Education for sustainability and environment (ESE) is characterized by notions about securing the future for the world and for its inhabitants. Environmental problems are said to be solved through education and not at least through domesticating students′ emotions concerning environmental and sustainable issues. In a double gesture of including ″everyone″ in the sustainability project, borders are draw between appropriate and unproductive emotions. Cultural politics of emotion make up the environmentally friendly person, and respectively, the risky Other – the affect alien. The desirable student is the willing child; the one who engages in sustainability – not because s/he is told to do so, but because s/he wants to. The Other is the willful child, a cultural figure who operates as a frightening example of what happens to children not willing to adapt to common will. Another ″productive″ emotion is happiness; a cultural obligation to be positive. Willingness and happiness become boundary markers, delineating those who deal with societal problems in a reasonable way and those who deal with them unreasonably – by being sad or angry. These are the ″killjoys″ not conforming to the language of hope. Instead, they seem to threaten the future by their very presence.
Mobil →
↑ https://muep.mau.se/handle/2043/22449