Although humanity appears to have much to celebrate about fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), wellbeing of many (a)biotic systems appear under severe and frequently-increasing threats linked to them. Rather than blaming STEM fields, however, much scholarship suggests that significant culpability must be borne by ‘pro-capitalist dispositifs’; that is, networks of myriad living, nonliving and symbolic entities (‘actants’) that, like parts of a machine, collaborate to promote capitalist goals. Given persistent problems—like the climate emergency—associated with such apparently ‘hegemonic’ networks, those supporting increases in social justice and environmental vitality (‘ecojustice’) must work to either revise or replace pro-capitalist dispositifs with those largely supporting ‘ecojustice’ (acknowledging variants that typically arise in democratic decision-making). In this introductory chapter, after elaboration of points like those above, I describe contributions to this project of members of my research and publication teams, many of whom have been using STEPWISE-informed pedagogies for action research in several different educational contexts since 2012. Colleagues from different geopolitical contexts also describe and defend their particular pedagogical approaches to, like STEPWISE, educate students about possibly problematic relationships among STEM fields and powerful societal members and environments and prepare them to effectively address their concerns regarding such relationships. Along with a review of chapters here by Jesse Bazzul in the book’s Afterword, readers may use many and varied aspects of contributions here to develop programmes that may revise STEM education in their contexts, and perhaps societies more broadly, to increase local/global ‘ecojustice.’

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Growing Material-Semiotic Alliances Countering Pro-capitalist ‘Machines’

  • John Lawrence Bencze

摘要

Although humanity appears to have much to celebrate about fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), wellbeing of many (a)biotic systems appear under severe and frequently-increasing threats linked to them. Rather than blaming STEM fields, however, much scholarship suggests that significant culpability must be borne by ‘pro-capitalist dispositifs’; that is, networks of myriad living, nonliving and symbolic entities (‘actants’) that, like parts of a machine, collaborate to promote capitalist goals. Given persistent problems—like the climate emergency—associated with such apparently ‘hegemonic’ networks, those supporting increases in social justice and environmental vitality (‘ecojustice’) must work to either revise or replace pro-capitalist dispositifs with those largely supporting ‘ecojustice’ (acknowledging variants that typically arise in democratic decision-making). In this introductory chapter, after elaboration of points like those above, I describe contributions to this project of members of my research and publication teams, many of whom have been using STEPWISE-informed pedagogies for action research in several different educational contexts since 2012. Colleagues from different geopolitical contexts also describe and defend their particular pedagogical approaches to, like STEPWISE, educate students about possibly problematic relationships among STEM fields and powerful societal members and environments and prepare them to effectively address their concerns regarding such relationships. Along with a review of chapters here by Jesse Bazzul in the book’s Afterword, readers may use many and varied aspects of contributions here to develop programmes that may revise STEM education in their contexts, and perhaps societies more broadly, to increase local/global ‘ecojustice.’