Course – EDCP 539 (032): Narrativity, Ecopedagogy and Indigeneity
Dear Students you are invited to register in:
EDCP 539 (032):
Narrativity, Ecopedagogy and Indigeneity
Held in Panderosa Commons 1255 on Wednesdays, from 4:30 to 7:30 pm.
Professor: Dr. Peter Cole
Office: Scarfe 2223
Email: peter.cole@ubc.ca
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COURSE DESCRIPTION & FORMAT
The power of narratives will be explored as they intersect with ecopedagogical and Indigenous knowings and practices toward a multi-storied, compassionate, just and ecologically sustainable world. Storying as an ‘Indigegogy’ has long served Indigenous Peoples worldwide as an educational and survival practice, engaging through sharing, siting and resituating, through forensic awareness training, opening oneself to the world. Ecopedagogy—learning to ‘read’ and navigate land, sky, water, words, how a raven flies, a fish swims, a tree sways, presence or not of insects, birds, moss, lichen, bark, fungus, berries, accustomed sounds, signs of presence or absence, freshness of tracks and traces, weather and predicative ‘meanings’ inscribed within storying—has always been key for Indigenous pedagogies. Not only the visual, but the auditory, olfactory, tactile, gustatory, and intuitional senses are important reading and transliterating agencies to connect, resituate, realign and regenerate.
Engaging with the course readings, videos, and seminar discussions will provide students the opportunity to make connections with ecopedagogical and Indigenous understandings and practices. A field trip will offer time and space to consider human, non-human and more-than-human worlds not simply as concepts, but as intra-actions of interdependency and reciprocity. Students will respond critically to the course readings and activities in written, oral and/or other means of their choosing as they create ecopedagogical narratives grounded in their own research interests, cultural knowings, histories, lived experiences, geographies and ecologies. This course is open to all interested students.