Decentering in research and practice in environmental education Open Access

To decenter the human in research and practice in environmental education (EE) is not a simple task. There is human presence and at the same time, the presence of Nature which is a precarious relationship, and particularly fraught in these times of ecological and social crises. These dilemmas and challenges underpin contemporary “turns” in EE research (EER) and decentering has a “critical” part to play. Drawing from empirical research by both authors, the complex task of decentering is outlined in this collaboration through two different studies but with ontological-epistemological-methodological similarities.

The context to what and why we seek to decenter in our research and practice is outlined briefly. Strands of EE, outdoor education (OE), physical education (PE) and sport involve human–nature and body–environment inter/intra-actions in diverse sociocultural contexts. Problems of anthropocentrism in practice, such as instrumentalized views of body–environment relations, are a stimulus to deconstruct and reconstruct walking/movement experiences in Nature.

The first author’s study of walking with/in Nature includes the question of how Nature ^[1] is positioned, something which got lost in the performative logics of practice in OE. As part of the traditional “schooling” of outdoor experiences in OE in Australia, prioritizing performative conventions of competencies, such as the mastery of skills and physical capabilities within masculinized logics of practice (Lugg, 2018; Newbury, 2003) have been dominant and the subsequent absence of an environmental pedagogy is evident ^[2]. The educational problem being that bushwalking, as it is known in Australia, typically reduces walking to a technical activity that emphasizes competencies and physicality that has instrumentalized Nature merely as a background object (Blades, 2021). In studying the history of how environmental issues were introduced in PE in Brazil, the second author found similar perspectives of a Cartesian-based ontology and epistemology where emphasis is placed on biomechanics, exercise physiology, skill acquisition models and quantifiable performance outcomes and where human movement is conceptualized through mechanistic and instrumental notions of physicality and its pedagogy (Rodrigues, 2018). The unsettled nature of these personal and professional concerns and contradictions were pivotal in the rationale of both authors’ studies.

As this paper’s focus is on decentering the human, the aim and purpose is to demonstrate the methodological opportunities and challenges of accessing ecophenomenologically, the sensory, embodied nature of walking/moving with/in Nature, over various “episodes” of time-space encounters. As such, many of the previously nonrepresentational but practically and materially embodied qualities of walking/moving that, too often, “go missing” or are invisible in EE are made visible. To be clear, this soma (body)-aesthetic way of meaning making with Nature, referred to as ecosomaesthetics (Payne, 2013), is a radical departure from conventional approaches to environmental learning. Hence, the deeper methodological purpose of both studies is to openly address the evasive question of how “best” to access embodied, moving experiences that can provide probable evidential insights into various ecopedagogical encounters. An important intent in the decentered “turn” in EER and EE.

It is evident from this brief backgrounding that critical reconstructions are demanded in EE and EER. In relation to walking/ecomotricity, the social representation of these experiences with/in various geo-cultural/historical scapes of Nature has a decentered priority in EER and EE that is, they aim to depart from, and rupture, the dominance of Global-North narratives of commodified Nature, colonialism and unequal power relations such as patriarchy. For EE purposes, the “de” in decentering can be extended to decenter the masculine, the colonizer, and even, the teacher and be inclusive of the more-than human world.

In this paper, we will present our discussions on three questions posed in the Decentring the Human in Qualitative Research Methodologies Seminar Series, acknowledging from the start that the responses to the three questions do overlap: (Q1) What does decentering the human look like in our research (and practice ^[3])? (Q2) What is decentering the human to you? (Q3) What do you see as the challenges and opportunities that decentering the human in educational research creates (for qualitative research methodologies ^[4])?

In keeping with the descriptive, felt approach in this qualitative research, Vignettes 1 and 2 are brief autoethnographic accounts of how the first and second authors, respectively, were “moved” toward the context of decentering in their research and practice and how they propose to discuss the topic in this paper. After a theoretical overview on critical EER and “decentering” for general context, each author will respond to the question of “what does decentering the human look like in our research (and practice)?” In responding to this question, two cases are presented: Firstly, an autophenomenography of walking with/in Nature; secondly, of movementScapes as ecomotricity (both with a focus on methodological scopes). Our responses to questions 2 and 3 are a recursive movement from the cases of our research to what is decentering and what challenges and opportunities exist.

