TEACHING ECOLOGY BEYOND ECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS: CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE MULTISPECIES PERSPECTIVE TO THINKING ABOUT LIFE IN RELATION

Abstract

This theoretical essay discusses contributions of the multispecies perspective to Ecology Education, starting from a specific problem: if Ecology is already a science of relations, what can a multispecies approach add to the way such relations are understood in teaching? The argument brings studies on systems thinking, ecological processes and Ecology Education into dialogue with multispecies scholarship, especially Donna Haraway and Anna Tsing. We argue that the multispecies contribution does not consist in stating that living beings are connected or interdependent — dimensions already central to ecological knowledge — but in allowing relations to be examined also as constitutive dimensions of modes of life. For analytical purposes, three coexisting registers of questions are distinguished: ecological interaction, systemic interdependence and relational constitution. Educationally, this approach is not presented as a new teaching method, but as a way of broadening the repertoire of questions through which ecological phenomena become intelligible. We conclude that dialogue with multispecies perspectives may contribute to Ecology Education that, without abandoning concepts, mechanisms and systems, also examines how different forms of life are constituted through relational histories.