Ecological Reflection on Education in the Anthropocene: Focusing on Bruno Latour’s Critique of Modernity and Political Ecology

Abstract

The Anthropocene, first proposed by Crutzen and Stoermer in 2000, has been actually felt as a concrete reality over the past 20 years. Global impacts of human activities, which have significantly increased since the Industrial Revolution, have led to a serious ecological crisis, and aroused critical reflections on modernity based on anthropocentricism. This study focuses on the critique of modernity and political ecology by Bruno Latour (1947―2022), for the purpose of establishing reflective points and theoretical foundations on education to proceed toward a path for ecologization in times of crisis. His political ecology begins with a critique of modern dualism and purification, which has separated nature from human society and culture. He focuses on the interdependence and network of inhabitants, living within the system of engenderment of the Earth, which is called “Gaia,” emphasizing the agency of non-humans and the symmetrical relationship between humans and non-humans. He also explores the possibilities of solidarity of a new ecological class in the direction of ecologization, concerning the habitability of vulnerable beings. Through an analysis of his critique of modernity and political ecology, this study suggests alternative points of education in Korean society from modern self-reliance to the relational ethics of interdependence and from economic values to ecological values. It then proposes educational transformation to seek ecological citizenship and expanded democracy, which concern the habitability of vulnerable beings and represent their ontology.