Cae Rodrigues

MovementScapes as ecomotricity in ecopedagogy

ABSTRACT This elaboration of an ecopedagogy in movementscapes aims to present an empirically informed account of the concept of ecomotricity as manifested in the living body interacting in/with nature (human-and-other-than-human). This interaction is ludic (where pleasure or joy/happiness gives meaning to the lived experience) and ecological (ecosomaesthetic-environmentally ethical-ecopolitical) and provides for revitalized and animated ecopedagogical practices (and research). Critical examples and insights are presented as praxical evidence of how the ecophenomenological and ludic essence of ecomotricity challenges individuals in particular movementscapes to question their ways of being-in-the-world as a form of ecobecoming potentiality. This step towards the (de)(re)construction of environmentally oriented outdoor experiential learning in moving body-time-space relationalities is, potentially, significant to overcoming some of the ontological limits to rational change too often uncritically presumed pedagogically regarding human-nature relations.

Environmentalization of the physical education curriculum in Brazilian universities: culturally comparative lessons from critical outdoor education in Australia

‘Environmentalizing’ curriculum in Brazil is a worthy goal of global educational reform for sustainability but is challenging given the limits to rational change thesis already argued in critical social science and post-structural deconstructionism. The federal government mandate to environmentalize undergraduate physical education programs poses the question of which aspects of physical education are conducive to change. ‘Nature’ sports, or outdoor/adventure activity education, is the most likely candidate. In Australia over the past three decades, the environmentalization of ‘old’ physical education outdoor activities has led to the development of ‘new’ discourse practices that integrate environmental studies and outdoor education and are designed for ecological responsibility and social sustainability. In this culturally comparative light about the possibilities for curriculum change in environmental, outdoor and physical education, we examine the potential for change in Brazilian approaches to physical and sport education by critiquing broader ‘environmentalizing’ issues as they have occurred historically within the Australian outdoor education context in the university and secondary schooling sectors.