The Role of Higher Education Stakeholder Networks …
135
… this laudatory praise of its environmental literacy program by environmental educators is little more than the present-day technocratic standards movement in education
masquerading as a noteworthy “green” improvement. Put bluntly: this environmental literacy
as a greenwash. (Kahn 2010: 9)
‘(C)hanging is difficult, but it is always possible’ (Freire 2016), so maybe we
should consider alternative systems for sustainable futures? Such foresight scenarios
for the development of higher education stakeholder networks, for and beyond the
implementation of sustainable development, may include:
(a) New Radical stakeholder networks
Despite the pressures of the powers that be, since the emergence of Extinction
Rebellion (XR) (BBC 2019), UK universities are facing a far deeper and more
united call from their students and staff to change to be socially and environmentally accountable. While students have in the past demanded such ethical and
moral alignment from their HEIs, over issues like fracking (People and Planet
n.d.) and carbon industry divestment (Taylor 2020; Wootton-Cane 2019), the
persistence of XR reveals a potential learner stakeholder with real interest in
their futures, the students.
Considering the structure, pattern and processes of an HEI(s), how may stakeholders contribute to its development of sustainable living? (This could be plural,
as this then raises the question of how autonomous is each HEI is and what
impact might they have individually and collectively—i.e. stacked systems).
(b) Co-learning as the basis action underpinning stakeholders networks
Co-learning or collaborative learning could form the basis of stakeholder
networks. The idea is akin to the concept of ‘post-disciplinarity’, developed by
ecological artists, Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison in 2008 (Haley
2012). This form of cooperative governance starts with the image of all the
disciplines seated at a circular table; no one discipline has dominance over any
other—they must all listen to each other. Climate change, species extinction,
ecological collapse and poverty are then placed at the centre of the table for
all to address, equally. Of course, this profoundly simple system owes much to
Dewey (2015: 19) and Deluze and Guttari (2013: 3), and it has been extended
and expanded to include non-colonial, feminist, pro-LGBT+ and other inclusive
forms of teaching and learning that go beyond educational institutions to society
at large and back to the original Ancient Athenian concept of ‘paidiea’ (Kahn
2010: 40). For Paulo Freire and Richard Kahn, this is the essential starting point
of critical pedagogy for genuine societal transformation that could actually bring
about sustainable living through ‘ecopedagogy’ (Kahn 2010:1; Haley 2009:
306). Here, Ecoliteracy (Capra 1996) takes precedence over fiscal, commercial
and industrial development and the cognitive dissonance of the international
community’s disingenuous response to the collective global crises (Anderson
2015).
“The question is not only ethical in the conventional sense, it is also an ecological
question. The means by which one man influences another are a part of the
135
… this laudatory praise of its environmental literacy program by environmental educators is little more than the present-day technocratic standards movement in education
masquerading as a noteworthy “green” improvement. Put bluntly: this environmental literacy
as a greenwash. (Kahn 2010: 9)
‘(C)hanging is difficult, but it is always possible’ (Freire 2016), so maybe we
should consider alternative systems for sustainable futures? Such foresight scenarios
for the development of higher education stakeholder networks, for and beyond the
implementation of sustainable development, may include:
(a) New Radical stakeholder networks
Despite the pressures of the powers that be, since the emergence of Extinction
Rebellion (XR) (BBC 2019), UK universities are facing a far deeper and more
united call from their students and staff to change to be socially and environmentally accountable. While students have in the past demanded such ethical and
moral alignment from their HEIs, over issues like fracking (People and Planet
n.d.) and carbon industry divestment (Taylor 2020; Wootton-Cane 2019), the
persistence of XR reveals a potential learner stakeholder with real interest in
their futures, the students.
Considering the structure, pattern and processes of an HEI(s), how may stakeholders contribute to its development of sustainable living? (This could be plural,
as this then raises the question of how autonomous is each HEI is and what
impact might they have individually and collectively—i.e. stacked systems).
(b) Co-learning as the basis action underpinning stakeholders networks
Co-learning or collaborative learning could form the basis of stakeholder
networks. The idea is akin to the concept of ‘post-disciplinarity’, developed by
ecological artists, Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison in 2008 (Haley
2012). This form of cooperative governance starts with the image of all the
disciplines seated at a circular table; no one discipline has dominance over any
other—they must all listen to each other. Climate change, species extinction,
ecological collapse and poverty are then placed at the centre of the table for
all to address, equally. Of course, this profoundly simple system owes much to
Dewey (2015: 19) and Deluze and Guttari (2013: 3), and it has been extended
and expanded to include non-colonial, feminist, pro-LGBT+ and other inclusive
forms of teaching and learning that go beyond educational institutions to society
at large and back to the original Ancient Athenian concept of ‘paidiea’ (Kahn
2010: 40). For Paulo Freire and Richard Kahn, this is the essential starting point
of critical pedagogy for genuine societal transformation that could actually bring
about sustainable living through ‘ecopedagogy’ (Kahn 2010:1; Haley 2009:
306). Here, Ecoliteracy (Capra 1996) takes precedence over fiscal, commercial
and industrial development and the cognitive dissonance of the international
community’s disingenuous response to the collective global crises (Anderson
2015).
“The question is not only ethical in the conventional sense, it is also an ecological
question. The means by which one man influences another are a part of the