
In the next section, I will conduct a cultural analysis of the environmental movement
through the discourse in environmental education and how those shape and mold our realities;
how they further create social and ecological processes through its dominating Western
knowledge production.

Cultural analysis

As I have mentioned before, colonialism oftentimes is portrayed as an event of the past. Yet, it
can be argued that colonialism is still present in our society. Even though European colonialism
has stopped, its legacy manifests itself in different ways across society. Postcolonial studies look
at the ways in which settler-colonialism has taken the shape of modern-day colonialism.
Erickson (2020) examines how settler-colonialism, as a structure, “establishes itself in a place
not through a moment of conquest, but through an invasion that is a continual production of
physical and discursive infrastructures that stabilize and secure settler states” (111). In this light,
settler-colonialism manifests itself as modern-day colonialism through power and knowledge
production (Quijano 2000) in the same way that it does for sociology and anthropology. As I
have argued, this is important because the ways we produce knowledge plays a crucial role in
how it can either perpetuate or hinder colonialism.
Wynter (2000) argues that knowledge production also allows for the exclusion and
underrepresentation of others—in the same way, colonialism excluded and underrepresented
others. Here, I argue that, like colonialism, settler-colonial knowledge production in
environmental education asserts itself as cultural hegemony and therefore sustains racism,
dispossession, and erasure practices. By becoming a scientific thought (through knowledge
production), environmental education has the ability to perpetuate and legitimize colonial
practices (Tuhiwai Smith 2016). Therefore, it is crucial to understand the importance of
knowledge production in environmental discourses because it holds power to maintain
colonialist legacies or move past them, in the face of one of our greatest societal challenges.
Ogden (2011) shows the disparities between knowledge production and scientific research versus
rudimentary, indigenous knowledge; intuitive and rudimentary expertise gets deemed
unacceptable while scientific knowledge is considered valuable and good for the environment.
This creates environmental injustices and adds to racism and erasure of people’s knowledge and
culture.
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Knowledge production & environmental discourses
In its limitation on who gets to add knowledge, environmental discourses perpetuate
colonialism and Western imperialism. Therefore, limiting how we can come up with solutions on
how to slow down greenhouse emissions. Haenn, Wilk, and Harnish (2016) talk about how
“many anthropologists have witnessed personally a threat to the people they study—commercial
logging, environmental pollution, radioactivity, environmental racism and classism, ecocide, and
the imposition of culturally insensitive external management systems on local ecosystems that
the native inhabitants have managed adequately for centuries” (42). This goes to show that the
climate crisis, environmental discourses, environmental justice, and social justice go hand-in-
hand.
As I have mentioned in the first part of the paper, modern-day colonialism takes many
forms. Regarding environmentalism, many have argued that environmental conservation is
another way in which Western and colonial powers assert their dominance and control over
communities and land. In his conservation and control thesis, Robbins (2020) argues that
conservation and control as “the instruments of conservation have disenfranchised traditional
land managers and enforced the goals, desires, and benefits of elite communities who hold little
or no investment in or understanding of ecosystem process, landscape, or local place” (173).
Therefore, it can be argued that environmental conservation has become another way to further
displace people, erase culture and traditions, and justify more colonial practices.
In the next section, I will address why I believe the above is important when it comes to
environmental discourse and the ways in which environmental education is another form of
either furthering asserting colonial powers, or dismantling them.