My love of walking has spanned over thirty years and I have enjoyed bushwalking (as it is known in Australia) for the physical challenges and adventures it offers. This began when I was eighteen years old on an Outward Bound course where my experiences were as a participant and observing the leading of groups for the first time. The nature of my walking in these early years was dominated by “doing” a bushwalk. That is, walking to get to destinations, to climb to the top of a mountain, to navigate in all types of terrain. Becoming an outdoor educator, the “doing” of leadership was forefront, as outwardly directed “hard skills” prioritizing the instrumental demands of outdoor skills such as navigation and safety, in the form of credentialized industry standards ^[5] that influenced curriculum policy and pedagogy. Over time, I became less preoccupied with “doing” and more attuned to “being” in Nature, where I became curious about the nature of my walking as embodied movement with/in Nature.

On reflection, I was moving toward decentering the bushwalking leader/self. During my Master of Arts study in Social Ecology, I adopted the metaphor “a dialogue of foot-to-ground” (Mulligan, 2003, p. 270), paying attention to what my walking body feels and senses. A pivotal experience in this emerging awareness was walking the Lurujarri Dreaming Trail (LDT) ^[6], an Indigenous led walk, along the northwest coast of Western Australia (WA). It follows a Songline ^[7], where the material, the ancient stories and the imagined meet. In this sense, Country ^[8] became the text, not in the sense of a map representing the contours and the vegetation types, but as a map representing intimate knowledge (Arbon and Lowe, 2003). As Indigenous Elder Paddy Roe (now deceased) explained, through walking “we become more alive, we start feeling, we become more sensitive. And that’s the time you start to experience, when the land pulls you and takes over” (Roe and Hoogland, 1999, p. 11). The twin entanglements of movement and being moved (Ingold, 2000) were felt in this reciprocal inter/intra-action. In other words, Nature was at the center, and my experience was akin to being “with” Nature that the second author also reflects upon in Vignette 2.

In this dismantling of my bushwalker/leader self, I acknowledge my white settler colonial position, where being “with” Nature also includes the social, cultural and historical. Not only are dominant constructs of bushwalking decentered, but also in the process of decentering of “whiteness” (Decter, 2022, p. 88), a decolonized (re)construction of walking is demanded thereby unsettling ^[9] the “white privilege” evident in experiential education (Rose and Paisley, 2012). These ethical concerns shifted my attention to encompassing “walking with” (a term I elaborate upon later), and to quote my co-author from the following section, “through which ecopedagogy resonates from ‘learning-with’ (comprising the human and non-human)”. In examining the nature of embodied experiences of walking with/in Nature, the material, historical and structural elements of selected geo-scapes are scoped. In this paper, I will focus on how the methodological scopes of walking with/in Nature are framed within the contexts of decentering.

My very first memories bring back camping trips, forest and mountain trails, waterfalls and wild beaches, mostly in and around São Paulo state, in the Southeast (region) of Brazil. Not many people my age brought up in that region will have similar childhood memories. When I was born, my father was a 17-year-old first-year student in Ecology at a public higher-education institution in São Paulo state, where my mother would also become a student (in Geography) three years later, at age 22. The money that came from waitressing tables at a local bar and sewing wool socks to sell to other students was enough for food and rent and traveling was basically possible by hitch riding and camping in “wild” Nature ^[10] (very little structure, no payment required). Although the family financial situation improved along the years, camping in the outdoors remained to be a favorite pastime all through my childhood and teenage years, including when I started traveling with friends through my college years. Being “in” Nature as a regular experience brought forth familiarity (of the outdoors), (confidence of) security, (environmental) skills and competencies. Being “with” Nature as a regular ludic ^[11] experience with family and friends brought forth affectivity.

