human privilege
By producing and maintaining humans as the seldom acknowledged and
"unmarked norm" against which all Others are measured (Fawcett,
2000; Kirby, 1994),
humans, like white men, and perhaps, to although often to a lesser degree, white women, have come to enjoy immense privilege at the
expense of non-human, and non-white Others.
What investments would we have to give up
if we acknowledged the (potential) role of animate Earth in human knowledge-making?
What subjectivities/identities would we have to fully allow and acknowledge? What kind of knowledge and knowledge-making processes would I have to accept?
I look forward to the day when anti-anthropocentric
theorizing and teaching occurs with the frequency and sense of
common-placeness that has become the case for anti-racist and anti-homophobic discussions in many faculties of education. It might just make more room not only for non-human Others, but also for other marginalized peoples as well – particularly those who engage with or live through an animist epistemology.
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