Centre for Language Education Research Seminar   

Queen’s University Belfast     

Ecopedagogy for justice and sustainability: Exploring Possibilities for Ecolinguistics

Speaker: Dr. Greg William Misiaszek, Beijing Normal University 

All are welcome to this in person event. To attend, please register here. For further information: i.bhatt@qub.ac.uk  

Abstract: In this talk, I will explore ecopedagogy, which is based on the Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire's concepts of popular education and critical pedagogies and use this as a basis for a conversation around ‘Ecolinguistics ’. Ecopedagogy is an approach that is used to teach students how to critically read and transform the subjectivity of our world (including all humans and human populations) in relation to the rest of Earth (or the rest of Nature), which is non-subjective. Freire highlighted the unique 'unfinishedness’ of humans, characterized by our ability for self-reflection through our histories and setting goals based on our imagined utopias. I will address the needs, possibilities, and challenges faced by environmental pedagogues in teaching for deepened and widened understandings that are rooted in socio-environmental justice and planetary sustainability. This involves challenging the anthropocentric dominance over the rest of Nature. The talk will cover teaching for ‘ ecopedagogical literacy ’ to expand self-reflexivity in environmental praxis, touching upon de-(neo)coloniality, Southern/Indigenous theories and epistemologies, ecolinguistics, globalizations (from below and above), postdigitalism, (eco)feminism, and the concept of education for “development” , among other aspects. 

Bio: Dr Greg William Misiaszek is an Associate Professor at Beijing Normal University’s Faculty of Education, Theories of Education Institute. He is also Associate Director, Paulo Freire Institute, UCLA; Executive Editor of the journal Teaching in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives; Book Series Editor of Bloomsbury’s Freire in Focus; and Editor of the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Environmental. His work focuses on critical, comparative analysis of education, with specific emphasis on ecopedagogy, through theories of globalizations, citizenships, race, gender, migration, Indigenous issues, linguistics, epistemological justice, and media. His recently published book with Bloomsbury in 2023 is Freire and Environmentalism: Ecopedagogy. Other work includes: Ecopedagogy: Critical Environmental Teaching for Planetary Justice and Global Sustainable Development (2020, Bloomsbury); Educating the Global Environmental Citizen: Understanding Ecopedagogy in Local and Global Contexts (2018, Routledge); Palgrave Handbook on Critical Theories (2023, Springer). See https://ecopedagogy.com/