It took me a while to understand the difference between the “in” and “with” synergies presented in the last paragraph. Both are experiences of movement but offering very different experiences of Nature. Being “in” Nature is mechanical and instrumental, a material rendezvous ^[12] where interactions happen in a “moving world” ^[13]; Nature is a (background) venue, setting, or resource that is explored or exploited for extractivism, adventure, fun, or learning. Being “with” Nature is reciprocal, dialogical, and (physiologically) consensual ^[14], an aesthetic ^[15] intra-action ^[16] in a “world of movement” ^[17]; Nature is the holistic wholeness of all that is there, and all that is there (human and non-human) exercise agency through their histories of “being”, thus, mutually belong. The ephemeral essence of adventure and fun give way to meaningful ludic experiences through which ecopedagogy resonates from “learning-with” (comprising the human and non-human).

My undergraduate studies in PE led me to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception (1962), and to Manuel Sergio’s Science of Human Motricity (2003), important references to the idea of how movement is key for the way we perceive and signify our world. Going back to the story of the first paragraph, it was a matter of time until I started wondering how movement played a role in signifying nature(s). That led me, in turn, to Ingold’s “phenomenology of the body” (2000, 2011), Brown and Toadvine’s “eco-phenomenology” (2003), Sheets-Johnstone’s “corporeal turn” (2009) and Gallagher’s “intercorporeality” (2016), ^[18], all influential for the conceptualization of “ecomotricity” as the creation of ecological meaning in moving-with Nature, where “ecological” stands for ecosomaesthetic-environmentally ethical-ecopolitical (Rodrigues, 2018, 2019). Ecomotricity has since become not only a key conceptual bearing for my research agenda (first as a PhD student, and currently as a University Professor), but also a methodological and ecopedagogical design for my research projects and teaching practice. This paper will focus on how the methodological scopes of ecomotricity are framed within the contexts of decentering.

To explain and describe what decentering the human means in EE and EER (our focus in this paper), a brief overview is presented of nascent EER which includes gaps and links between “the new dynamics of an ontological-epistemological pluralism (in very different timespace circumstances/contexts, and geo-cultural-South/North)” (Rodrigues et al., 2020, p. 102). To first set the scene, some of the central questions, challenges and possibilities from our (first and second authors) collaborative Vignettes are represented in spiral form as a conceptual Mindmap. The “new theories” mindmap was presented as one of the generative responses/reactions of the special issue “Global politics of knowledge production in EER: ‘New’ theory and North-South representations”, published in 2020 in The Journal of Environmental Education. The aim of the mindmap is acknowledging opportunities, limitations and enduring epistemological and ontological “silences” in EE(R), in so doing, enabling “ecological praxis”.

Of relevance to decentering, and example of possibilities and problems in EER and qualitative inquiry more broadly, is the contemporary “turn” to “relational” ontologies and epistemologies of “post anthropocentricism”. Given the embodied, immanent nature of EE “experience” which has a long history, enduring theory-practice gaps and limits to praxis remain to be key issues (Payne, 2020; Rodrigues, 2020). Other (directly related) problems are (re)vitalized through a “dynamic conservatism” (Guimarães, 2004), where apparent change (mostly in the discourse) shelter structural continuity and include: Theoretical idealisms/abstractionisms (Payne, 2020), ecological injustices (Rodrigues and Lowan-Trudeau, 2021), politics of unsustainability (Bluhdorn, 2011) and limits to change (Fay, 1987).

The categories of “human”, “more-than-human” and “Nature” have been part of perennial ontological/epistemological/methodological debates in EER. Shifting away from dualistic notions of human–nature/environment, the “ontological turn” in qualitative research that asserts “we are part of nature” (James, 2017, p. 40) has received scholarly interest. However, in EER, Payne (2020, p. 119) reminds us that “ecological theory … was a prevailing logic of knowledge interests, and important ‘agential’ and ‘relational’ praxis of those knowledge interests”, spanning decades and across disciplines. However, in “new/post” EER, these examples of ecological praxis often go ignored as highlighted in the “New” theories mindmap (Figure 1).