Implications of environmental educational discourse

Discourses and narratives can shape our worldviews and understanding of the world around us.
Public narratives work by attaching emotions to our identity and of the “other” (Ahmed 2014).
They become an object of knowledge, truth, and power, in which power permeates and controls
everyday behaviors (Foucault 1978). In terms of the environmental movement, discourse, and
language used to talk about environmental topics are important in how they shape, uphold,
hinder, or change our understanding and relationship with the movement, nature, and other
communities/ cultures.
Philip Hammond (2018, 65) quotes the work of Peter Berglez and Urika Olaussaon by
saying that “Berglez and Olausson suggest that climate change can be understood as an
‘ideological discourse’ which works to ‘preclude… critical questioning of the predominant
socio-political order’” (Berglez and Olaussaon 2014, 57). Environmental discourse oftentimes
“justify the actions of colonial environmental groups and corporations [that] privilege whiteness
as the savior of our environmental future” (Erickson 2020; 112-113). These narratives create
what Kosek (2006) refers to as ‘cultural pathologies’ that lead to the misconception that
indigenous and other non-Western communities need environmental assistance from the Western
world. Those Western environmental solutions are also deemed as the only solutions.
In erasing any other form of solution or perspectives, environmental discourses threaten
cultural knowledge worldwide. Leven and Conversi (2014) believe that “any culturally
homogenizing and/or economically-driven project that might seek to violently disrupt or
suffocate traditional, diverse, subsistence practice could also be taken to be genocidal” (285).
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Knowledge production & environmental discourses
In framing specific environmental discourse as “everyone is to blame” and thus everyone
is equally responsible for environmental protection, environmentalism ignores its inherent
colonialist issues, which created the environmental crisis we are in. The discursive production of
white-settler fantasies of innocence in environmental education dissociates environmentalism
and in this case, the ecological crisis from colonialism (McLean 2013).
Environmental discourses oftentimes also do not take into account historical, political,
and economic analysis, in which not only colonialism comes to question, but also ideologies of
capitalism and development do too. In the next section, I will go into a case study I conduct in
order to analyze how environmental education is framing discourses to help come up with
solutions to climate change.

Environmental education case study

In order to implement the above arguments, visual analysis was conducted at an environmental
symposium held virtually by an elementary and high school in Miami, Florida. In its efforts to
engage in environmental education and sustainable practices, this school held an annual student
research exposition, including an Annual Energy and Climate Change Symposium. The basis of
the student's research exposition, symposium, and climate information come from “Project
Drawdown.” According to the Project Drawdown’s webpage, this “is a nonprofit organization
that seeks to help the world reach ‘drawdown’—the future point in time when levels of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline.” This project
claims to be “the world’s leading resource for climate solutions.” An expert in the field was
invited as the keynote speaker to talk about what the project Drawdown is doing to develop
solutions. She also talks about what is driving climate change and what can be done about it
based on existing solutions.
This event occurred a day before Earth Day (April 21st) in 2021. The symposium focused
on teaching the students about solutions for climate change and “moving the global problem of
climate change to a local level.” In addressing the knowledge that people have about climate
change, the keynote speaker provides some statistical facts in which 44% of the people thought
about the outcomes of climate change (like sea levels rising), 18% thought about the causes
(“like the burning of fossil fuels, like coal, oil, and natural gas”), and only 3% people (out 14,000
around the world) talked about solutions. Therefore, this symposium focused on discussing the
solutions that already exist for stopping our dependence on the burning of fossil fuels, all of
which can be applied “to our homes, schools, communities, and business places that we
frequent” (see Figure 1). According to the keynote speaker, the solutions follow a criterion based
on whether they are “financially feasible, help curve green-house gases or heat-trapping gases in
the atmosphere, or if they are scalable, among other ones.” She emphasizes that these solutions
already exist and that “we do not need to wait for a technological fix because they already exist.”
Most of the solutions focused on technology and ways to go from destructive practices to more
renewable ones (none of which proposed changing our relationship with nature and non-
humans).
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Knowledge production & environmental discourses

