Exploring posthuman ethics: opening new spaces for postqualitative inquiry within pedagogies of the circular economy

Helen Kopnina

doi:10.1017/aee.2021.16

Abstract

AbstractThis article discusses closed-loop systems, namely Cradle to Cradle and circular economy, in the context of sustainable education. These circular models, at least ideally, promise absolute decoupling of resource consumption from the economy. This article presents student assignments applying these models to Hennes & Mauritz, a clothing retail company, and insect food producer, Protix.While the discussion of circular economy revolves around the economic benefits of closed-loop systems, it rarely addresses posthumanism. Posthumanism is related to postqualitative theory, inspired by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Deleuze and Guattari emphasize that nature has become intertwined with technology and culture. In the cases discussed, combining both techno- and organic materials produces ‘monstrous hybrids’. It appears that fully circular solutions are rare as absolute decoupling is limited by thermodynamic (im)possibilities. This realization still has to be developed in environmental education. Within this posthumanist inquiry, the larger lesson from the case studies is the necessity of teaching about degrowth in production, consumption and corporate strategy. In pedagogical terms, this article aims to generate a more critical discussion within the environmental education community about how postqualitative inquiry can provide different and distinct perspectives from qualitative inquiry in the context of the circular economy.

Highlights

Academic and policy experts recognize that demographic, political, social and economic factors, such as an increase in population, production and consumption, are at the core of ecological degradation, climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution (Victor & Jackson 2015; Sullivan 2020)
While the level of consumption is higher in developed countries, what exacerbates these issues is that industrial development and neoliberal economic ideology are no longer limited to one area (The Economist, 2015a)
Turning to two case studies revolving around the notion of circularity, the work of Guattari (1989) on technological worlds fundamentally questions an a priori distinction between technology, ecology, politics and a nonhuman world, and foregrounds different modes of discourse involved in the notion of sustainability

Summary

Introduction

Academic and policy experts recognize that demographic, political, social and economic factors, such as an increase in population, production and consumption, are at the core of ecological degradation, climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution (Victor & Jackson 2015; Sullivan 2020). While some countries have gone through the demographic transition to lower fertility, despite declining mortality, some countries maintain high birth rates (The Economist, 2015b; The Economist, 2019), the middle classes are expanding globally, people are living longer, and migration occurs to developed higher consumption countries (The Economist, 2015a; Dodson, Dérer, Cafaro & Götmark, 2020). Feeding this everincreasing and demanding population will require current food production systems to double, aggravating land, water and other natural resource scarcity (Garnett et al, 2013).

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Discussion

Conclusion