ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the issue of subjectivity and explores and challenges the dominant Western (Eurocentric) worldview in which conceptions of subjectivity are based on the autonomy of each separate individual to make independent decisions based on reasoning. It considers the meanings and historical roots of these conceptions and their implications for being in the world together, and, in particular, what this means/has meant for sustainable and democratic education. It then explores other ways to approach subjectivity – ways which understand the world, and all within it, as connected/relational and also the ethical implications created by such relationality. This includes Indigenous thinking, feminist ethics of care and the ideas of Buber and Macmurray. These ideas are not shared as ‘blueprints’ for subjectivity but rather to show that other ways of being a subject are possible. An important recognition in the chapter is that subjectivities explored are not always new but ones which have often been ‘othered’ and denigrated in Eurocentric thinking.
