On ecological literacy through implicated participation

Abstract

Philosopher-activist Heather Menzies advocates for an approach to ecological literacy that goes beyond knowing about the interconnected goings on of the world from afar by foregrounding the import of relating with a locale through prolonged periods of implicated participation. Here, we offer further insight to these views across three sections. First, following a brief excursus, we show how Menzies' views of implicated participation focus less on the explication of facts about the world, more as enabling us to be taught by its goings on. It is, in other words, to study with and learn from the beings and things which surround us. Second, we incorporate Menzies' views with the ecological approach to psychology, drawing specifically on the concept of affordance. This helps us take up with the practical challenge of fostering Menzies' views in places tightened by privatisation, commodification and homogenisation: factors over-constraining the ways people can engage with the affordances of a locale. Thus, section three leans on key ideas from Karen Franck and Quentin Stevens to reposition ‘leftover spaces’ as arenas for ecological literacy: thrivingly loose ecologies enriched with affordances determined over varying timescales of implicated participation. To think with these ideas, two cases are presented.