An Anthropologist Fails to Become a Fish: Multispecies Sensing in the Anthropocene
Buttacavoli, Matthew (2024) An Anthropologist Fails to Become a Fish: Multispecies Sensing in the Anthropocene. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 40. pp. 276-287.
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Abstract
How well do we know how non-humans experience environmental stressors and how do we communicate that knowledge as educators? This paper addresses these questions by way of an auto-ethnographic account of the author’s experience of attempting to listen to the Great Barrier Reef, off the Queensland coast. Through a series of methodological failures and roadblocks, this paper discusses the difficulties in understanding non-human sensory worlds. Following the auto-ethnographic account, the paper explores how anthropological pedagogies can contribute to environmental education of non-human experiences more broadly. The paper uses anthropological pedagogy to draw an analogy between ethnocentrism/cultural relativism and anthropocentrism/ecocentrism. Utilising practices of “third place” then demonstrates how the latter terms of these relationships are correctives to the former terms rather than oppositions. This paper concludes by suggesting ways in which the lessons learned can be applied to environmental education. It recommends creating a third space environmental curriculum which defamiliarises human experience and creates a zone of contact between humans and non-humans. The use of mediating technologies and artistic practice in conjunction with scientific education is recommended to maintain a critical perspective of human knowledge and biological limitations in creating experiential relationships with the environment.
| Item ID: | 86011 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 2049-775X |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Australian Association for Environmental Education. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. |
| Date Deposited: | 01 Jul 2025 02:26 |
| FoR Codes: | 39 EDUCATION > 3902 Education policy, sociology and philosophy > 390299 Education policy, sociology and philosophy not elsewhere classified @ 40% 44 HUMAN SOCIETY > 4401 Anthropology > 440104 Environmental anthropology @ 60% |
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