The Journal of Environmental Education

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Reimagining intersectionality in environmental

and sustainability education: A critical literature
review

Naomi Mumbi Maina-Okori, Jada Renee Koushik & Alexandria Wilson

To cite this article: Naomi Mumbi Maina-Okori, Jada Renee Koushik & Alexandria Wilson
(2018) Reimagining intersectionality in environmental and sustainability education: A
critical literature review, The Journal of Environmental Education, 49:4, 286-296, DOI:
10.1080/00958964.2017.1364215

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Published online: 02 Nov 2017.

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THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
2018, VOL. 49, NO. 4, 286–296
https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2017.1364215

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Reimagining intersectionality in environmental and sustainability

education: A critical literature review
Naomi Mumbi Maina-Okoria, Jada Renee Koushika, and Alexandria Wilsonb
a
School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada; bCollege of
Education, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
We seek to understand how issues of intersectionality are addressed in environmental education;
environmental and sustainability education (ESE) literature, focusing on how environmental and
gender is discussed in relation to other social identities such as class, race, sustainability education;
sexuality, and ability. Our analysis draws from feminist and decolonizing gender; interconnectivity;
intersectionality
frameworks, and uses intersectionality to examine how ESE literature
addresses issues as interconnected. Intersectional analysis originates from
Black feminist perspectives on how social identities/subjectivities collide and
collude to reproduce systemic and unique forms of oppression. This article
contributes to this critical framework by incorporating considerations of
Indigenous interconnectivity and land-based sovereignties. We begin this
literature review by providing a background of intersectionality and
interconnectivity from Black feminist and Indigenous knowledge systems,
and describe how these frameworks inform our analysis. We then review
existing ESE literature to critically examine how researchers have utilized
feminist perspectives to discuss gender in relation to class, race, sexuality,
body size, and ability as well as species. This review seeks to disrupt
marginalization and calls for the use of critical frameworks such as
intersectionality to deconstruct and disrupt oppression in ESE.

This article broadens the conception of intersectionality to view it as a coalescing and/or a fusing
process and as an interconnected multi-directional crossroads. Intersectionality, a term that stemmed
from Black feminist scholarship (Crenshaw, 1989), has expanded beyond examining gender and other
human social subjectivities (e.g., race, class, sexual orientation, ability) to include more-than-human
beings. Although this expansion brings important attention to parallels between the oppression of
women and that of more-than-human beings, we argue that it, to some extent, minimizes the intended
agenda and goals of Black feminists.
Relatedly, Indigenous conceptions of interconnectivity view all parts of our identity as inseparable
and interconnected, such as our sexuality, sexual orientation, cultural alignment, heritage, lineage,
gender, socioeconomic status, spirituality, and connection to the land (Wilson, 1996, 2008). After
reviewing ESE literature that uses an intersectional and/or interconnected lens, we make recommenda-
tions for deepening, broadening, or expanding approaches to ESE research. Our own experiences of
interconnectivity have informed not only our analysis of the ESE literature, but also the discussions
that have framed this work, thus this article is located at the juncture of our experiences, perspectives,
and lived intersectionalities.
We begin by introducing ourselves and how we became involved in intersectionality research. We
then provide background on intersectionality, drawing from feminist, Black, and Indigenous

CONTACT Naomi Mumbi Maina-Okori naomi.maina@usask.ca Sustainability Education Research Institute (SERI), University
of Saskatchewan, Room 1235, Education Building, 28 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK, Canada, S7N 0X1.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
 THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION 287

knowledge systems. In the second section, we present an analysis of how ESE has taken up intersec-
tional issues of gender in relation to class, race, sexuality, body size, ability, and species. Our analysis
shows that intersectional analyses in ESE have built on ecofeminism, queer pedagogy, Indigenous and
decolonizing perspectives, land-based education, and biocentric ethics. The final section discusses how
ESE has researched intersectionality itself and emphasizes the need for educators and researchers to be
open to inviting and accepting invitation to dialogue and discuss their pedagogical biases and how they
can be addressed.

