A Pedagogy of Unbecoming for Geoscience Otherwise

Abstract

White supremacy and human exceptionalism are the epistemological and political foundations of contemporary geosciences. Disciplinary norms and ways of being call forth the geoscientist as “man of reason.” How do we, as educators, invite students to analyze and act on the interconnected political ecological challenges of the current environmental crisis without reinforcing the man of reason, now refashioned as the reformed and greener “ecosystem man-ager”? What do we need to unlearn, to unbecome? Where and how can we do this unlearning and unbecoming? This article positions pedagogy as a site of disciplinary and institutional transformation. We outline an antiracist, anticolonial pedagogical framework—what we call a pedagogy of unbecoming—that nurtures an extrarational, embodied, and relational geosciences otherwise. We share our experience, as white settler educators in persistently white disciplines, of enacting this pedagogy of unbecoming and outline specific protocols we used in course design. In the end, our efforts to transform the look and feel of geographic knowing are pragmatic attempts to walk alongside endeavors led by marginalized communities—inside and outside of academia—to build worlds otherwise. We invite peers to join in an ongoing process of unbecoming to build the ontological and epistemological conditions necessary for mutual flourishing.