ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter begins by stating that this is a book about education which responds to the challenge of enlarging the space of what is possible instead of replicating what currently exists in the world. This is challenging at a time when much education is focused on standardised testing and the ‘reining in’ of imagination and creativity. Encounters are an important aspect of such education: encounters which encourage opportunities for playfulness, mutual inspiration and experimentation and engagement with what Osberg calls ‘the boundless, incalculable possibilities of life which are not yet imagined or imaginable’.
The chapter explores the necessity of complexity and emergence for sustainability, including the emergence of new subjectivities – new ways to be a subject speaking and acting in the world. The chapter recognises that what is heralded as ‘radically new’ has often existed for millennia, for example in Indigenous ways of knowing and being and acknowledges the risks of appropriating rather than learning from such ideas. Outlines of further chapters and a discussion of the lenses the author brings are provided. The chapter ends by considering a role for hope in sustainable and democratic education in the era of the Anthropocene.
