Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:31:46.576Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

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

References

Brandt, B. 1995, Whole Life Economic: Revaluing Daily Life, New Society Publishers, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Bowers, C. A. 1993, Education, Cultural Myths, and the Ecological Crisis: Towards Deep Changes, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY.Google Scholar
Christensen, K. 1991, ‘Don't call me a green consumer’, Resurgence, no. 145, pp. 4–6.Google Scholar
Connor, T. & Atkinson, J. 1996, [online] http://www.caa.org.au. Sweating for Nike. A Report on Labour Conditions in the Shoe Industry. Briefing paper No. 16, Community Aid Abroad, Fitzroy, Victoria.Google Scholar
Cushman, P. 1995, Constructing the Self Constructing America, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Elias, N. 1978, The Civilising Process. Vol. 1. The History of Manners, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Ferreira, J. L. 1996, ‘Education for democracy: a case study of an action competence approach to environment al health education’, unpublished Masters thesis, Griffith University, Brisbane.Google Scholar
Flax, J. 1990, Thinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary West, University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
George, S. 1997, ‘How the poor support the rich’, in Rahnema, M. (ed), The Post-development Reader, Zed Books, London.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. 1991, Modernity and Self-identity, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK.Google Scholar
Huckle, J. 1988, What We Consume, WWF-UK/Richmond Publishing, Surrey, UK.Google Scholar
Jary, D. & Jary, J. 1991, Collins Dictionary of Sociology, HarperCollins, Glasgow.Google Scholar
Lasch, C. 1984, The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times, Horton, New York.Google Scholar
Lears, T. J. J. 1983, ‘From salvation to self-realisation: advertising and the therapeutic roots of the consumer culture, 1880-1930’, in The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History 1880-1980, Fox, R. W. & Lears, T. J. J. (eds), Pantheon Books, New York.Google Scholar
Lears, T. J. J 1994, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Avertising in America, Basic Books, New York.Google Scholar
Mies, M. & Shiva, V. 1993, Ecofeminism, Spinifex Press, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Mollison, B. & Slay, R. M. 1994, Introduction to Permaculture, Tagari Publications, Tyalgum, NSW.Google Scholar
NAAEE (North American Association of Environmental Education) 1998, ‘A smarter classroom: a healthier planet’, Environmental Communicator, vol. 28. no.1, p. 18.Google Scholar
O'Donoghue, R. 1994, ‘A grand plan for earth-love education in southern Africa: the dream become a nightmare. So, what went wrong?’, Southern African Journal of Environmental Education, vol. 14, pp. 35–45 Google Scholar
Rahnema, M. 1997, (ed). The Post-development Reader, Zed Books, London.Google Scholar
Ransom, D. 1992, ‘Green justice’, New Internationalist, no. 230, pp. 4–7.Google Scholar
Ryan, J. C. & Durning, A. T. 1997, Stuff: The Secret Life of Everyday Life Things, Northwest Environment Watch, Washington.Google Scholar
UNESCO-UNEP 1978, ‘The Tbilisi Declaration’, Connect, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1–8.Google Scholar
Union of Concerned Scientists, 1992, ‘World's leading scientists issue urgent warning to humanity’, Press release 11 18, Washington D.C. Google Scholar
Wagner, J. 1992, ‘Ignorance in educational research. Or, how can you not know that?’, Educational Researcher, vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 15–23.Google Scholar
Weston, A. 1994, Back to Earth: Tomorrows Environmentalism, Temple University Press, Philadelphia.Google Scholar