The “Discourse of Invasive Species”: Another Consideration for the Rebel Teacher 598
P H I L O S O P H Y O F E D U C A T I O N 2 0 1 7
The “Discourse of Invasive Species”:
Another Consideration for the Rebel Teacher
Heather Greenhalgh-Spencer
Texas Tech University
In “Freedom & Flourishing in a Posthumanist Age: More-Than-Hu-
man Being in Revolt,” Blenkinsop et al. consider the importance of discourses
and pedagogical stances that allow teachers to de-center the human and the
individual in favor of a posthumanist and eco-centric vision of a fourishing
and dignifed life—for all life. Blenkinsop et al. favor a posthumanist reading
of Camus in order to envision a politics that “might inform environmental ed-
ucators who are faced with negating the ecocidal aspects of human-centrism
within the dominant culture.
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” Their argument is that: “it might be through
bearing witness and negating ecocidal suicide as a result of our individualistic
anthropocentrism, while at the same time allowing all to exercise their freedom
through exalting mutual dignifed fourishing, that we can as living beings fnd
the meaning of freedom.”
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In their text, it is the discourse of humanism and the centering of the
individual—as opposed to a vision of humanity and the more-than-human as
an interdependent collective or a unifed ecological whole—that is named as
the problem. The argument suggests that if we, as teachers, or community mem-
bers, or humans, can begin to understand the ways that we live in symbiosis
with other organisms—that all life has meaning and necessity—then we can
move to a freedom that encourages mutual dignifed fourishing and combat
impending ecological suicide. While I agree with the authors—that anthropo-
centrism and individualism are discourses that need to be pushed against—I
am unconvinced that these are the main discourses that need to be combatted
in order to avoid imminent ecocide. To be clear, I sympathize with and echo
their proposed solution of counter-narratives and counter-discourses that ex-
pand our vision, but I take issue with their suggestion that the discourse of
PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 2017 | Ann Chinnery, editor
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