UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Critical Ecopedagogies of Love: Engaging Biocultural Diversities and Justice-Oriented Sustainabilities Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/47551498 Author Khaksar, Venoosheh Publication Date 2020 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Critical Ecopedagogies of Love: Engaging Biocultural Diversities and Justice-Oriented Sustainabilities A dissertation proposal submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy in Education by Venoosheh Khaksar 2020 © Copyright by Venoosheh Khaksar 2020 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Critical Ecopedagogies of Love: Engaging Biocultural Diversities and Justice-Oriented Sustainabilities by Venoosheh Khaksar Doctor of Philosophy in Education University of California, Los Angeles, 2020 Professor Douglas Kellner, Chair This dissertation project offers the critical ecopedagogical possibilities to confront, critique, and transform current global ecological devastations and environmental racism through reimagining and engaging deconstructed expressions of love within the academic arena and beyond. The work displays how engaged Critical Ecopedagogies of Love (CEL) are theories and practices of freedom, in opposition to global neoliberal hegemonic social, economic, political, and cultural systems that are intimately tied to ecological destruction and environmental injustice, and exceedingly impact marginalized people and individuals at the intersections of marginalization, which is disproportionately detrimental to Black and Indigenous People, and People of Color (BIPOC). It displays how addressing environmental concerns exclusively or focusing on human rights within the confines of the status quo actually neglect and even contribute to the oppressive institutional structures that are founded upon the constructs of power and hegemony, instead of dismantling the underlying and interlocking systems of domination. Integrative orientations that exist and thrive in the modern context are brought forth, including: the juncture of ethnographic and natural/environmental science research via biocultural diversity (BCD), and efforts implementing the application of these theories within justice-oriented sustainability (JS) frameworks and practices. Converging ecopedagogy within the intersections of BCD and JS articulates why and how a sound, grounded, and critical, multiperspectival eco-theory is necessary for global holistic health and wellbeing in the face of worldwide environmental destruction and dehumanization projects. The work posits engaging multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary knowledge to deepen and expand engaged CEL that recognize the earth's entire ecology as a prerequisite for freedom. The synthesis of these fields will thus assert engaged CEL within multiple formal institutional settings, informal community spaces, and beyond, as leveraging tools that assist in developing and influencing ecopedagogical pursuits of holistic, socially-just, and liberatory transformation to take root and flourish. The dissertation of Venoosheh Khaksar is approved. ii The dissertation of Venoosheh Khaksar is approved. Paul Von Blum Richard V. Kahn Edith S. Omwami Teresa L. McCarty Douglas Kellner, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2020 iii DEDICATIONS This dissertation is dedicated to the beautiful BIPOC and intersectional BIPOC communities that recognize our value beyond the margins to which we are often ascribed, and who opt to confront, at any cost, quotidian negation of life in the struggle and sacrifice for our most basic rights to sovereignty, freedom, and dignity. It is for and with our communities who understand the complexity of our wholeness, as we critically actualize dissident and coalition futurities grounded in our desired, collective visions that remain rooted in love. May we revitalize and reclaim deconstructed expressions of love as a way of life and witness the power of its life-affirming restoration. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................... iii DEDICATIONS ................................................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................... v ACRONYM LIST ............................................................................................................... vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ ix VITA ..................................................................................................................................... xii CHAPTER 1 AN INTRODUCTION TO ECOPEDAGOGY ................................................................... 1 Purpose Statement ........................................................................................................... 7 Guiding Questions ............................................................................................................ 8 Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 9 Significance of Topic ...................................................................................................... 16 Positionality .................................................................................................................... 17 Plan of work .................................................................................................................... 25 Overview of Chapters ................................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER 2 FROM SCHOOLING TO LIBERATORY EDUCATION .............................................. 28 Extending Freire's Critical Pedagogy .......................................................................... 31 Ecopedagogy and Marcuse's Reschooling .................................................................. 35 CHAPTER 3 THE ERA OF BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY ................................................................. 41 The Spring of BCD Goals, Declarations and Resolutions .......................................... 47 Defining Biological, Cultural, and Linguistic Diversity ............................................. 53 Biological Diversity: Assessing Threats and Understanding Hotspot Conservation ........................................................................................................ 54 Cultural Diversity: Protecting, Revitalizing, and Compensating TEK .................68 Linguistic Diversity: From Loss to Reclamation ................................................. 81 BCD in the Anthropocene: Where to go from Here ................................................... 99 v CHAPTER 4 TOWARD CRITICAL JUSTICE-ORIENTED SUSTAINABILITIES ........................ 105 From Environmentalism to Sustainability: A Global North Perspective ................ 108 A National Movement for Environmental Justice .................................................... 112 Global Anthropogenic Climate Destabilization ........................................................ 121 The Ecological Impacts of Greenwashing .................................................................. 127 International Sustainability Efforts ........................................................................... 136 BIPOC and Intersectional Vanguards: Cultivating Frameworks of Desire .......... 143 CHAPTER 5 TOWARD CRITICAL ECOPEDAGOGIES OF LOVE ............................................... 153 BIPOC and Intersectional-led Critical Ecopedagogy ................................................ 158 The Prospects of Ecopedagogy in a Neoliberal Academic-Industry ........................ 162 Cultivating Love as an Act of Freedom ...................................................................... 171 Biocultural Diversities and Just Sustainabilites as Critical Ecopedagogies of Love ............................................................................................................................... 179 APPENDIX AFTERWORD ................................................................................................................... 193 ECOPEDAGOGY SYLLABUS ........................................................................................ 201 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................203 vi ACRONYM LIST (BCD) Biocultural diversity (BIPOC) Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (CBD) Convention on Biological Diversity (CDC) Center for Disease Control (CEL) Critical Ecopedagogies of Love (CERCLA) Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (COEH) Center of Occupational and Environmental Health (COP) Conference of the Parties (CPT) Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CRT) Critical Race Theory (DAC) Development Assistance Committee (DAPL) Dakota Access Pipeline (DDT) Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (EC) European Commission (ECOSOC) United Nations Economic and Social Council (EGIDS) Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EJ) Environmental justice (EPA) Environmental Protection Agency (EU) European Union (FPCC) First Peoples Cultural Council (GAO) General Accounting Office now the Government