3.2. Diverse knowledges

Ecosocial education in the sustainability transformation requires that high-income countries re-evaluate many customary conceptions of good life, consumption, nature, and technology. Being educated also means acquiring an understanding of the variety of different ways of knowing, all of which are linked to values, world views, and emotions as well as to the material and social frameworks of life. Ways of knowing and the subject matter of knowledge may also change over time. It is worth remembering that as recently as the 20th century, radioactive radiation and smoking tobacco were considered beneficial to human health. In this section, we will not examine the historical changes regarding environmental knowledge (but see chapter 2.3). Instead, we will focus on the different aspects of knowing: literacy, language, and visual understanding. We will also examine how the tradition of European colonialism is being questioned and dismantled, that is, the process of decolonisation.

The many meanings of literacy

As a skill, literacy is more multifaceted that it would seem at first glance. In its narrower sense, literacy means the ability to understand written text – letters, words and sentences – as well as information conveyed through numbers. However, the term has extended to also mean the skills of interpreting, analysing, and questioning, as well as understanding how different datasets relate to social, cultural, societal, and political contexts and different media such as oral communication, newspapers and news services, social media, books, and movies.

When information is presented, it is always done for a reason, directed to certain recipients and linked to an existing field of information. The term media literacy is often used to describe the skill of both understanding and producing various media contents. For example, the motives and restrictions guiding the production of a lunch recipe, the editorial of a country’s leading newspaper, or a personal social media post may be very different from each other.

Literacy can also be combined with continuous learning and societal participation. In that case, we are talking about multiliteracies. Societal participation and influencing require proficiency in different data systems and forms of media, as well as the skills for interpreting different modes of meaning-making, such as images, written text, and sound. For example, social media activism requires diverse skills that are constantly upgraded. To sum up, the current understanding of literacy includes various skills and abilities for operating in a multilingual, multicultural and multimedia society.

In its broader sense, literacy is knowledge that helps us answer many questions, such as: Is this information reliable? What is the purpose of this information? Who are influenced by it? What is told and what is left untold? What conclusions should be drawn from this information and what actions should be performed based on it? Who is producing this information and why? Who has access to it?

All these questions are also important when dealing with environmental change and transitioning into sustainable societies. Adopting and evaluating environmental knowledge is in many ways a challenging task for both ordinary citizens and researchers. Environmental knowledge crosses the borders of scientific fields and connects many sectors of life. For example, when decisions are made for protecting biodiversity in an urban area, several kinds of knowledge are required: at the very least, we need to know about the behaviour, needs, and ecological interrelations of different species, about the cultural meanings and everyday value the area holds for citizens, and about the political and economic ambitions that affect the future of the area. Protection processes also evoke emotions in many stakeholders, which affects the progress of the processes but may not necessarily be addressed in any way. According to environmental researchers, environmental information is also characterised by fragmentation, links to values and judgments, rapidly changing terminology, and locality.

Especially in low-income countries, conveying and acquiring environment-related knowledge is difficult because many citizens may not even have adequate skills to read written text. Therefore, literacy, in its narrower sense of understanding written text, is still a topical challenge in these countries. Abiolu Oluremi and Oluchi Okere, who have studied educational technology and libraries, especially in Nigeria, state that video and audio media should also be used in conveying environmental knowledge, and it should be presented in local languages. In many countries, developing libraries could also help in developing local literacy – in both narrow and broad sense – and increasing the accessibility of information. It must also be kept in mind that the skills of reading written text are also deteriorating, e.g., in Finland. Therefore, it is not merely an issue of low-income countries.

The skills of adopting, analysing and critically examining information during the environmental crisis have been described with various conceptions, such as environmental literacy, climate literacy, or futures literacy.

Environmental literacy

Environmental literacy can mean many things. What makes the matter even more difficult is that besides “environmental literacy”, the terms “ecological literacy” and “ecoliteracy” are used as well. Environmental literacy has developed in environmental education, ecological literacy has been particularly developed by ecologists, and ecoliteracy has been created in discussions within the humanities. However, the terms have occasionally been happily interchanged with each other.

