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| In addition to natural hazard vulnerability, the lack of access to basic infrastructure and financial services imposes restricted production and consumption conditions for this population, as well as limits technological innovations that for some privileged experts, would be promising for reducing our environmental degradation [2]. Hence, when thinking along the United Nation’s promise of “leaving no one behind” for a sustainable future, one must think – What is really possible in marginalized, peripheral, poor contexts?
In my diverse experiences in social projects in Brazil, I came to face situations where from the lack of options, these populations have been actively resisting their existence through informal and creative ways of production, consumption and education. Ways that have been excluded from the respect of government officials and policymakers, but that we can learn from to ressignify our modus operandis that have overpassed the bearable impact on the planet.
I bring to the discussion the practice of mutirão, a word with indigenous roots from Tupi-Guarani mutyrõ (within many other variations), freely translated to English as “common work”. The practice, with debated origin [3], has been present in diverse cultural contexts and geographical regions, suggesting a common intrinsic human trace of solidarity [3], but that aggregates different layers of political and social challenges. Deteriorated by the growing individualization of work configuration, some practices of mutual help survive their remote past’s heritage [3], yet incorporating new complexities of contemporary urban configuration.
In Brazilian cities, despite the legal effort to make cities accessible [4], these challenges include housing deficit, lack of basic services such as sanitation and electricity, and restricted land access [5]. In the overall neglect of this urban ill by some government officials, it creates a condition that obliges people to find informal ways of occupying the city – usually in configurations such as favelas, and ocupações. In these scenarios of poor infrastructure assistance, climate vulnerability is enhanced, being common phenomena of landslides, extreme rainfall and floods that cause significant dwelling damage and human loss. Yet invisibilized by officials, the segregated people find political and social strength by unification of their voices, knowledge and workforce abilities in a territory that is not assisted by formal governance. They collectively construct housing, infrastructure, and collective spaces in labor that are generally non-remunerated, non-hierarchical, and do not aim for a financial profit. Therefore, the mutirão incorporates a political view of anti-hegemonic activity that is contrary to capitalist work relations [6].
To bring this into practical terms, I share a practice of an informal occupation located in Santa Maria, a city in south of Brazil, that is in a current legislative process for the State to formally allow 53 families to live where they have been for the past seven years – “Vila Resistência” – in direct translation – “Villa of Resistance”. The name coherently suggests their will of power, as 15 of the pioneer families came from a situation of eviction from a past land they occupied, and in the current site, they have already been through at least three direct threats of removal [7]. The disputatious situation introduces other various conflicts these organizations encounter, and their need to urgently resist to be able to live.
In addition to natural hazard vulnerability, the lack of access to basic infrastructure and financial services imposes restricted production and consumption conditions for this population, as well as limits technological innovations that for some privileged experts, would be promising for reducing our environmental degradation [2]. Hence, when thinking along the United Nation’s promise of “leaving no one behind” for a sustainable future, one must think – What is really possible in marginalized, peripheral, poor contexts?In my diverse experiences in social projects in Brazil, I came to face situations where from the lack of options, these populations have been actively resisting their existence through informal and creative ways of production, consumption and education. Ways that have been excluded from the respect of government officials and policymakers, but that we can learn from to ressignify our modus operandis that have overpassed the bearable impact on the planet.
I bring to the discussion the practice of mutirão, a word with indigenous roots from Tupi-Guarani mutyrõ (within many other variations), freely translated to English as “common work”. The practice, with debated origin [3], has been present in diverse cultural contexts and geographical regions, suggesting a common intrinsic human trace of solidarity [3], but that aggregates different layers of political and social challenges. Deteriorated by the growing individualization of work configuration, some practices of mutual help survive their remote past’s heritage [3], yet incorporating new complexities of contemporary urban configuration.