Who we are
As intersectional researchers, it is important that we share the context of our research and the back-
grounds that inform our understandings of intersectionality and interconnectivity. By sharing our sto-
ries, we hope to connect with our readers and invite you to examine how your own background and
experiences have shaped and continue to shape your scholarship.
My name is Naomi Mumbi Maina-Okori and I was born in the Central part of Kenya. I am cur-
rently a PhD candidate in the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatche-
wan. I am confronted daily with multiple dilemmas of being a woman—a Black African woman from a
“third world” country. Although I grew up in different parts of Kenya, I was oblivious to the many
environmental and social issues that were facing my country and unaware of the interconnections
between colonialism, capitalism, and related social and environmental crises. Although I partly attri-
bute this naivety to my age at that time, it was supported by the colonial prescriptions of what was and
continues to be taught in our schools, how it is taught, and why it is taught.
Western ideologies have permeated much of my country since the colonial era, influencing people
to depart from historically sustainable lifestyles to embody more individualistic and consumeristic ten-
dencies and thus to contribute to unprecedented environmental and social chaos. Latterly, advocates
such as Maathai (2006) have promoted a strong decolonizing environmental movement in Kenya and
other parts of the world. Maathai’s emphasis on the engagement of women in environmental and civic
reform sparked my interest in sustainability issues as a young adult, leading to my current engagement
in ESE at the postsecondary level.
My name is Jada Renee Koushik and I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. As a female
African-American PhD candidate at a Canadian prairie university, I am intimately acquainted with
questions surrounding gender, race, and privilege. I situate myself with other racialized minority
groups that have experienced the negative effects of colonialism (e.g., through slavery, seizure of land
and resources, cultural assimilation and appropriation) and it is only through the sacrifices and
industriousness of my maternal family that I am able to pursue doctoral studies in ESE.
As a small child, I marveled at the beauty of nature and the interconnectedness of life, and first
experienced a connection to land through exploring the urban and rural areas of Michigan. As a young
adult, I awakened to the disparities in access to environmental services, education, health care, and
resource allocation experienced by women, minorities, and Indigenous peoples around the world.
While developing a critical awareness, I began to explore the concept of intersectionality and examine
how inequitable policies and practices can impact approaches to sustainability by prescribing how we
imagine ourselves, one another, and the lands that we inhabit.
My name is Alex Wilson. I am from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, a territory that spans a large
space of land running along the Saskatchewan River. My family has lived in this area for more
than 10,000 years, and the place where I grew up is known as Pamuskatapan. Our family name or
“clan,” which was passed through my grandmother’s genealogy, is Wassenas or “emanating light
from within.” In our language, Neyonawak, our family is then directly related to anything to do
with light. This genealogy is archived in oral tradition and retold when I introduce myself or on
celebratory or ceremonial occasions. As part of our responsibility to our family lineage, we are
charged with protecting not only the area where our family home is located, but also the broader
Saskatchewan River Delta. In that sense, caring for and protecting the land and water is also part
of our genealogy.
288 N. M. MAINA-OKORI ET AL.

Three years ago, the Indigenous-led movement Idle No More excited me, along with many others, as
we expanded our understandings and practices of land protection. Working as an organizer with Idle
No More, I reflected on how gender and sexual diversity, as manifested in the movement’s focus on
body sovereignty and gender self-determination, is necessarily a part of environmental action and
discussion. I am also a professor of Educational Foundations and Director of the Aboriginal Education
Research Centre at the University of Saskatchewan and am honored to focus my research on intersec-
tionality and land-based pedagogy.