Environmental literacy is earliest of the three terms, and it has appeared in literature since the 1960s. The term was developed in the United States in the mid-1960s alongside environmental education, which emphasises the societal aspects of environmental issues along with natural scientific data. For the sake of clarity, we will use environmental literacy here as an umbrella term for all types of literacy oriented towards the environment and nature.

Environmental literacy is not new as a term – it has simply become more and more topical. In simple terms, it can be said that environmental literacy is (1) the ability to understand and act upon the environment and the role and responsibilities of people within it; (2) the ability to understand and act upon information about the environment or environmental crises; and (3) the desire and means to build a more sustainable world, both ecologically and socially. An environmentally literate human is aware of environmental problems and also able to take action to solve them. Additionally, they consider environmental questions morally important. 

In the 1990s, professor of environmental studies and politics, David Orr (1990, 50), called for “ecological” literacy which he described as follows:

Orr's definition was influenced by the discussion in the 1980s on (ecological and social) sustainable development which we learned about in the “Introduction to planetary well-being” course. Orr also emphasised the importance of interdisciplinarity in teaching and learning environmental literacy. Environmental problems should therefore be approached through various sciences.

Climate literacy

Climate literacy means an understanding of the human impact on climate, and on the other hand, the effects of climate on humans and societies. A climate literate person 1) understands essential climate-related principles, 2) is able to evaluate information on climate, 3) communicates about the climate and climate change in a relevant manner and 4) is able to make responsible and knowledge-based decisions on climate change or activities that affect the climate. (Shwom et al. 2017; USGCRP 2009.) The definition of climate literacy is not unlike the definition of the above-mentioned environmental literacy: climate literacy also includes the understanding of the human as part of a wider totality, the importance of scientific knowledge and the attempt to act upon this understanding.

Science journalist Mikko Pelttari emphasises that climate literacy means a critical and flexible approach towards information and its acquisition. One must be alert, self-critical, and acknowledge that, for example, many developments may be problematic and complex. For example, the development of technology can lead to both increasing well-being and increasing environmental problems. One must be able to consider how one can be cherished and the other prevented. Pelttari also emphasises the unpredictability of climate change: it is impossible to predict each development. Therefore, we may not necessarily know what would be the best course of action for solving the wicked environmental crises that we are against. Still, we must act. Thus, we must accept the changing and self-correcting nature of knowledge and tirelessly follow the development of science.

Pelttari also emphasises the responsibility of media: they should avoid creating confrontations that hinder the development of the climate literacy of citizens. Media, for example, has a tendency to create a so-called false balance. This means that when there is an argument in the media, they attempt to find a counterargument – and an opponent for the proposer of the argument. This, however, is a distorted set-up when, for example, a professor who has studied climate change for years is pitted against a so-called ordinary person. Even though the opinion of each citizen matters, scientific subjects are matters of scientific facts, not opinions.

Futures literacy

UNESCO has proposed that in addition to environmental literacy, futures literacy is also needed. Futures literacy can and must be developed because the future does not exist yet, and thus one must be able to imagine it. Humans can learn to imagine futures for different reasons and in different ways. Therefore, the ability to imagine and evaluate different futures comprise futures literacy. We will examine imagination more thoroughly in chapter 3.4.

Futures thinking is also utilised a great deal in decision-making where a central challenge, particularly regarding climate change, has been how decision-makers could evaluate the effects of their decisions far enough into the future (instead of only until the end of their terms). For example, different game-based methods simulating different futures have been proposed to support futures thinking.

The changing language of environmental change

As thinking changes, the practices of language use, such as concepts, metaphors and figures of speech, also change. Sometimes, even the pronouns referring to beings and persons change – for example, the pronouns referring to gender are nowadays used more diversely, and it has become acceptable to also use the English pronoun they to refer to individuals in a gender-neutral manner. There are also discussions on whether to use personal or demonstrative pronouns (“s/he” or “it”), for example in Finnish, when referring to animals. On the other hand, both researchers and activists aim to describe the world disturbed by environmental change with words that are as accurate and feasible as possible, some of which are even brand new. 

