Aesthetic knowing and ecology: cultivating perception and participation during the ecological crisis

Abstract

This paper develops the concept of aesthetic knowing, its significance in perceiving and participating in ecologies writ large, and challenges that arise in engaging it during a time of ecological crises. I define aesthetic knowing as perception of the quality of relationship, and suggest it offers insight into how ecologies are intra- and/or inter-connected. Aesthetic knowing is the epistemological basis of a relational empiricism, a philosophical position which foregrounds the capacity to receive and respond to otherness, and I claim it offers an antidote to the isolating overreach of some theorising prevalent in environmental education (EE). My main purpose is to clarify the scope and nature of the relationship between aesthetic knowing and ecologies, so to offer methodological and theoretical context for educators and education researchers seeking to attend to healthy and threatened ecologies. Cultivating aesthetic knowing is necessary for responsive participation with/in any ecology, but can be emotionally difficult. As ecological destruction escalates, sustaining aesthetic knowing demands perception of, and participation with fear, while working with fear in turn requires aesthetic openness. I discuss approaches to cultivating aesthetic openness given this apparently wicked recursion.