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Consuming Passions: Educating the Empty Self

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

John Hillcoat  and
Eureta Janse van Rensburg
John Hillcoat
Affiliation:
Queensland University of Technology Brisbane
Eureta Janse van Rensburg
Affiliation:
Rhodes University Johannesburg
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Abstract

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The paper considers the connections between the environmental crisis and patterns of consumption in the Western, and Westernised, worlds. These patterns are named as ‘malconsumption’, a concept which is defined and then discussed In terms of its importance to the work of environmental educators. Malconsumption as a means of ‘meaning-making’ and of countering ‘the empty self, and as a consequence of the activities of the advertising and other industries is explained. The paper closes with a summary of the orientation and activities associated with the practice of permaculture, and a proposition that a consideration of this practice in environmental education might contribute to a countering of the drive towards malconsumption.

Type
General Section
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 14 , 1998 , pp. 57 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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