In Brazilian cities, despite the legal effort to make cities accessible [4], these challenges include housing deficit, lack of basic services such as sanitation and electricity, and restricted land access [5]. In the overall neglect of this urban ill by some government officials, it creates a condition that obliges people to find informal ways of occupying the city – usually in configurations such as favelas, and ocupações. In these scenarios of poor infrastructure assistance, climate vulnerability is enhanced, being common phenomena of landslides, extreme rainfall and floods that cause significant dwelling damage and human loss. Yet invisibilized by officials, the segregated people find political and social strength by unification of their voices, knowledge and workforce abilities in a territory that is not assisted by formal governance. They collectively construct housing, infrastructure, and collective spaces in labor that are generally non-remunerated, non-hierarchical, and do not aim for a financial profit. Therefore, the mutirão incorporates a political view of anti-hegemonic activity that is contrary to capitalist work relations [6].
To bring this into practical terms, I share a practice of an informal occupation located in Santa Maria, a city in south of Brazil, that is in a current legislative process for the State to formally allow 53 families to live where they have been for the past seven years – “Vila Resistência” – in direct translation – “Villa of Resistance”. The name coherently suggests their will of power, as 15 of the pioneer families came from a situation of eviction from a past land they occupied, and in the current site, they have already been through at least three direct threats of removal [7]. The disputatious situation introduces other various conflicts these organizations encounter, and their need to urgently resist to be able to live.
In addition to natural hazard vulnerability, the lack of access to basic infrastructure and financial services imposes restricted production and consumption conditions for this population, as well as limits technological innovations that for some privileged experts, would be promising for reducing our environmental degradation [2]. Hence, when thinking along the United Nation’s promise of “leaving no one behind” for a sustainable future, one must think – What is really possible in marginalized, peripheral, poor contexts?
In my diverse experiences in social projects in Brazil, I came to face situations where from the lack of options, these populations have been actively resisting their existence through informal and creative ways of production, consumption and education. Ways that have been excluded from the respect of government officials and policymakers, but that we can learn from to ressignify our modus operandis that have overpassed the bearable impact on the planet.
I bring to the discussion the practice of mutirão, a word with indigenous roots from Tupi-Guarani mutyrõ (within many other variations), freely translated to English as “common work”. The practice, with debated origin [3], has been present in diverse cultural contexts and geographical regions, suggesting a common intrinsic human trace of solidarity [3], but that aggregates different layers of political and social challenges. Deteriorated by the growing individualization of work configuration, some practices of mutual help survive their remote past’s heritage [3], yet incorporating new complexities of contemporary urban configuration.
In Brazilian cities, despite the legal effort to make cities accessible [4], these challenges include housing deficit, lack of basic services such as sanitation and electricity, and restricted land access [5]. In the overall neglect of this urban ill by some government officials, it creates a condition that obliges people to find informal ways of occupying the city – usually in configurations such as favelas, and ocupações. In these scenarios of poor infrastructure assistance, climate vulnerability is enhanced, being common phenomena of landslides, extreme rainfall and floods that cause significant dwelling damage and human loss. Yet invisibilized by officials, the segregated people find political and social strength by unification of their voices, knowledge and workforce abilities in a territory that is not assisted by formal governance. They collectively construct housing, infrastructure, and collective spaces in labor that are generally non-remunerated, non-hierarchical, and do not aim for a financial profit. Therefore, the mutirão incorporates a political view of anti-hegemonic activity that is contrary to capitalist work relations [6].
To bring this into practical terms, I share a practice of an informal occupation located in Santa Maria, a city in south of Brazil, that is in a current legislative process for the State to formally allow 53 families to live where they have been for the past seven years – “Vila Resistência” – in direct translation – “Villa of Resistance”. The name coherently suggests their will of power, as 15 of the pioneer families came from a situation of eviction from a past land they occupied, and in the current site, they have already been through at least three direct threats of removal [7]. The disputatious situation introduces other various conflicts these organizations encounter, and their need to urgently resist to be able to live.
To ground and support environmental learning, Reader #6 gathers a variety of important questions that emerged from conversations and encounters in pedagogical work. How can we learn from environments to overcome the split between humans and ‘nature?’ How can we re-imagine grieving, yet also take care of what remains? How can we work together across disciplines, species, ethnicities, and different regions, and engage in the decolonisation of environments and theories? The authors share discourses and their approaches to these inquiries, from their multiple experiences of working with the environment, facing challenges, complexities, and ruptures.