A question asked by Rodrigues et al. (2020, p. 103) is, will the movement toward decentering in EER lead to “methodological innovations, or stasis”? Within EER and EE, sustainability and its associated forms such as sustainable development, there exists a mash of political agendas that have implications for curriculum design and pedagogy such as greenwashing, rather than fundamental changes in values and structures (Rodrigues, 2018). It is our contention that decentering the human in EER can contribute toward fundamental changes in curriculum design and pedagogy.

Both studies in this paper aim to highlight the embodied, immanent nature of EE “experience” by taking a pragmatic, humanist approach that is phenomenological, as author 2 had cited, Merleau-Ponty’s “phenomenology of perception” (1962) and Ingold’s “phenomenology of the body” (2000, 2011) are influential. In addressing theory-practice gaps in EER, applying ecological thinking to human–nature relationships that are decentered, is an important shift away from various anthropocentric assumptions. This is achieved by “ecophenomenological” (Brown and Toadvine, 2003) framing of both author’s research. This extension of phenomenology is conceptualized by Toadvine (2009, p. 8) as “ecophenomenological” framing of “nature experience” with three interrelated ecophenomenological questions that access the phenomena under inquiry: “what is the nature of experience?”, “what is the experience of nature?”, and “what is their relation?” These questions enable the presence of ecocentric sets of descriptions and interpretations scoped from the bodied flow of movements in time-space with/in Nature (Payne, 2013) whilst walking/moving. To be clear, the prefacing of the “eco” gives methodological emphasis to the term decentering.

Complementing this ecophenomenological approach, additional methodological emphasis is given to social and cultural factors in these decentered studies. James (2017) brings the question of the human condition to the fore in his essay “Alternative Paradigms for Sustainability: Decentring the Human Without Becoming Posthuman.” Posthuman theory has an “assumed status” in EER (Payne, 2020, p. 107), and James’ (2017) “alternative paradigms” for “decentering the human”, offers critique and alternatives that rupture the “assumed status” of posthumanism. The human is decentered “while grounding the interrelated domains of economics, politics, ecology, and culture within the social complexity of the natural” (Payne, 2020, p. 107). In his “circles of life” approach, “nature is basic to everything social” that demonstrates the interconnectedness of social-natural life. In other words, “decentering the human while grounding the social” (James, 2017, p. 41). There are structural dimensions to our ecophenomenological research that elicit the social and cultural layers with/in sampled geo-social/cultural sites.

Limitations are acknowledged from the outset. The limitation of “correspondence” between lived experiences (of walking and motricity) and reductionist texts is a challenge of “non-representation” (Thrift, 2008). A more obvious limitation in the first author’s study is the generalizability of an “auto study” beyond the particulars of non/representation outlined above.

In the second author’s study, pre-determined socially constructed imaginaries (collective representations) of movement and short timeframes and limited experiential immersion to phenomenologically deconstruct those imaginaries (Rodrigues, 2018) are acknowledged limitations.

Ingold and Vergunst (2008, p. 2) combine ethnographic analysis of walking with phenomenology, asserting that “the body itself is grounded in movement” which is reflected in this study. Adopting an autophenomenographic approach, the first-person ethnographic focus is extended “further inward to the phenomenal layers of the researcher’s lived experience” (Allen-Collinson, 2011, p. 53). To enable a decentering of the “self”, additional methodological framings and variations adequate to suspend, or even overcome, the lingering anthropocentrism of conventional accounts of “experiential learning” in EE are required. These included phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty, 1962; van Manen, 2014), autoethnography (Holman Jones et al., 2015; Chang, 2008) and sensory ethnography (Pink, 2012, 2015).