Figure 1 Climate solutions according to Drawdown

In part of the keynote’s explanation about why the project is called Drawdown (where, on
a graph, greenhouse gases keep rising, and then once climate action is taken, greenhouses gases
begin going down and getting to the point of drawdown), she addresses the reasons why we got
to high levels of greenhouse gases in the first place. She explains, “We got here because, well,
we know, we have a whole bunch of these trapping gases that humans have put into our
atmosphere.” She then shows a graph showing the 6 leading causes of the heat-trapping gasses:
electricity production, food, agriculture, land use, industry, transportation, building, and other
related emissions (see Figure 2). She explains that “in looking at the sources, we can create
solutions.” These solutions, she shows in her graph, include: 1) reducing sources (in electricity,
food, agriculture, land use, industry, transport, and buildings); 2) supporting sinks (“allow nature
to do what it does best” such as using degraded land, protect and restore ecosystems, shift
agriculture practices, address waste and diets, protect and restore ecosystems, remove and store
carbon); and 3) by improving society (“helping society achieve the broader transformations that
are needed” through health and education) (see Figure 3). She explains that this is a “mosaic of
solutions, where one does not mean is better than another or needed more quickly than the other
—we actually need all of these solutions put into place as quickly, as safely, and equitably as
possible.”
During the symposium, she details the three solutions to reducing greenhouse gas
emissions (reduction sources, supporting sinks, and improving society). While she does not go
through every solution per section, she addresses one per section. The first one: reducing
sources, which include electricity, food, agriculture, land use, industry, transport, and buildings;
she talks about the need to minimize electric production from burning fossil fuels toward
renewable energy, “enhance efficiency and improve the system.” She provides an example of
how this is already taking part in a community in Michigan, where a renewable energy project is
helping low-income communities install solar panels—explaining that this is an excellent
“example of how climate solutions meet co-benefits.” She also brings in the economic benefits
of renewable energy—explaining that “solar installers and wind turbine technicians are the two
fastest-growing fields in the country.” She talked about food waste, and a project focused on
composting/ reducing hunger and food waste for food, agriculture, and land use. Industry, she
spoke of refrigerants. For transportation, she talked about needing to shift to alternatives,
enhance efficiency, electrify vehicles, and think about what types of infrastructure we can
implement in our neighborhoods to help reduce emissions. For buildings, she talks about
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Knowledge production & environmental discourses
reducing emissions and reducing water use and installing insulation, one-time actions that can
have a big impact on reducing emissions.
Regarding the second section of solutions—land sinks—she talks about supporting
nature, meaning letting things like photosynthesis to happen. The solutions were very limited for
coastal and ocean sinks, but they spoke of policymaking on the latest research-related issues. In
regard to the third section of solutions, society, she talked about access to high-quality health and
education as fundamental human rights. She later turned the conversation towards a program that
looks at how gaming can teach us about the environment.

Figure 2 Emission source and natural sinks

Figure 3 Drawdown framework for climate solutions

She explains that all of these solutions “help us move towards a balance with the planet’s living
systems.” The keynote speaker spoke about “implementing these [solutions] across the world”
and that “we need people and institutions all around the world to play great roles in this great
transformation.” She also talked about the solutions being shown as “collective wisdom and
action that are unfolding across the globe.” The keynote speaker also talks about how there is
more than just addressing heat-trapping gases, “these climate solutions can also have co-benefits
that contribute to a more equitable and better world.” For equitable solutions, the keynote talks
about solutions such as clean cookstoves, which curve air pollution, “are also health solutions.”
None of which includes other communities' political, cultural, or social sovereignty; instead, it
focuses on health benefits, but it also naturally assumes that these communities want to
implement capitalistic and developmental ideals.
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Knowledge production & environmental discourses
As she explains, the different solutions and ways in which we can implement them are
where we can see the inherent colonial and racist discourses of environmental education. Not
only is the keynote speaker insinuating that this scientific knowledge is the one size fits all
solution, but it is also insinuating that it is the only solution to the ecological practices, clearly
dismissing any other knowledge. As the keynote speaks about the solutions she and her team
have come up with, visual images are shown of how these solutions are already being applied.
You can see predominantly white people installing solar panels (see figure 4). She then talks
about how they can be used and help with equity and “how these climate solutions create jobs
and foster resilience to climate impacts… they can advance social and economic equity if they
are used wisely and well.” As she explained this, her slides display images of indigenous women
from different cultures applying these solutions (see figures 5 and 6). These solutions, she
believes, can “help heal rather than deepen systemic injustices.” In part of this argument, she
talks about needing people within communities to take action (from global problems to local
ones). She also poses the question to the audience about what role they want to play in coming
up with and carrying out climate solutions. The overall message she gives is that we need to start
thinking about how we can start creating change that applies to our communities “because not all
solutions apply everywhere."

