Re-assembling environmental and sustainability education: orientations from New Materialism

TLDR

New Materialist frameworks are increasingly advocated across social and natural sciences, yet guidance on empirically conducting postqualitative research and their implications for environmental and sustainability education remains sparse. This study offers orientations for Assemblage Pedagogy and Assemblage Research, grounded in a place‑responsive heritage education project and Deleuze‑Guattari theory. Assemblage Pedagogy is enacted by interrupting existing educational assemblages, practicing from the middle with human and more‑than‑human actors, and evoking new practices that foster sustainable ways of life. The work highlights broader implications for researching environmental and sustainability education.

Abstract

A growing number of scholars call for the use of New Materialist frameworks for research across social and natural sciences. In general, however, there is little rigorous, in-depth or detailed advice on how postqualitative research is to be empirically conducted. Also, what the implications might be for environmental and sustainability education remain unclear. In response, drawing on data from a place-responsive heritage education project, employing theory from Deleuze and Guattari, I provide orientations for Assemblage Pedagogy and Assemblage Research. Assemblage Pedagogy involves educating for more sustainable ways of life through: (1) Interrupting existing education assemblages and experimenting with new approaches, (2) Practicing, relating, and entangling 'from the middle', involving the human and more-than-human to actualise the capacities and relations needed, and, (3) Evoking and performing new practices and expressions designed to create more sustainable ways of life. Wider implications for researching environmental and sustainability education are considered.