In this (re)construction of walking with/in Nature, two key framings provide indicators of what a decentered approach in this study looks like. Firstly, via ecophenomenology which was explained in the previous section, and secondly, the critical walking methodology of “walking with” (Springgay and Truman, 2018). “Walking with” acts to decenter the sphere of inclusion and access the often “nonrepresentational” and affective/felt/lived “other” (Springgay and Truman). As a critical walking methodology, “with” intercorporeally fleshes out “the ethico-political (in)tensions brought to bear on walking, the grounds where one walks and the concepts, bodies … that are co-composed through walking” (Springgay and Truman, 2022, p. 175). This framing informs the research design and methodology.

An ecophenomenological disaggregation of the research problem of “interpreting and understanding the nature of walking as an embodied practice in various scapes of Nature” into three research questions (RQ’s) was undertaken:

The three RQ’s are interrelated and work in a recursive manner using a reverse logic to deductive inquiry that works from inductive empirical grounds. This three-fold approach aims to decenter the human which is an intellectual move from humanist/anthropocentric centering to ecological/ecocentric centering.

Four data sources are used: My direct experiences, my memory of experiences and my reflections of experiences as well as phenomenological semi-structured interviews. The research design has three steps to collect, analyze and represent data and for the purpose of brevity, is set out in Table 1.

As a descriptive, interpretive study, communicating the data as various styles of narratives aimed to convey, at least partially, my felt, embodied experiences. Due to word limits, samples of these narratives are not included in this paper (Refer to Blades, 2021, 2024 for more detailed accounts). For the purpose of this paper, methodological scopes are included to illustrate what decentering the human looks like in this research.

The methodological scopes of the intercorporeal (Payne, 2013) “field sites” of walking represent my embodied movements and intra/interactive moments with scapes of Nature. The process of “scoping” aims to keep “empirical closeness” by “descriptively revealing the soma-time-space” (Payne, 2013, p. 428) dimensions of my walking experiences. That is, time-space bodily (soma) movements, whilst walking with the aesthetics (living, more-than human) of Nature that demonstrate a decentered approach and limits anthropocentric biases. Understood as somaesthetics (Shusterman, 2008), the emphasis of an ecologically attuned somaesthetics, referred to as “ecosomaesthetics” developed by Payne (2013), is an important “way” and practical means of scoping scapes ^[19]. The scapes sampled in this study include: (RQ1) mountainScape (located in northeastern Victoria, Australia); (RQ2) localScapes (located in northern Victoria, Australia); (RQ3) coastalScape (located in northwestern Western Australia).

Empirical scoping of material, aesthetic and embodied dimensions were inductively identified and abductively (re)assembled as descriptive interpretations of an ecopedagoy of walking with/in scapes of Nature (Blades, 2024). In the context of decentering, the structure of this study is inclusive of social, geo-cultural-historical aspects located in the sampled scapes. These are scoped as “relational scales” of micro (body), meso (geo-cultural) and macro (global, cosmos). The investigative focus of the three RQ’s is summarized as: RQ1, The nature of walking; RQ2, Embodied knowing whilst walking with/in Nature; and RQ3, Relationships constructed whilst walking with/in/of Nature(s). Van Manen’s (2014) existential themes of spatiality, temporality, intercorporeality and relationality aid in organizing the synthesis of scoping the sensory, embodied data. For the purposes of brevity, the interpretative data and findings of the three RQ’s are summarized in Table 2.

These scopings reveal fluctuations of my decentered walking self across different time-space settings, ecological affordances and repeat episodes as co-constructive processes, where walking is an ecopedagogical experience, learning with/in/of Nature. In decentering the human/self, the possible and probable ecopedagogical indicators of walking bring Nature to the center. For example, the pace of walking can be an interaction with natural rhythms of the seasons and by environmental affordances such as the tide. Different styles of walking bring attention to the reciprocity of movement and being moved such as “wayfaring”. Ingold (2011, p. 126) explains how a wayfarer “negotiates or improvises a passage” and “come to know as they go along.” I deliberately engaged with wayfaring in the localScapes sampled in RQ2. For example, using the sun positioned on my back ^[20], to negotiate a passage across graniteScapes.