Figure 4

Figure 5 “Climate solutions… they create jobs, foster resilience…”

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Knowledge production & environmental discourses

Figure 6 “Climate solutions can advance social and economic equity if they are used wisely and
well.”

Discussion on case study

Though my argument is that these discourses are inherently colonial and racist, this symposium
had some positive aspects to it. It centralized its argument on bringing the global issue of climate
change to the local level—allowing us to know and understand how we can begin playing a role
and making a change within our own communities. Within the presentation and the solutions
presented, the keynote speaker always provided examples of the ongoing project and resources.
It allowed us to envision a future in which a more sustainable planet is feasible. However, I still
believe that these discourses are centered around maintaining the status quo and allowing for
capitalistic and developmental practices to take place. In its attempt to create a sustainable
solution that can be applied all around the world, these solutions take on a colonial approach that
considers only a Eurocentric and Western perspective for solutions. While education, in general,
is limited in its ability to provide holistic comprehension of an issue, I still believe that it is
capable of addressing deeper systemic and cultural issues—it is all about priorities.
Though the information provided about what is driving climate change and the high
emission of greenhouse gases is scientifically correct, it dismisses the fact that climate change
has also been a product of colonialism and settler-colonialist values and morals about our world.
And while environmental education is limited in how much information it can provide, I still
believe that addressing that historical and political causes have led us to a dependence on fossil
fuels for a lifestyle is important, without having to go too much into detail about it. By doing so,
I believe that someone might resonate with that information and dig deeper on their own. I think
that by not addressing it, we erase the reality of why we are in the ecological crisis in the first
place. While focusing on solutions is a great way to work on a problem, I believe that not
addressing the deep-rooted issues does not solve the problems. Throughout the whole
symposium, the presentation takes on an apolitical approach to the climate crisis—where carbon
emissions are the issue and not social and political inequalities. For example, when the keynote
speaker addresses the known reasons why we have such high emissions of greenhouse gases, she
talks about it being something that humans have been the cause of. Within this explanation, the
keynote speaker implies that every human and community is to blame for the climate crisis when
that is not the case in reality. As Erickson (2020) explains, this plays into the Anthropocene
argument that all humans are equally to blame for the climate crisis. The keynote speaker could
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Knowledge production & environmental discourses
have addressed in one sentence that it has been primarily the “developed” nations who have and
are still the ones who release the most greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, rather than
implying that all humans are equally to blame. Nowhere during the symposium does the keynote
speaker talk about the historical and political impacts that colonialism, Western imperialism,
capitalism, and developmentalism have had on the environment (which created the issues in the
first place). Instead, she talks about having people and institutions across the globe implement
these technological solutions. While this is great, these solutions not only rely on technological
fixes, which can be temporary reliefs, but it also does not address the fact that we are not
attempting to change our values and morals regarding our relationship with nature and the
environment. By this, I mean that instead of changing our interdependence on exploitative
practices such as electricity, we are focusing on fixes that still sustain exploitative practices, such
as resource extraction for these renewable energy solutions, and not focusing on how we can
become more ecologically aware and mindful.
And while renewable energy opens economic and job opportunities, it does not take away
from the fact that these jobs still require the exploitation of the earth. Therefore, we have to ask
ourselves questions like: where do the materials for these come from? Where and how are they
made— are they relying on fossil fuels to make these products? Electricity does not just come
from nowhere; it still requires oil. Also, who is making them, and how are they being treated?
Not only that, but these solutions also add to a Western developmental perspective that
environmental issues can be fixed through technology in order to help advance social and
economic equities across the world—which further creates social and environmental injustices.
Relying on technological fixes also takes on a capitalistic and developmental approach to
problems that have different solutions. In expecting that “people all around the world” adopt
these solutions, these environmental discourses have the potential of playing into the “shadows”
of whiteness where if they do not, then they face the possible shame of being underdeveloped
and not wanting to do the right thing.
In the section about society, though very brief, the keynote speaker talked about access to
quality healthcare and education, which are all significant components of climate change.
However, in her speech, nothing was mentioned about the social and cultural inequalities that
come with having access to those things or even about why there are so many inequalities when
it comes to that. I hoped that this section had more about how we relate to nature, but it did not.
Overall, none of these solutions include changing our relationship with nature, non-humans, and
our consumeristic behaviors. These solutions do not make us question our worldviews and
ontological positionality. Instead, they continue to uphold Western and European values about
the planet, our relationship to it, and that of other communities.
Overall, this climate symposium focused on the need to implement local-level solutions
to a global problem. While it is great that we are creating awareness and providing ways to
resolve the issues of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, I believe that these solutions
are temporary fixes. By that, I mean that we are attempting to put a band-aid on an issue that
needs soul-fixing. The solutions above provide temporary relief to the issues of climate change.
Still, they do not offer long-term fixing—which in my eyes, involves changing our perspective,
understanding, and relationship with nature. We need to begin moving towards cultural and
social lifestyles that are more mindful and ethical to humans, non-humans—by breaking the
belief that we exist in a dichotomy of nature versus culture and that instead, we are all nature.
Therefore, taking care of the planet does not mean that we are stewards of the earth. Instead, we
are nature protecting itself. Ways in which I believe we can begin doing this is by allowing other
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Knowledge production & environmental discourses
voices and perspectives on how we can better serve others/ nature. Rather than focusing on
Western perspectives of solutions that attempt to homogenize and claim to be the “know-all
solutions” to the world problems, we should allow others to influence the ways in which we
come to view the world, our being, and being a part of the world.

