ABSTRACT
The intersecting complexity of the biophysical world and human social systems has led to a proliferation of perspectives on – and hence ways of talking and writing about – environmental issues. These ways of talking and writing give rise to environmental ethics discourses which convey both tacit and explicit messages about what is, or is not, ‘of value’ in the world, and what actions are ‘good’ in relation to those values. Environmental ethics discourses are therefore understood to be imbued with socio-political power, able to advance or suppress certain ideas, attract funding and steer environmental actions. This chapter advances a critical realist understanding of discourses as structurata that emerge relationally within complex, laminated, open social systems. It is important for environmental educators to develop individual and collective reflexivity regarding the environmental ethics discourses circulating in educational programmes and organizations, and to understand and critique the power of their texts that represent people’s relationships with the natural world. The chapter proposes a three-staged analytical tool that other educators are invited to use, adapt and develop. The tool is based on Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis that entails scrutinizing text, interactions and context. This approach is consistent with critical realism’s dialectical-relational, open systems ontology which enables us to understand that environmental ethics discourses are not simply ideational but are bound up in the socio-material world, including its social-ecological dimensions. Through explanatory critique of environmental ethics discourses in use, educators are more likely to develop judgmental rationality and avoid the pitfalls of relativistic engagement with environmental values and ethics.