Varied scapes afford convergent and discordant affects as/in geo–historical/cultural presences and absences. Consistent throughout at a micro level is the coupling of bodily (soma) and ecological (aesthetic) impulses activated/engaged/learnt with whilst walking, in other words, ecosomaesthetics, which decenters the human/self.

The concept of ecomotricity evolves (as in adaptation to the “environmental” changes of the academic “nature”) from the concept of “motricity” derived from Manuel Sergio’s Science of Human Motricity, which (put simply) describes how human beings create meanings as they move with the world ^[21]. Inspired mainly by Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception, human motricity speaks to a world that is built through perception, which, in turn, is built through our interactions with the surrounding environment. So, the way we move and interact with the environment will define how we perceive the world. And here it is important to understand that our perception of the world is what we call our world. There is no error in this construction, in the way Descartes would have judged. In the concept of motricity, the body is the only way to have a world, as it is through the holistic moving body (as in no distinction between “body” – res extensa, and “mind” – res cogitans) that we build our world.

Ecomotricity is based on the above concept of motricity, but it more specifically describes the ways ecological meanings are created through body-environment intra-actions. Again, different ways of moving-with-the-environment generate different aesthetic-ethical-political perceptions of Nature. For example, a trail in the forest will be a very different experience of Nature to a tracker, to a runner, to a cyclist, to a tourist, to a local, to a scientist, to a hunter, to an Indigenous native to the land, etc. Ecomotricity describes where and how ecological meanings emerge in each of these different interactions.

In practice, the methodological structure of ecomotricity is ethnographic and ecophenomenological. The participants of the research are people with regular experiences with/in Nature, meaning a set number of years of engagement and a minimum monthly frequency (all previously defined in accordance with the aims and scope of each ecomotricity research project). The participants actively participate in the eight different steps of data collection proposed in the ecomotricity methodological framework, briefly described below ^[22]:

• (1)

  Interview: In general, the interview questions are designed to explore perceptions regarding three main research interests related to experiences involving ecomotricity: The (aesthetic) construction of the experience with/in Nature; possible links between this experience and (the participant’s) daily life; the general personal profile of the research participant.

Data collection method: The interviews are recorded on video (with consent) and later transcribed into text.

Data collection instrument: Structured interview script with the following general questions (which can be modified accordingly with the aims and scope of each ecomotricity research project):

Questions:

• 1.

  Talk about (participant’s regular experience with/in Nature).

• 2.

  What is your relationship with (participant’s regular experience with/in Nature)?

• 3.

  Do you observe other people engaging with (participant’s regular experience with/in Nature) ^[23] in a different way from how you described your own relationship?

• 4.

  Share a story from your experiences … that was particularly meaningful to you.

• 5.

  Describe a dream you have related to [your regular experience].

• 6.

  What aspects of your daily life do you bring into (participant’s regular experience with/in Nature)?

• 7.

  What do you take from [your regular experience] into your daily life?

• 8.

  There are many options for engaging in outdoor activities. Why did you choose [this regular experience]?

• 9.

  Take a few seconds and reflect on how you feel … [Pause for reflection]. Now, try to put that feeling into words.

• 10.

  What does [your regular experience] mean to you?

Validation of results: The validation of the interview will be conducted through the second data collection method.

• (2)

  Discussion of interview responses with the research participant: Researchers will watch the interview video with the participant (either immediately after the interview or at a later time) and discuss responses. The dialogue includes: Anything the participant wants to add or remove from the interview; any doubts the researcher has about a response or that the participant has about a question; anything the participant wants to share that was not covered in the interview.

Data collection method: The researcher will take notes of the discussion in a field journal, sometimes just using keywords. The researcher should expand these brief notes into a detailed field journal entry as soon as possible after the data collection.

Data collection instruments: Video player and notebook and pen for the field journal.

Validation of results: After the final version of the field journal is written, the material is sent to the participant for potential revisions and edits.