Conceptualizing intersectionality and interconnectivity

Legal scholar Crenshaw (1989) coined the term intersectionality in reference to Black women’s
experiences with the legal system where multiple forms of oppression overlap and reveal themselves in
judicial prejudice. Feminist scholars have since applied the concept more broadly; McCall (2005), for
example, defines intersectionality as the “relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of
social relations and subject formations” (p. 1771) whereas Davis (2008) describes intersectionality as
the:
interaction of multiple identities and experiences of exclusion and subordination…the interaction between gender,
race, and other categories of difference in individual lives, social practices, institutional arrangements, and cultural
ideologies and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of power. (p. 68)

Scholars have used the tenets of intersectionality to advocate for an integrated consideration of
issues rather than a single-axis or single-issue based analysis (Crenshaw, 1989).
Relatedly, interconnectivity views all parts of our multiple subjectivities as tied closely together. The
term affirms that all parts of our identity are inseparable and interconnected, such as our sexuality,
sexual orientation, cultural alignment, heritage, lineage, gender, socioeconomic status, spirituality, and
connection to the land (Wilson, 1996, 2008). A contemporary example of an interconnected frame-
work is the term “Two-Spirit” that arose in the 1990s in response to often overwhelmingly oppressive
governmental policies that led to the marginalization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and gender ques-
tioning (LGBTQ) Indigenous peoples (Wilson, 1996). Rather than discrete identity threads “meeting”
at intersectional points, interconnectivity views all aspects of individual or community identities as
ever-present.
Indigenous knowledge systems are rooted in the concept of relationality. For more than 50,000 years,
Indigenous nations in North America have had intimate and vibrant relationships with the land,
including water, plants, animals, birds, and all living things (Wilson, 2015). This coexistence has also
been referred to as relationality, the recognition “that we, the land, the water, and all living creatures
are related and, as relatives, we are meant to love and care for each other” (Wilson, 2015, p. 255).
Within some Indigenous knowledge systems there are understandings that we are only here because of
the land and our connection to the land. Bang and colleagues (2014) summarize this philosophy by
articulating that “land is, therefore we are” (p. 45).
There is an increasingly large body of literature engaging intersectionality and interconnectivity to
examine and question issues of identity and social justice across the disciplines of law, psychology,
social work, and health and wellness (e.g., Collins, 1998; Davis, 2008; Hancock, 2007; Shields, 2008).
Drawing from both feminist intersectionality and Indigenous interconnectivity, our analysis in this
article is focused on how ESE literature has taken up issues of gender in relation to class, race/ethnicity,
sexuality, and ability among other categories. We use the terms intersectionality and interconnectivity
interchangeably to depict both the relatedness and the fluidity of multiple subjectivities and social
constructs.

Intersectionality in environmental and sustainability education

One of the intersectional issues that ESE literature has sought to address is that of the field’s exclusion
of the voices of women and non-Western peoples. Addressing the marginalization of women’s voices,
 THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION 289

Gough (2013) has advocated eloquently for an interconnected examination of the multiple subjectiv-
ities in ESE:
…we have culturally, racially, socioeconomically, and sexually (and so on) different people with fragmented iden-
tities whose experiences and understandings can only be constituted through the lenses of subjectivity. Given there
is growing recognition that there is no one way of looking at the world, no “one true story,” rather a multiplicity of
stories, then we should look at a multiplicity of strategies for policies, pedagogies, and research in environmental
education. (p. 376)

Within these multiplicities, more scholars in the field of ESE are engaging with interconnective
frameworks to underscore alternative knowledges in ESE research, including the oft missed voices of
women, people with disabilities, sexual minorities, Indigenous communities, and others. In the follow-
ing section, we highlight some of the scholarly, practice-based, and self-reflective literature that has
engaged with these matters, and include sections on ecofeminism, queer pedagogy, Indigenous and
decolonizing perspectives, land-based education, and biocentric ethics.

Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism recognizes and makes linkages between the oppression of women and the exploitation of
nature and suggests that although women are often more likely to be involved in environmental
protection, they are underrepresented in decision-making processes (Gardner & Riley, 2007; Quigley,
Che, Achieng, & Liaram, 2017; Sakellari & Skanavis, 2013; Skanavis & Sakellari, 2012; Whitehouse, 2014).
Ecofeminism draws from multiple feminisms and provides a strong analytical framework to disrupt patri-
archal oppression of women and nature. This framework, nonetheless, has been critiqued for some propo-
nents’ essentialization of women and romanticization of nature (Blake, 2007; Henderson, 1997). Recently,
Piersol and Timmerman (2017) note that the critiques launched against ecofeminism have resulted in the
silencing of certain voices and the creation of dualistic perspectives within the field, yet argue that ecofem-
inism can provide a framework for challenging discourses that perpetuate women’s oppression as well as
hierarchical relationships in social and environmental issues in ESE (Fahs, 2015; Gough, 2004; Harvester
& Blenkinsop, 2011; C. Russell & Bell, 1996). Because ecofeminism focuses on the relationship between
gender and ecological justice, Harvester and Blenkinsop (2011) argue that it provides an adequate inter-
sectional framework for analysis. They contend that an ecofeminist framework:
Includes working for non-hierarchical relationships that recognize our interdependency, a commitment to cultural
and biological diversity, a desire to end oppression of any kind, and a willingness to analyze the logic of domina-
tion and its material and behavioural effects on human relationships and human interactions with the more-than-
human world. (p. 123)

This framework commits to addressing both social and environmental issues as interconnected, and
promises to recognize, empower, and liberate marginalized perspectives, including those of more-
than-human beings in the process of analysis.

Queer pedagogy
A queer pedagogy calls for deeper examination of dominant identities within ESE research, thereby
troubling heteronormative assumptions about identities and allowing for better inclusion of all voices
(C. Russell, Sarick, & Kennelly, 2002; J. Russell, 2013). C. Russell et al. (2002) identify arenas where het-
erosexual dominance is particularly prevalent in the field. For example, in outdoor education they
observe how women who wanted to participate in this historically male-dominated field were often
intimidated by what is referred to as “lesbian baiting,” that is, the labeling of women as lesbians regard-
less of their sexual orientation in efforts to “discredit them, provoke denials, or encourage adoption of
more traditional norms” (C. Russell et al., 2002, p. 59). Failure to address such aggressions perpetuates
oppression and forces women and men toward “socially acceptable” categories and roles. It also raises
important questions about who can access the outdoors, not only in terms of gender but also related to
physical (dis)ability and affordability.
290 N. M. MAINA-OKORI ET AL.

Queer pedagogy demands an analysis of the interconnections of social and environmental issues.
ESE scholars taking up queer pedagogy have critiqued the continued relegation of sexuality and queer
issues to the “other” category in discussions of justice and general silence in the field related to LGBTQ
content (Adsit-Morris & Gough, 2017; Bazzul & Santavicca, 2017; Gough & Gough, 2003; J. Russell,
2013). Earlier, C. Russell and colleagues (2002) argued for more than simply adding LGBTQ content
to ESE, instead recognizing that queer pedagogy calls for deeper engagement that involves “problemat-
izing heteronormativity, essentialized identities, and the heterosexualization” (p. 54) of ESE theories
and practices. A queer pedagogy thus can disrupt expectations regarding gender, ability, and socioeco-
nomic status, and allow for more authentic expressions of environmental educators and learners
(Hauk, 2016). Further, in addition to challenging the oppression of specific individuals, queer pedagogy
can also oppose global forces of capitalism and neoliberalism by revealing and unsettling dominant
social and economic systems of value (Adsit-Morris & Gough, 2017; J. Russell, 2013). For example, in
response to C. Russell and colleagues’ (2002) call to queer environmental education, Adsit-Morris and
Gough (2017) offer the idea of performing a queer tango to “touch, to invite, to dance with diverse and
sometimes contradictory motions, ideas and philosophies with the hope of forging new alliances,
assemblages, and practices” (p. 72) within the ESE field. These alliances and collective imaginaries,
they argue, can invigorate the field and create new possibilities to teaching and researching in ESE.