People who do not pay much attention to scientific discussion or activism, however, may find the ever-changing language unnecessarily difficult to understand. This holds especially true when practical understanding of a new phenomenon, such as climate change or biodiversity loss, is required, but the terms do not help clarifying the situation. For example, ‘carbon footprint’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘circular economy’ are widely used in media, politics, and corporate and individual speech, even though their meaning may be difficult to interpret. ‘Sustainability’ in particular may mean many different things. 

As we learned on the “Introduction planetary well-being” course, sustainability has various and even contradictory definitions. It can mean anything from small changes in consumer behaviour to great cultural changes.  According to science journalist Mikko Pelttari “general terms are necessarily vague, and that is why care must be taken in their definition and use. Otherwise, they can easily become irrelevant.” It is important to recognise – and ask if necessary – what is meant by general terms in a given situation and what they are intended to accomplish.

In addition to researcher and political operators, authors and other artists have proposed new vocabularies which we could use to discuss the environmental crisis and sustainable life. Even though adopting and using new vocabulary can sometimes be frustrating, it is important when developing new ways of thinking. Words may “direct one's gaze to seeing places that have previously been overlooked”, i.e., to help recognise more aspects of the world than before. (Pelttari 2021, 178.) For example, think about which kinds of meanings the words “environmental anxiety”, “environmental emergency” and “biodiversity loss” carry. What other words could you use to describe these meanings? What other words are needed?

Creating new vocabulary is just a small part of thinking about the language of the climate change. Researchers have reflected on, for example, how languages confine and enable thinking about and experiencing the environment. Moreover, language is not necessarily just a human invention, but a way of responding to worlds that have evolved in multi-species relations. Environmental philosophers such as David Abram and Robin Wall Kimmerer have proposed that human languages have emerged and developed in connection with the sounds of multi-species environments – like birds, we have listened to and imitated other species. According to Abram, biodiversity loss therefore also means that human expression will become impoverished when we can no longer hear and experience the sounds of other species.

The culture of images and representations

Life in modern societies is entangled with an audio-visual culture: the physical environment and media environments are filled with images and videos. Images are used as a strong means of influence, and being able to critically recognise visual influencing is indeed an important civic skill. Digital photography, high-quality mobile cameras and the Internet have enabled nearly everyone to take pictures and share them on different digital platforms. On one hand, this has enabled a more broad-based culture of influencing in which activism is performed through memes, images and videos. At the same time, the opportunities for manipulating images and using them to spread disinformation have increased.

It can also be difficult to utilise images in communicating environmental crises that are based on phenomena that are not immediately visible, such as the gradual warming of the climate. It is difficult to depict a slow change that cannot be recorded in images. Images may also have too much of an alienating effect: pictures of polar bears on melting ice floes may not necessarily affect the viewer but may cause global warming to seem like a distant matter instead. The imagery of climate change has indeed been criticised for this type of alienating. Therefore, visual imagination is needed for portraying the climate crisis.

Representations

Representations shape impressions and values and may thus reinforce or weaken consumerist and anthropocentric ideologies. “Representation” therefore means how a certain thing, a group of people or an animal species, is represented in cultural discourses. “Discourse” means discussions conveyed through images, words or even videos.

Representation can also be understood in a more literal sense. We may ask, for example, what type of people do we see represented in news, TV quiz shows, music videos, or politics. Along with the environmental discussion, we can also use an example of a sensation that circulated the media and concerned a picture taken of a group of young environmental activists. The only black activist, Vanessa Nakate, was cropped out of the picture. The photographer who took the picture justified the cropping by saying that the house behind Nakate drew too much attention in the picture. From a perspective of representation, however, the cropping ended up reinforcing a certain understanding of whose perspectives matter in the climate crisis – who is visible and whose voice is heard?

