Alison Happel-Parkins

(Un)Learning Anthropocentrism: An EcoJustice Framework for Teaching to Resist Human-Supremacy in Schools

In the Living Planet Report 2014 by the WWF (formally known as the World Wildlife Fund), researchers introduce a new index that considers “10,380 populations of 3,038 species of mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian and fish from around the globe” (p. 136). This report indicates that since 1970 the planet has experienced a 52% loss in species (WWF, 2014). Further, this index states that the world’s freshwater species have dropped by 76% in that same time span. These statistics come to us amid an ongoing debate among scientists as to whether the designation of our current time period, the Holocene (meaning entirely recent), is outdated, and whether Anthropocene (combining human with the new) might be a more accurate identifier. Despite the continued contestations, scientists agree that “human-kind has caused mass extinctions of plant and animal species, polluted the oceans and altered the atmosphere, among other lasting impacts” (Stromberg, 2013, para. 3).

Using Popular Culture Texts in the Classroom to Interrogate Issues of Gender Transgression Related Bullying

This article examines how undergraduate instructors of pre-service educators can address complex issues of sexuality and sexual orientation within the classroom. First, we explain our own backgrounds and positionalities to provide a context for our ensuing ideas and discussions. Second, by reviewing the literature on homophobic bullying, we outline why it is imperative that preservice teachers understand and mobilize around issues of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex rights. Third, we offer suggestions as to how to relate to undergraduate students when talking about sexuality and sexual orientation. We propose that using popular culture is an effective and engaging way of connecting to preservice teachers who have not previously had to confront their own homophobia and heterosexism. We suggest that using popular films or TV shows, such as Ugly Betty, has the potential to open up space for dialogue and critical engagement with issues such as explicit or implicit homophobia. We believe that critical media literacy skills are necessary tools for young people who are constantly bombarded with oftentimes stereotypical images and personifications of GLBTQI people within the mainstream media. Consequently, although we propose that popular culture be used as an educative space within the undergraduate classroom, it must be used both carefully and critically. Finally, we discuss why it is imperative that undergraduate professors address these issues within the classroom by referencing recent tragedies that are directly connected to homophobic bullying.

“Would You Wear That to Church?!”: The Production of “Ladies” in an All Girls’ After-School Club in the Southeast United States

This study investigated how Black middle school girls negotiated an after-school club, with a specific focus on ways of knowing and acting as “ladies.” Drawing from Fordham’s intersectional analyse...

Ecocritical contestations with neoliberalism: Teaching to (un)learn “normalcy”

This article seeks to address often overlooked cultural assumptions embedded within neoliberalism; specifically, the researchers explore what ecofeminist Val Plumwood describes as centric thinking, leading to a logic of domination. The authors argue that social justice educators and activists who are committed to critiquing neoliberalism must take into consideration the ways in which a logic of domination undergirds the unjust and destructive social and economic ideologies and policies that constitute neoliberalism. The authors examine and share pedagogical moments from experiences in teacher education seeking to: (a) challenge and disrupt dualistic thinking; (b) interrupt perceptions of hegemonic normalcy—referring to a socio-cultural process by which actions, behaviors, and diverse ways of interpreting the world are perceived by dominant society as “fitting in” and being socially acceptable; and, (c) contest false notions of independence—the degree to which an individual is perceived as able to meet their social and economic responsibilities on their own—as measures of success in schools and society. The authors detail how they work with(in) teacher education programs to introduce how an ecocritical approach, drawing from ecofeminist frameworks, identifies and examines the impacts of neoliberal policies and practices dominated by “free” market ideology. The authors assert that educators, especially teacher educators, can challenge harmful discourses that support the problematic neoliberal understandings about independence that inform Western cultural norms and assumptions. Concluding, the authors share a conceptualization for (un)learning the exploitation inextricable from the policies and practices of neoliberalism.

Food for a Common(s) Curriculum: Learning to Recognize and Resist Food Enclosures

In this chapter we discuss a case study from Detroit, Michigan, that highlights what educators can learn from community efforts to address food insecurity. Advocating that educators and policy makers rethink how they recognize and come to understand food enclosures—socio-political and economic arrangements that limit access to the production, preparation, and consumption of local, healthy, and culturally relevant food—the chapter emphasizes the importance of working together to learn from and with food movements.

Thinking Birth Differently: Three Theoretical Explorations of Natural Childbirth Stories

This feminist narrative inquiry discusses the experiences of two women in a metropolitan city in the Midsouth of the United States who each intended to have a drug- and intervention-free childbirth for the birth of their first child. This data came from a larger study that included narratives from six participants. Using Alecia Y. Jackson and Lisa A. Mazzei9s concept of “plugging in,” we read and analyzed the data through three feminist theorists: Sara Ahmed, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Susan Bordo. This allowed us to push the limits of intelligibility of women and their narratives, challenging the dominant, medicalized discourses prevalent in the current cultural context of the United States.

Methodological Drag Subversive Performances of Qualitative Methodologist and Pedagogical Practices

The authors, the only two qualitative research specialists in their college of education, discuss and analyze their performances in methodological drag. Drawing on Butler’s concepts of performativity and performance, methodological drag is a performance in which qualitative methodologists convincingly masquerade as situated within epistemological, theoretical, and methodological frameworks, even those that they may not situate themselves in personally or professionally. Depending on a particular power/discourse network and setting, methodologists perform the subject position differently. In this way, methodological drag as pedagogical performance becomes a strategy in which methodologists make themselves intelligible to themselves and others in various settings (e.g., teaching qualitative research classes, mentoring students, interacting with other faculty in committee meetings, and conducting their own research). In so doing, methodological drag enacts a strategic counter discourse to a stable conception of methodologist and, by extension, qualitative research pedagogy.

Performances of Pronouns: Using Feminist Post-structuralism to Explore the Social Construction of Gender

This chapter explores how feminist poststructuralism can be used in the higher education classroom to facilitate critical and deconstructive conversations about sex and gender. First, I describe a number of important poststructural concepts that are used to deconstruct sex and gender. Next, I explain how, in my classes, I use each concept to disrupt essentialized and commonsensical understandings of sex and gender. I conclude with an exploration of how Judith Butler’s work, particularly her conceptualizations of gender performance, can be used in higher education classrooms to open up spaces of possibility and resistance.