The wisp of an outline ≈ Storying ontology as environmental inquiry↔education :–)

They thought they felt something, perhaps. The wisp of an outline not distinct enough to trace. Good. They circled it, at times, and at other times found themselves within. As they walked (a sort of walking. Figurative but real. Digital, but here. Over months of events), it curled open and headed in several directions. Foldings in the backcloth that furrowed them along until, as they walked and talked, they felt that perhaps a territory was becoming simultaneously clearer and more obscure, that they might find a way to enquire, even as it meant becoming the folds themselves. As they coalesce, Scott, Jamie, and Dave each come to this project differently (of course). From their own situations, with their own problems and with different voices and ways of writing. We (for the first shift in voice) take post-qualitative inquiry to be infused with a question mark, wary of attempts to make it a ‘thing’. Yet here we are, drawn to potentials, to the opening of conditions, to the possibility of something still to come. We hope to make a shift, to realise (as in make manifest) ontology and its everyday performance as synonymous with environmental education. Environmental education as a life

Bookend : outdoor environmental education in precarious times

This final chapter brings an inevitable end to the book, but not necessarily the project. I tie together the many of the ideas touched upon throughout by noting the two main contributions the book offers. Namely, more-than-human pedagogies as an educational offering and immanent praxiography as methodological approach. I present a condensed articulation of the idea of more-than-human pedagogies, linking to the various other chapters and examples. Following this, I discuss immanent praxiography, including some guiding principles for enactment. This chapter ends with a coda that reflects on the project. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Listening for more-than-human voices : the expressive power of landscapes

This chapter introduces the idea of reading landscapes in relation to more-than-human worlds. I explore the practice of reading more-than-human stories in the landscape through examples from extended bushwalks in the Australian Alps. The aim of this chapter is to engage with the expressive power of landscape, offering some pedagogical strategies for attuning to more-than-human worlds. The chapter argues that by paying close attention, we may see that different features can tell us something about our shared worlds—a movement away from colonialist practices. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Thinking with a landscape : engaging with environmental issues through outdoor education

In this chapter, I propose the possibility of thinking with a landscape as a pedagogical concept, inspired by posthumanist theory. I enact this concept in the Australian Alps, concentrating on the contentious environmental dilemma involving introduced horses and their management in this bio-geographical location. The topic of horses is of pedagogical relevance for place-responsive outdoor environmental educators as both a location-specific problem and an example of a troubling issue. The chapter has two objectives for employing posthumanist thinking. Firstly, it experiments with the alternative methodological possibilities that posthumanist theory affords for OEE, including new ways of conducting educational research. Secondly, it explores how thinking with a landscape as a pedagogical concept may help open ways of considering the dilemma that horses pose. The pedagogical concept is enacted through some empirical events which sketch human-horse encounters from the Australian Alps. These sketches depict some of the pedagogical conversations and discursive pathways that encounters can provoke. Such encounters and conversations are ways of constructing knowledge of the landscape, covering multiple species, perspectives and discursive opportunities. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Thinking with a landscape : the Australian Alps, horses and pedagogical considerations

This paper proposes some possibilities for thinking with a landscape as a pedagogical concept, inspired by posthuman theory. The idea of thinking with a landscape is enacted in the Australian Alps (AA), concentrating on the contentious environmental dilemma involving introduced horses and their management in this bio-geographical location. The topic of horses is of pedagogical relevance for place-responsive outdoor environmental educators as both a location-specific problem and an example of a troubling issue. The paper has two objectives for employing posthuman thinking. Firstly, it experiments with the alternative methodological possibilities that posthuman theory affords for outdoor environmental education, including new ways of conducting educational research. Secondly, it explores how thinking with a landscape as a pedagogical concept may help open ways of considering the dilemma that horses pose. The pedagogical concept is enacted through some empirical events which sketch human-horse encounters from the AA. These sketches depict some of the pedagogical conversations and discursive pathways that encounters can provoke. Such encounters and conversations are ways of constructing knowledge of the landscape, covering multiple species, perspectives and discursive opportunities. For these reasons, this paper may be of relevance for outdoor environmental educators, those interested in the AA or posthuman theorists. [Author abstract

Emergent environmental education inquiry : a methodology of thinking with things

In contemporary times the world is faced with many environmental challenges. Yet old habits of human hubris persist. Our times call for us to think differently, and in the context of environmental education research, think methodology differently. This chapter offers four provocations that challenge orthodox educational research practices. Namely, challenges to conventional humanist qualitative inquiry (St. Pierre, 2011), anthropocentric data, overly prescriptive methodocentrism of educational research (Weaver & Snaza, 2017) and inquiry grounded within paradigmatic structures (Gough, 2016). These challenges confront the issue of overly dogmatic and dictatorial research methodology. This chapter takes these provocations seriously, aiming to look beyond anthropocentric, paradigmatic and overly deterministic approaches to inquiry. I propose that an approach for doing this may be to think with things, such as theory, concepts, landscapes, ecosystems, non-human species, and materiality. This is a process of assembling relations in research practice that allows for unexpected possibilities to emerge—a process that allows for responses to the significant and account for the ephemeral. As part of this approach, I embrace the notion of “follow[ing] the matter-flow” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 479) within the context of inquiry. I offer some examples to evoke this notion of open-ended inquiry