The picture in which Nakate was not represented thus reinforced the notion that primarily white people make decisions on climate questions and perform climate activism. Cropping out Nakate also meant cropping out the fact that people who are racialised as non-white have often performed climate actions and activism even before white people started to do so. Reinforcing this type of thinking is also not ideal for encouraging people racialised as non-white to gravitate to environmental activism or political decision-making. This is particularly detrimental because, as we have learned earlier on the course, climate change impacts people racialised a non-white above all. Thus, representations can affect what kind of people find their way into decision-making or what kind of people are taken seriously as experts on certain subjects.

Image. Environmental activist Vanessa Nakate. Photo: Paul Wamala Ssegujja. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vanessa_Nakate.jpg

Representations can be visual, verbal, or even produced through bodily movement, as in dance and theatre. Representations also influence how people react to nature. In literature and arts, nature is usually a milieu framing the events, but it is never just a neutral prop but “a kind of canvas, on which various human hopes, fears and ideologies are reflected” (Lahtinen 2012, 79). Various myths and meanings have indeed been connected to nature in different cultures. In fiction, escaping into nature or conquering it may have meant an escape from urban life. When nature acts a canvas for human fears, hopes and ideologies, nature itself – and its well-being – may be forgotten.

For example, let's think about the portrayal and presentation of animals. The way humans’ relationship with nature, or nature and animals, are portrayed in media, art and even political documentaries shapes how relationships between humans and other animals are formed. Through repeated visual representations, certain animals are made into scary beasts and others into lovable pets.

Advertisement and branding also influence the relationships between humans and other animals. For example, we are used to seeing smiling cartoon cows on milk cartons. The cows are portrayed as healthy so that consuming products originating from them would not feel morally wrong. The smiling cow simplifies the conditions on cattle farms where animals may or may not feel well. The cartoon character enables an exaggerated, and often anthropomorphic, representation of a cow which probably produces different impressions than a photograph of a cow ruminating in a cowshed would. Through the cartoon character, it is easier for the buyer to forget the fact there is a real animal behind the production of milk. In other words, it distances the buyer from real cows. We are also used to seeing banner ads of clean Finnish nature, when in reality, biodiversity loss is accelerating at a rapid pace in Finland, too.

As a part of the ecological media literacy required today, it is worthwhile to recognise the power of representations in shaping impressions, values and attitudes.

Traditional ecological knowledge

The roots of Western scientific knowledge are in the European idea of the Enlightenment. These roots still affect who can conduct research and what type of knowledge is accepted as belonging to the realm of science. For example, in her collection of essays, Braiding Sweetgrass, the American botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, who is a member of the Potawatomi people, recounted the challenges she faced in her university studies – especially, how difficult it was to bring together the requirement of scientific objectivity and the Potawatomi people's respectful relationship towards non-human life. According to the world view that Kimmerer adopted in their childhood, animals and plants must be treated as sentient beings which have personalities and significant relationships with both each other and other beings. When getting to know plants, it was important to learn their relations with other species, the places they preferred to grow in and their companion species, how humans could possibly use them, and the principles directing this usage. The most important teacher on the subject was the plant itself.

This view did not match with the natural scientific view of the world, especially in the 1970s when Kimmerer was a student. As a young student, Kimmerer wanted, for example, to study why two flowering plants, the New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) and the Canadian goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) looked so beautiful together. She was used to thinking that because these plants grow together so often, they must have some kind of a relationship – and that beauty must have some significance to that relationship. According to her teacher, however, the question asked by Kimmerer was not scientific, because questions on beauty are anthropocentric and belong in the field of arts. Scientific thinking included the separation of the subject of knowledge and the personal experience of the knowing person. Therefore, in order to practice science, Kimmerer had to consciously give up a previous way of knowing in which a personal and experiential relationship with plants held major significance.

Image. Violet asters and yellow goldenrods growing side by side. (Image: Chris Condello.)