Conclusion

“The ‘developed’ world’s standard operating procedure encompassing economics,

technologies, socio-cultural behavior, not to say fundamental value systems, can
no longer be sustained as viable or beneficial for ourselves, let alone for the
planet’s many millions of other species upon whom we also fundamentally
depend” (Leven and Conversi 2014: 282)

As I have tried to argue throughout this paper, our understanding of the world, our values,
morals, and perceptions have been molded by Eurocentric and Western ideals. While academia,
scholars, and theorists attempt to study the ways in which we can have a more moral and just
society, it inherently can play into the same problematic systems that it is exploring. Avery
Gordon addresses the complexities of human life and the human mind. Arguing that in order to
study social life, it is important to confront the “ghost” aspects in which understanding what is
not visible yet still present is crucial. In this way, an academic field that attempts to “solve” or
discuss the issues of society, needs to also implement the historical, political, economic, and
cultural analysis in which it is studying. I argue that any field which produces knowledge needs
to also studying itself and analyze the positionality it is studying itself from. This is important
because knowledge becomes reality, whereby discourses and ideologies impact society on a
local, national, and global level. We have to understand how systems of classification and
hierarchies, nation/state-building, and dominance have been distributed through knowledge
production and discourses.
For I believe that when it comes to environmental education, it is essential that it also
examines itself and the ways in which through its discourses and knowledge production, it can
sustain colonial power or it can challenge it. As we face one of our greatest challenges of climate
change, the ways in which we talk about the issues and the solutions, matter in how we can
challenge the status quo and allow different knowledge and perspectives to come up with
solutions that will benefit all, or it can fall back into the same colonialist power relations. I
believe that in focusing on technological solutions, the environmental movement is continuing
colonialist legacies of development and capitalism as the one true ideology and cultural
hegemony everywhere.

