Page 25 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

xxiv Prologue

place-based education and indigenous knowledge provide complexity and clarity
for ecojustice theory. Educating for ecojustice is a way of learning about how we
frame the world around us and why that matters. Ecojustice comprises anthropo-
logical and sociological understandings of cultural groups (Bateson 1972). It also
concomitantly comprises many millennia of traditional knowledges which concur-
rently developed with ecology. In this sense, the ecological sciences draw on a
resource of collective ways of knowing about how to mediate worldviews that have
adverse influences and impacts. At the beginning of the book we are met with the
poetry of Arthur Stewart. In his writing about “ecologists,” he notes:
We studied sand-dunes and the tendency of fish to move

with flow, the population dynamics of goldenrod,
teasel, lupine, geckos, whip-tail lizards,
scissors-tail flycatchers, foxes,
those capable
and incapable of flying,
indeed an entire suite
of wet, dry and wiggly things.
Now suddenly it seems
each day the sun rises a bleary slab
of orange or pick under a smear of clouds. I think
yes, we really should give homage.
to Santa Rosalia: we really should
bow and give thanks
to Our Sacred Sister, the long-haired
Sweet Lady of Perpetual Notion (2003, p. 83).

Stewart illuminates what it takes to protect and conserve the Earth and pays
homage to the responsibility and humility of communion. He describes this wise
idea as Perpetual Notion.
Perpetual Notion also affects participatory democracy. Joshua Blu Buhs (2009)
brilliantly writes about the impossibility of separating ecology from democracy by
using an example of environmental history of eradicating Fire Ants:
The job of the scientist was not to battle nature, but to elucidate natural processes and find
ways to accommodate human life to the rhythms of nature. This view of the relationship
between science and nature was seen to serve democracy in several different ways. Some
saw the protection of nature as the promotion of spiritual values above economic ones, and
thus a means for creating a better citizenry. Some felt that wildlife was one of the nation’s
most important natural resources and thus its conservation was a way of maintaining the
country’s strength. Others felt that living in accord with nature proved the vitality of demo-
cratic institutions. If insecticides, say, were used without regulation, killing wildlife, that
meant that agricultural agencies had gained too much power and warped the political pro-
cess, silencing those who voiced a concern for wildlife. A rich, varied natural world was
evidence of a strong democracy, in which policies were set to appease competing factions.
The USDA’s favoring of agriculture over wildlife in the fire ant wars represented a threat
to American democracy. (p. 354)