Why the Earth Charter Matters to (Multi)Cultural Educators Everywhere: A Rejoinder

Abstract

Bowers’ and Stables’ responses to “A Foucauldian Analysis of Environmental Education: Toward the Socioecological Challenge of the Earth Charter” could not have been more different. While Bowers analyzes, deepens, and extends arguments from the Foucauldian analysis, and helps to clarify the kind of cultural thinking all educators must undertake, Stables, in a seemingly ironic philosophical stance, questions whether, in a “postmodern” world, educators should bother to take theoretical and political stands at all. I will comment on both authors’ contributions toward the end of this rejoinder. However, since neither author paid it much attention (Stables less than Bowers), I first want to return to the Earth Charter and update readers on the status of what Bowers in his response calls a “remarkable document” that “should be the basis of a transformative discourse” (p. 225). The Earth Charter, I wish to emphasize, represents a momentous, cross-cultural political achievement that can challenge the work of education (environmental or otherwise) in the Foucauldian tradition, and that can help bridge socially and ecologically critical perspectives toward culture and education.