Future directions

In envisioning a different future in which there is ecological and social justice, we can
turn to Vandana Shiva. In her book, Earth Democracy, Shiva suggests that new forms of values
and governing are important in order to live cohesively. She explains that we need to move away
from the enclosures and privatization of natural resources (where private corporations do not
dictate “public interest”) to community and land sustenance in a sustainable way. In this book,
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Knowledge production & environmental discourses
Shiva envisions a new world where a new political rule is possible—one which benefits not just
human beings, but the environment and other living beings as well. Within this framework, she
provides the different dimensions that encompass Earth Democracy—living economies, living
democracies, and living cultures—all of which create and sustains a world that is balanced
between nature and living beings, where differences are welcomed, where there are no
disposable people, and where there is a balance of give and take from our environments.
Throughout her book, it is clear that a shift in mentality needs to occur in order for us to view the
world, nature, ourselves, and other beings in a different way—in a way that is more sustainable
and in tune with nature (ourselves).
In line with Shiva, I believe that we need to start shifting our relationship with nature
because our current one is not viable for the planet and may actually be driving us and other
beings into extinction. In order to begin tackling the ecological crisis, major shifts in our
lifestyle, mentality, and values need to take place—which requires us to question the inherent
colonial and racist discourses that come with environmental discourses. One way to do this is in
our relationship and understanding of nature. Discourses in environmental education play a
crucial role in the prosperity and survival of the planet. Along those lines, the environmental
movement, in its environmental discourses, needs to recognize its power in sustaining
Eurocentric, Western, and colonial practices that affect and justify dispossessions of land,
people, and cultures, ultimately leading to ecocide and genocide. We need to begin
acknowledging how settler-colonial environmental narratives shape and affect how we relate to,
understand, view, and engage with the environment if we want future generations to live on a
healthy planet. It is also essential to understand that academics play a crucial role in either
perpetuating cultural extractivism or moving away from that through knowledge production. As
Levene and Conversi (2014) propose: “scholars dealing with human rights, genocide, and related
areas need to be part of that ‘decolonizing’ tendency: beating the path not only to solidarity with
subsisters everywhere but giving backing to the insight that climate resilience is founded on both
our own recovery of native, practical, skills and on that pre-Anthropocene virtue called the
‘moral economy’” (293).
Authors like Vandana Shiva, Laura Ogden, and Eduardo Kohn (among many others)
teach us valuable lessons about what it means to live in an interconnected ecosystem and how we
can learn to coexist in a world that habits many different forms of life and being. Ogden (2011)
teaches us that everything in life is interwoven in a web life, where it's not humans and the
political, economic, and cultural values that shape nature; it is also nature and all of its living
beings who shape us as well—showing that we are all a part of the same system and that we are
all nature existing among each other. Eduardo Kohn (2013) teaches us about a world beyond the
physical and where spirits (of different pasts, such as colonial ones) influence and affect our
present. There are worlds beyond just the ones we know. In her Earth Democracy, Shiva
proposes we implement an economic democracy where we work together among different
groups and communities; and where we welcome diversity and communication, collaboration,
participation, and solidarity. That in implementing living democracy, we can move toward a
future in which “not just the fate and well-being of humans” are taken into consideration;
instead, it is also about all beings (4). Specifically, she describes living democracy as “the space
for reclaiming our fundamental freedoms, defending our basic rights, and exercising our
common responsibilities and duties to protect life on earth, defend peace, and promote justice”
(5). In incorporating all of these authors’ principles, I believe that we can move into a world that
is a more empathetic and ethical world in which all of us (humans and non-humans) can live
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Knowledge production & environmental discourses
cohesively. All of which I believe starts with the ways in which we come to produce knowledge
(who produces the knowledge, how they are producing it, why, and how it affects us), the way
we think about more than just ourselves, and how we come to relate and understand the world
around us—all of which environmental discourse plays a crucial role in.