• (3)

  Auto-narrative description of the participant: The participant is asked to elaborate an auto-narrative description of himself, guided by the question: “Who is (participant’s name)?” Multiple narrative formats can be used, including free-written text, poetry, drawings, photographs, videos or any other form of expression the participant deems suitable.

Data collection method/instrument and validation of results: Auto-narrative, written by the participant (auto-validated).

• (4)

  Narrative description of the participant by others: The participant will be asked to provide the names of three individuals that are affectively close to him/her (friends or family members) and with whom he/she frequently interacts. The researcher will contact these individuals and request a written description of the participant, guided by the question: “Who is (participant’s name)?”

Data collection method: Descriptions should be written and sent directly to the researcher, either remotely (via E-mail) or in person.

Data collection instrument: Paper and pen, if conducted in person. Phone or computer, if conducted remotely.

Validation of results: Narrative written by the research participant (auto-validated).

• (5)

  Analysis of participant’s social media profiles: Participants analyze their own social media accounts (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, X, etc.) examining timelines (participant’s own posts and shared posts) and photos (posted by the participant).

Data collection method/instrument: The participant constructs a table to organize his/her photos and posts in categories of her/his own choosing (e.g. friends and family, travel, work, fun, art, politics, etc.). Based on this table, researcher and participant dialogue to answer the following question: What image does the participant aim to construct of her/himself on social media?

Validation of results: The results will be constructed collaboratively with the participants.

• (6)

  Participant’s narratives about their experiences with/in Nature: The participant is asked to describe their (regular) experiences with/in Nature through free narratives. Multiple narrative formats can be used, including free-written text, poetry, drawings, photographs, videos or any other form of expression the participant deems suitable.

Data collection method/instrument and validation of results: Narrative created by the participant (auto-validated).

• (7)

  Moving/sensory ethnographies: Direct observations during experiences with/in Nature accompanied by the research participant.

Data collection method: The researcher will make notes during the experience, later to be enhanced as descriptive narratives of the experience using free expression (written text, poetry, drawings, photographs, videos or any other form of expression the researcher deems suitable).

Data collection instrument: Notebook and pen or digital instruments for taking field notes.

Validation of results: Self-narrative (auto-validated).

• (8)

  Glossary of expressions: A collaborative glossary with verbal expressions that are used in the specific contexts of the participant’s regular Nature experience.

Data collection method: During the whole course of the field research, every time a word is used to specifically address a particularity of the participant’s regular Nature experience, that word is written down in the glossary, followed by a conceptualization offered by the participant.

Data collection instrument: Notebook and pen or digital instruments for taking field notes.

Validation of results: The glossary is elaborated collaboratively between the researcher and the research participant (auto-validated).

The dynamic set that composes this ethnographic/ecophenomenological methodological framework allows participants to regularly reflect upon their own experiences with/in Nature. Aesthetic-ethical-political aspects of the experience are unveiled as the participant contrasts the diversified expressions of the experience: The constructs portrayed in the initial interview; the narratives about themselves and about their experiences with/in Nature (often using diversified expression formats); built(in) imaginaries in their social media profiles; descriptions from others (friends, family, and the researcher); the particular “linguistics” of the experience revealed by the glossary. Within this “slow” and immersive praxis of moving-with the research (agenda), the research itself “embodies” an ecopedagogical inclination. The (eco)phenomenological “memorying” of the experience in suspension is constantly confronted by the multiple (possible) intentionalities of “being” with/in nature: Pleasure, joy/happiness, health, quality of life, performance, spiritual enlightening, etc.

