Across and beyond the Coloniality of Nature: A Teaching Proposal

The paper presents the theoretical background and structure, as well as pedagogical activities, of an Environmental Philosophy course – a large, general intro for third-year undergraduate students – dedicated to a critical analysis of the idea of nature and its meaning(s) for environmentalism. It centers around the consideration that the idea of nature seems at the same time unavoidable in environmental policy and untenable due to its colonial heritage and dualistic ontology. It is designed as an interdisciplinary, hands-on, critical analysis of the role of “nature” in environmental praxis, its coloniality, and alternative understandings of and relationships to “nature”. Conceptually, “nature” is framed as the “transcendental” of Western modernity: both a necessary condition of possibility for its self-understanding and an a priori unification of the manifold that seems so “obviously” subsumed under it. By drawing on interdisciplinary literature including eco-phenomenology, environmental hermeneutics, political ecology, anthropology, and decolonial thought, students are confronted with different approaches to the question of “nature” and invited to critically analyze assumptions, implications, and uses of the term. They are guided by the hermeneutical consideration that the question “what is nature?” reveals just as much about who asks the question as about what is asked.