Later in her career, after relearning to appreciate her Potawatomi roots, Kimmerer returned to the question on the beauty of New England asters and Canadian goldenrods. She learned that in addition humans, bees also notice the contrast between the violet of asters and the yellow of goldenrods, and it is possible that this sensory contrast brings more pollinators to each species when they grow together. Therefore, the beauty might have been a question of ecological relations between pollinating insects and two species of plants. According to Kimmerer, something in this ecological pattern also appealed to her as a human. However, the narrow gaze of natural science did not provide her with an answer to the question on beauty. In order to combine the two aspects of her world view, she has had to turn to creative writing, and through poetry and essays, she seeks to braid together the knowledge she acquired at the university and the traditional knowledge of her people.

The knowledge based on local tradition, described by Kimmerer, is nowadays called traditional ecological knowledge or Indigenous knowledge. Traditional ecological knowledge does not form any uniform universal system but is based on the ecological environments and ways of living of each area and culture. The indigenous people of Canada know their plants differently than the indigenous people of Australia. What is common in traditional ecological knowledge, though, is that it often enables a way of life together with local environments without destroying their chances to flourish. According to researchers, the representatives of indigenous peoples often emphasise that traditional ecological knowledge is based on connectivity, activity and the fact that humans cannot be separated from nature. For this reason, traditional ecological knowledge is immensely important to planetary well-being. It can help people and societies to adopt the very values and attitudes that the researchers of ecosocial education and sustainability thinking emphasise: relationality, nature-centred thinking instead of anthropocentrism, and sufficiency. We will examine these values and attitudes more thoroughly in chapter 4.4.

Environmental research is currently going through a transformation in which the aim is to combine traditional ecological knowledge with the established methods of scientific research. For example, there was an attempt to include more and more traditional ecological knowledge in the IPBES report of 2021. Corinna Casi, Hanna Ellen Guttorm and Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen, all working in Indigenous studies, have proposed that the overgenerational knowledge of indigenous people may help researchers understand how areas traditionally inhabited by indigenous people should be managed and protected.

Combining traditional ecological knowledge with scientific knowledge, however, causes challenges that are related to both the nature of knowledge and the socio-political system of science. As pointed out above, even the observations and questions posed by traditional ecological knowledge may differ greatly from the observations and questions posed by the scientific thinking stemming from the European tradition. Researchers may find it difficult to understand and accept the ethics of significant relations and a practical conception of knowledge that emphasises lived experience. Both philosopher Tere Vadén and educationist Hannaellen Guttorm have discussed this rift in the ways of knowing and proposed that the key to a sustainable life may in fact be in indigenisation, that is, in the conscious practising of skills and attitudes of living in particular local ecosystems.

The established power relationships of the scientific world, and the connections between science and colonialist conquest, cause major challenges for thinkers who originate from colonised regions and wish to bring their views on the table. Colonisation has destroyed entire peoples and cultures. Those indigenous peoples who still practise their traditional cultures – or try to find ways to revive them – do not always wish to share their knowledge and skills with colonialist cultures, for understandable reasons. Additionally, thinkers from colonised regions often face racialisation and belittling when arriving in different forums and make demands that many people in power may find impossible to listen to. For example, the demands for returning colonised areas to the control of indigenous peoples are politically radical.

Many activist networks, such as Survival International, the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), and the Finnish Siemenpuu, a foundation supporting environmental work in the South, have provided scientific communities with recommendations on how to advance the decolonisation of knowledge. According to the ENAR network, it is important to also recognise colonialist models of thought in the scientific world and environmental activism. One example of such a model is the environmental catchphrase of “saving the world” (or the planet). The narrative of saviourship stems from the times of colonialism when there were attempts to save “savage tribes” from themselves and gather them under the wings of European civilisation. ENAR prefers a story of stewardship in which the attention is drawn to supporting the sustainable activities of existing communities. The message of activists and researchers that belong to indigenous peoples or other traditional communities is often that tried knowledge of sustainable ways of life already exist. It would be important now to take heed of this knowledge.

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