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THE NOMADIC WANDERINGS of a BAG-LADY and HER SPACE CHUMS: RE-STORYING ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION with FERAL FIGURATIONS by Chessa

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THE NOMADIC WANDERINGS of a BAG-LADY and HER SPACE CHUMS: RE-STORYING ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION with FERAL FIGURATIONS by Chessa THE NOMADIC WANDERINGS OF A BAG-LADY AND HER SPACE CHUMS: RE-STORYING ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION WITH FERAL FIGURATIONS by Chessa Adsit-Morris B.A., Interdisciplinary Art, University of Washington Seattle, WA, 2006. A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Curriculum Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2015 © Chessa Adsit-Morris, 2015 Abstract This thesis is a semi-autobiographical narrative, a serious fiction, in which I hold together the contradictions I have inherited and gathered (specifically in relation to the Western educational system) and learn to encounter the “Other” (real and imaginary others), including the other that is my constantly shifting/growing “self,” and attempt to find/foster nourishing alliances for transforming Environmental Education. I situated myself with new materialist theorists, specifically Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, and Karen Barad, who attempt to think “through the co-constitutive materiality of human corporeality and nonhuman natures” (Alaimo & Hekman, 2008, p. 9) and provide useful tools (figurations, metaphors, and/or stories) for finding creative theoretical alternatives to the reductionist, representationalist and dualistic practices of the Western (Euro-American) metaphysics. Instead, shifting towards ecological, rhizomatic thinking and a nomadic subjectivity, I take up bag-lady storytelling, a performative new materialist methodology, a creative (re)twist of Ursula Le Guin’s (1989) “Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” a nomadic practice of wandering and gathering. Such wandering and gathering requires a different logic, an attunement and attentiveness to processes and practices of ongoingness (not simply endings). Sharing the stories and figures I gathered doing and thinking a performative Environmental Educational inquiry during a yearlong place-based eco-art project collaboratively undertaken with a Grade 4/5/6 class around the lost streams of Vancouver, I focus on the patterns created and the traces left by the multiple complex figurative entities encountered who wander throughout spacetime. I focus on the types of stories created and told from these traces, searching for stories of our shared vital vulnerability, stories that just might draw us together, gathering and holding all of our heteronymous ideas, beliefs, and theories. My goal was to draw ii attention to ways of being, ways of knowing, and ways of living (getting on) together, that disrupt, alter, revitalize, and might just lead to the practices of collective recuperation needed to sustain a vibrant lively future. iii Preface This thesis is original, unpublished work by the author, C. A. Adsit-Morris. This thesis was undertaken as part of the Think&EatGreen@School project (http://thinkeatgreen.ca), a Community-University Collaborative Research Project on Food Security in Vancouver Schools (UBC Ethics Certificate number H10-00261). This community-based action research and collaboration project investigated food security and sustainability issues with students, parents, staff, and administrators within the Vancouver School Board; specifically through the creation of curriculum focused on student learning and the creation of critical environmentally conscious “food citizens.” The accomplishment of the project will be to contribute theoretical understanding (knowledge creation) and practical applications (action and knowledge mobilization) to strengthen local networks through Community Impact Projects. Following the UBC Ethical protocols, “confidentiality will be maintained,” no student names will be used in this thesis, all parents (or guardians) of elementary student participants provided consent to have photographs of their child taken as well as verbal responses/writing quoted. The teacher provided specific consent to have her identity revealed (including name, position and affiliated organization/school). iv Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ........................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... v List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. vii List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. viii Glossary ........................................................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... xvi Dedication ................................................................................................................................. xviii Chapter 1: An Introduction – How to Create Human Humus Instead of Human Hubris ..... 1 1.1 Research Questions ............................................................................................................ 5 1.2 Overview of chapters ......................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2: A Cartographic mapping practice (Literature Review) – Environmental Education, the Material/Discursive, and a (Feminist) New Materialism .............................. 11 2.1 Old stories: Tracing the dualisms in Environmental Education ...................................... 12 2.2 Discursive stories: Turning from matter to language in Environmental Education ........ 18 2.3 Material-semiotic stories: A (re)mapping of Environmental Education with/through a new materialist methodology .................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 3: Bag-lady Storytelling (Methodology) – The Carrier-bag Theory of Fiction as Research Praxis ........................................................................................................................... 37 Chapter 4: Doing (Action Research) - Exploring the Lost Streams of Vancouver Through Eco-Art ......................................................................................................................................... 46 v 4.1 Earth art natureculture stories at VanDusen Botanical Garden ....................................... 51 4.2 An eco-art journey: Writing as method of discovering the Lost Streams of Vancouver . 61 Chapter 5: Thinking (Narrative Inquiry) – An Inquiry into Possible Figurations and Multiple Modes of Ecological Thought ..................................................................................... 71 5.1 Breaking the binaries and becoming situated hybrids ..................................................... 73 5.2 From hybrid to hyphenated .............................................................................................. 80 5.3 Ecotones and the emergent gestalt ................................................................................... 85 5.4 From hyphens to holobionts ........................................................................................... 100 Chapter 6: A Conclusion – How to Keep the Story going For Those Who Come After .... 112 6.1 Introduction: Wandering with the figuration of the salmon .......................................... 112 6.2 Salmon as alien or outlaw .............................................................................................. 114 6.3 Salmon as ghost: Replacing salvation stories with ghost stories ................................... 122 6.4 Drawing the past through to the future .......................................................................... 135 References .................................................................................................................................. 139 vi List of Figures Figure 1: Visitors by Micheal Dennis ........................................................................................... 51 Figure 2: nac̓ θətəɬp Transformation Plant ..................................................................................... 54 Figure 3: Zipper by Urs-P. Twellmann ......................................................................................... 56 Figure 4: Little Green Dress Projekt by Nicole Dextras .............................................................. 58 Figure 5: Student Earth Art Piece ................................................................................................. 61 Figure 6: Map of Vancouver Circa 1919 (Student Painting) ........................................................ 65 Figure 7: Gibby's Field Eco-Art Installation ................................................................................. 70 Figure 8: Holobiont ....................................................................................................................... 71 Figure 9: Rabbit and Duck ............................................................................................................ 95 Figure 10: Nasonia ...................................................................................................................... 100 vii List of Abbreviations BPA – Bisphenol-A,
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