Be it through research or teaching ^[24], the focus of ecomotricity is on deconstructing, challenging preconceived and embodied (naturalized) imaginaries of “Nature”, of “environment”, of “conservation”, of “sustainability”, of “development”, etc. While challenging our preconceived imaginaries we tend to also question where these imaginaries came from, in what ways they might be possibly related to family cultures, to local-regional-national cultures and to anything else that might influence our “readings of the world” (Freire, 1995/2013). Putting in evidence the dynamic (corporeal) processes in which we aesthetically-ethically-politically embody the meanings that compose our world can have two important generative consequences: (1) Opening up possibilities to (re)constructing our (pre)conceived imaginaries considering different perspectives, including non-human perspectives and more-than-human processes; and (2) having conceptualization, contextualization, representation and legitimation working together (see Payne, 2009) toward meaningful knowledge construction and political action. Importantly, all of the above depend on adequate socioenvironmental conditions, acknowledging among these conditions the limits highlighted in the “Framing critical EER” section of this paper.

As our final considerations, we present a synthesis of challenges and opportunities of decentering the human in educational research and for qualitative research methodologies that can be drawn bringing together the two cases presented in the previous section, as well as from the theoretical framework presented throughout the paper. In discussing these considerations, we highlight that, although not conducive to generalization, they are possibly transferrable, as long as geo-epistemologies and particular geo-cultural/historical contexts are respected.

Among the opportunities that come with decentering, we will highlight two.

Firstly, clearly and explicitly acknowledging “What is in it for Nature” ^[25] in EE research and practice, instead of the more common conception and practice of proposals that are environmental in theory (using the environmental discourse as a tool of legitimation), but that are really anthropocentric in nature. What this paper has demonstrated is that decentring challenges us to phenomenologically deconstruct (and possibly reconstruct) concepts and ideas that were most likely preconceived (and, with time, “naturalized”/embodied [in-bodied]) through an anthropocentric lens, such as what it means to learn, to think, to feel, to love. The idea that animals and plants are capable of those things, for example, is particularly hard for us, because we conceptualize those things as “human” things, signified by the way that we “do” those things. When we are open to the idea that there are other ways to learn, to think, to feel and to love, this creates a whole new dimension of possibilities in human–Nature relations. By challenging anthropocentrism, and, in doing so, in many ways also challenging colonialism, capitalism, the patriarchy, decentering can be generative for ecopedagogical praxis, including in qualitative research methodologies. Secondly, decentering can displace enduring theory-practice gaps/limits to praxis. In particular: Theoretical idealisms/abstractionism; ecological injustices; politics of unsustainability and limits to change.

Of the challenges for decentering, mostly those that are already well known in education, two acknowledgeable challenges are highlighted. Firstly, overcoming the limits to change, as described by the American philosopher Brian Fay (1987). Acknowledging that change is ontologically difficult, as changing means much more than challenging what or how we think about something. It means changing who we are. So challenging anthropocentric ways of being that have been the basis of our modern existence for so long is not an easy task. So, it is important to understand that much of the work is about deconstructing and then thinking about the possibility of “what’s next”.

Secondly, rowing against the stream of other environmental currents that are much more easily available as discourses, such as sustainability or sustainable development, that are powered by influential institutions such as the UN and the private sector. We need to acknowledge the importance of these discourses in advancing the environmental cause, of course, but we need to also understand what they lack in ecopedagogy, and the unsustainable structures they help to perpetuate (as well highlighted in the works of Ingolf Bluhdorn, Greg Misziazeck, Helen Kopnina, Arjen Wells, just to cite a few).

Going back to the compelling and challenging questions discussed in this paper: What is decentering the human to you? What does decentering the human look like in our research (and practice)? What do you see as the challenges and opportunities that decentering the human in educational research creates? Attempting to answer these questions is, in itself, an exercise of/in decentering that we recommend, especially, to fellow (environmental) researchers and teachers/educators. In working with these questions, we have been given the opportunity to clearly state how walking/ecomotricity as ecological praxis has decentering at its core, bringing nature to the center, fulfilling our responsibility, as ecopedagogues, to do this in the interest of environmental ethics and justice. Paying careful “attention” to the axiological preferences, as demonstrated in the presented research cases, are at the foundation of ecosomaesthetic-environmentally ethical-ecopolitical ecologies of praxis. There is no final destination, it is a process of unfolding, a practice to be repeated again and again.