Mobilising Critical Community-Based Outdoor Science and Environmental Education
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Date
2025
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Springer Science and Business Media B.V.
Abstract
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.Chile is exposed to a range of climate-related risks, such as extreme droughts, water scarcity, forest fires, floods, and glacial retreat, which underscore the region’s vulnerability as identified by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In response to these urgent environmental challenges, this chapter presents a community-based outdoor education project aimed at fostering awareness, empathy, and activism around ecojustice issues. Co-designed by researchers, park rangers, and both pre- and in-service teachers from a Chilean university, the project seeks to build new networks that address socio-environmental conflicts within an ecojustice framework. This chapter addresses the following research question: To what extent might community-based outdoor education promote increased development of pro-ecojustice dispositifs? In its initial phase, the project developed a map and atlas documenting socio-environmental conflicts across Chile, laying the groundwork for a community-based outdoor science activity conducted in a national reserve. By adopting a qualitative, participatory research approach, this study examines the potential of outdoor education to foster ecojustice by framing socio-environmental conflicts as interconnected networks involving human, nonhuman, and symbolic actors, using the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The findings highlight ANT’s utility as a critical framework for engaging communities in ecojustice issues, especially during the problematisation phase. This approach shows promise in challenging anthropocentrism and resisting the neoliberal commodification of nature, while supporting sustainable water management in Santiago and potentially beyond. The ongoing project offers a valuable contribution to expanding ecojustice networks and exploring alternative approaches to environmental education in contexts facing escalating climate risks and extractivism.
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Keywords
Actor network theory, Community-based participatory research, Dispositifs., Eco-justice, Outdoor science