The contributions in this Reader offer a variety of approaches, concepts, and experiences. They give an account of, and reflect upon, pedagogical encounters via specific toolboxes, or instructions, that support the revealing, reimagining, reframing, and rewriting of complex engagements.
In her contribution “Pedagogies of Care: Air, Water, and Soil,” Elke Krasny foregrounds the importance of a “we,” a plurality, as a way of thinking with many others. Krasny uses the word “we” to open up perspectives of care as solidarity, interdependency, and intervulnerability of humans and environments. She asks how are we being taught to view care as exploited, invisible, and silenced? How can we begin to learn together with many others to imagine care otherwise? These questions are central to thinking about pedagogies of care, and her text shares three “lessons” of air, water and soil through which one can start to read care, showing how these elements are essential to notions of care and, at the same time, in need of care to inspire collective learnings.
In “‘What Remains’: Un/Learning How to Grieve, Re/Imagining How to Care,” Marietta Radomska reminds us that learning always entails some un-learning, and imagining involves some re-imagining. Focusing on the ongoing ecocide unleashed through Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, unfolding since February 2022, Radomska asks about possibilities not only to learn how to grieve, but also how to mobilise an ethical response and concern. Radomska shows ways in which ecological grief, socio-cultural and artistic imaginaries of crisis, and environmental ethics become interwoven in art, artivist, and community projects engaging with environmental violence and death. She suggests that affective engagements with art assist us in experiencing and comprehending the more-than-human loss and eco-grief, and by doing so, oblige us not only to witness, but also to care.
Nina Bartošová demonstrates in her “Workshop on the Brno-Cejl area: experiencing space and its conceptualization through a writing process” how architecture students experience new ways of approaching historically complex and stigmatised sites, by teaching and learning through an instructed writing course. Bartošová's example is Cejl Street in Brno, Czech Republic, which is inhabited predominantly by the Roma minority, however the neighbourhood is experiencing emerging gentrification. Bartošová argues that it is possible to cultivate architecture students’ ability to identify design problems in the environment they engage with outside the design studio by providing them with a process that allows for experiencing environments with complicated layered histories, thus giving students the opportunity to develop their own critical thinking.
In “Double Consciousness Towards a Decolonial Critical Theory, History, and Practice of Landscape Architecture” Burcu Yiğit Turan offers the theory of double consciousness as a framework to critically examine coloniality and Whiteness in spatial and environmental epistemologies. Turan argues that our understanding of histories, theories, and practices are disconnected from challenging knowledges that give an account of the broader context of the modern/colonial world system, which encompasses the colonial and racial dynamics of capitalist land accumulation, resource appropriation, and labour exploitation at a planetary scale. She argues for an education that cultivates consciousness in the fields of planning and architecture. Revising histories, theories, and practices can help us build solidarities across various geographies—transnational, national, or local—and guide us in “imagining and building democratic, just, and non-imperial/colonial societies.”
Lis-Mari Gurák Hjortfors and Karin Reisinger, in “Decolonizing the Mining Landscape” give an account of their workshop, which collected potential spatial practices for the decolonisation of a mining area in Sápmi, in Northern Sweden. Participants were asked how they can support the Indigenous decolonial struggle against extractivism with their practice? The workshop “Spatial Practices of Decolonizing the Mining Landscape” developed from a conversation about the absence of Sámi narratives in local urgent heritage practices, and is the first collaboration of the local Sámi ethnologist Lis-Mari Gurák Hjortfors, and architect and researcher Karin Reisinger, after eight years of continuous exchange. In this essay they show how they relate and complement their spatial and pedagogical practices, and invite audiences into this process, stressing that across countries, contexts, languages, and formats, and between research and cultural production, the hard task of decolonisation needs multiple voices and approaches. It requires not only multiple formats, but also needs to transgress the multi-layered compartmentation of cultural production and knowledge dissemination with these formats to come together in the shared aim of decolonisation—of an area but also of our disciplines and our practices.
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