Environmental Humanities - An ENGAGE-ing Pedagogy and Praxis

Abstract

Environmental Humanities (EH) is an emerging domain, with humanities taking the forefront in critically exploring nature-culture interactions, and making us cognizant of what is not natural in nature. Drawing insights from (and beyond) political ecology, EH enables us to perspectivize and interpret the world from a more-than-human perspective towards “multispecies flourishing,” and takes a transdisciplinary approach to not only understanding the world but also transforming it. This write-up provides an overview of environmental humanities as a dynamic domain, and an ever-expanding and enriching frame of mind and movement, a conviction to collectively see and comprehensively understand complex and coupled socio-ecological systems within the contemporary context of the global environmental change. Using examples from three empirical case studies – as part of three international projects (being) executed by the interdisciplinary team pursuing EH at IIT Kharagpur, this article makes the audience enter into the exciting world of EH where findings are generated and actions are enacted along application of wide range of multi-modal approaches and their intersections – from arts-based pedagogies and ethno-visual immersions to participatory mapping and multi-stakeholders’ plurilogues and exchanges. The article demonstrates why and how EH is an engaging pedagogy and praxis through which possibilities of a just and desirable Anthropocene can be crafted.