Sustainability, education, and anthropocentric precarity

Abstract

The Anthropocene presents a radical intersection of human history and geological time. At a unique time on the 350 million year geological time-scale of the planet since the last major extinction event where humans have become a significant geophysical force. The Anthropocene, and its impending human impact that leaves the planet in a state of precarity, is a central focus for this assemblage of papers that explore the role of researching in sustainability and education at this time. Authors have utilised the practices of responding, re-configuring, re-reading, and re-presenting in order to consider the story of humanity and its entanglement with the more-than-human world. Throughout the collection, authors are provoked to grapple with their own past ways of thinking, and being in their research, and are invited to engage with a number of theoretical approaches. This chapter outlines the conceptual framework of the book and introduces each of the authors and their contribution.