This is an excellent engagement with and application of thecritical theorists that were read in the
class to an existential problem. Its analytical focus on colonialism gets precisely to the
fundamental problem that we face. And the linking of colonialism and its postcolonial
manifestation in coloniality by a focus on the discourse of environtmentalism is frankly
exceptional, and exceptionally effective. It has also allowed you to bring in some of the many
critical scholarship that were not engaged with in the class (particularly because of the focus on
“theory” rather than on “crisis”. The paper is exceptionally well structured and organized,
meaning that it is exceptionally well argued and one section flows logically into the other. The
few criticisms I have pertain to some tendency to repetition (the paper was quite long as a result
—this could have been solved by a bit better organization—but your preference to have the
sections “speak for themselves” invariably leads to repetition). The second is that in a few
instances the use of language could have been paid more attention—and a bit more editing might
have resolved some of these,
So, what this turns out to be is an application of the notion of coloniality to environmental
discourse. I was a bit uncomfortable by your use of the term “environmental education” because
it is much more than that—and I think discourse covers it better. I know that one aspect of your
critique is that knowledge is produced in the academy and by scholars, and that it reflects their
positionality as “experts” instantiated in and produced by the knowledges that they both produce
and reproduce. And, of course, the point is very well taken that they are “experts” by virtue of
the coloniality of knowledge that declares them to be so. What you are arguing for is what
Ngugi Wa Thiang’s calls the need to “decolonize the mind”. It is, of course, identical to Sylvia
Wynter’s call for transformation from “man” to “human” and what neo-Marxists argue about the
need for an “epistemic break”. All of these mean the same thing, basically. And, what you are
advocating is what scholars term a transition from “universal” knowledges and gnoses to
“pluriversal” forms.
The question becomes whether the possibility exists for the transformations that are being
proposed, given the absolute rigidity of the conditions of sustenance that have been imposed by
colonialism and its cognate of capitalism. Are we faced with a tragic choice that in the attempt
to change we destroy the conditions of survival, the very conditions that are bound to produce
the very destruction that we are facing? Secondly, and this relates to the issue of episteme, are
we so shaped by the discourse of colonialism that an alternative is unthinkable (perhaps related
to the tragic choice that we face). Is “another world possible”? Or are we doomed, whatever we
do.
I do think that we are faced with a fundamental crisis that will be not only devastating but
transformative. We are already seeing it today. For example it is estimated that 15 million
persons so far have died from Covid (and one million in the U.S. alone). This is directly related
to the environmental crisis of capitalism. We may be on the brink of nuclear war because of the
very forces unleashed by colonialism—which are the quest for control of territory by and the
people and things within it by all manner of more and more sophisticated forms of violence for
the benefit of imperial and accumulative elites. Some will suvive, most will not. And then
humanity will have to figure out a better way of survival, because it will have no choice.
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Knowledge production & environmental discourses
So, your paper puts its finger precisely on the dilemma that we face. And while we are able to
analyze it and understand it, and see a way out of it in utopian and aspirational terms, perhaps we
have crossed the Rubicon. Hopefully, this is not the case. But it would take a fundamental
transformation in what Appadurai calls our “ideoscape” that is at the center of all the other
“scapes” that he identifies.

Your paper made me think.

Marks 280/300
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Sources cited

Ahmed, Sara. 2014. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd ed. Routledge
Bales, Kevin. 2012. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, Berkeley and Los
Angeles, University of California Press.
Charles Lemert.2017. Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global, and Classic Readings.
Westview Press. Sixth edition.
“Earth Day to School Strikes: A Timeline of the American Environmental Movement.” 2022.
Stacker. 2022. https://stacker.com/stories/3968/earth-day-school-strikes-timeline-
american-environmental-movement.
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