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Talking Up Country: Language, Natureculture and Interculture in Australian Environmental Education Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2012

Hilary Whitehouse*
Affiliation:
James Cook University
*
Address for correspondence: A/Professor Hilary Whitehouse, James Cook University, PO Box 6811, Cairns, Queensland 4870, Australia. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Australia is an old continent with an immensely long history of human settlement. The argument made in this paper is that Australia is, and has always been, a natureculture. Just as English was introduced as the dominant language of education with European colonisation, so arrived an ontological premise that linguistically divides a categorised nature from culture and human from “the” environment. Drawing on published work from the Australian tropics, this paper employs a socionature approach to make a philosophical argument for a more nuanced understanding of language, the cultural interface and contemporary moves towards interculture in Australian environmental education practice.

Type
Feature Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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