Indigenous and decolonizing perspectives

Based on Indigenous knowledge systems, self and land reveal an embodied framework in which
pedagogy is intricately connected to place, which includes not only geographic territory but also the
inhabitants of that territory, including human and other-than-human selves (Tuck, McKenzie, &
McCoy, 2014; Wane & Chandler, 2002). Lowan (2009) uses a decolonizing Indigenous education lens
to examine embodiment of self in land-based cultures, noting how cultural benchmarks such as
language, names, and others are based on specific geographical locals, and Henry (2015) and Scully
(2012) each examine how Indigenous place-based education can help learners reflect on the histories
of their neighborhoods to foster better relations with Indigenous peoples and the land.
Several pre-colonial Indigenous societies were matriarchal, with women as providers and keepers of
Indigenous knowledge (Quigley et al., 2017; Wane & Chandler, 2002). In Kenya, for example, these
matriarchal societies were dismantled by colonial structures that shifted gender roles, with women con-
fined to their homes and men moving to the cities to look for paid work (Maathai, 2006; Quigley et al.,
2017). Despite the pervasive and destructive impacts of colonial practices, many women remain in
tune with nature and have formed some of the strongest environmental grassroots movements in the
world (Li, 2007; Wane & Chandler, 2002). Although not advocating a hierarchal gender dualism that
privileges women, Li (2007) nonetheless argues that women’s organizing:
serves as a starting point from which women undertake the educational task of transforming ecologically
uncongenial cultural practices. The women-led indigenous grassroots environmental movements in the Third
World especially assume this educational task without any reservations. (p. 367)

As another example of the power of women’s organizing, as Alex indicated previously, Idle No More
is an international movement that is led by Indigenous women and aims to bring attention to issues
related to land, body sovereignty, and gender self-determination (The Kino-nda-niimi Collective,
2014). The histories, knowledge, and experiences of Indigenous peoples, including women, need to be
incorporated in teaching and research in ESE. To fail to do so is unjust, and also risky and myopic
(Wane & Chandler, 2002).
In further considering colonial impacts on communities, environmental justice scholars have
decried the incommensurate location of toxins and other environmental hazards in low-income
neighborhoods of color in North America (Agyeman, Bullard, & Evans, 2002; Bullard, 1990). In its
nascent stage, environmental justice referred to mobilization in response to the siting of hazardous
waste facilities in low-income, racialized communities (Brulle & Pellow, 2006); as a result, dispropor-
tionate burdens affected some groups more than others whereas environmental benefits (e.g., parks,
 THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION 291

green spaces) were also disproportionately collected (Bullard, 1990; Gosine & Teelucksingh, 2008;
Haluza-DeLay, 2013; Koushik, 2016). Work in environmental justice has expanded to consider
broader, intersectional concepts such as who is welcomed and feels safe on the land based on gender,
sexuality, race, ability, or other social categories (McKenzie, Koushik, Haluza-DeLay, Chin, & Corwin,
2017). Some scholars have suggested that, in order to address these environmental injustices, people of
color (including women of color) need to be included in decision-making processes (Foster, 1998).
Examining the histories of space and the continuing negative impacts of colonization on colonized
peoples can help to reveal their influence on ESE discourses, and indeed on our daily lives (Engel-Di
Mauro & Carroll, 2014; Kayira, 2015; Tuck et al., 2014). Land-based education emphasizes the need to
situate ESE within students’ surroundings, holding explicit conversations on the oppressions that have
been located in those places (Engel-Di Mauro & Carroll, 2014; Tuck et al., 2014). As Wane and
Chandler (2002) illustrate, African women (and other Indigenous women) often are in tune with their
land through knowledge that has been passed down through several generations, and they argue that
such Indigenous knowledge should be taught in schools. Further, they purport that students should
learn about the contradictory nature of Western and Indigenous knowledge systems and how the two
can be reconciled to contribute to sustainable practices (Wane & Chandler, 2002). This reconciliation
can be described as a “two-world” pedagogical approach, inclusive of (but not limited to) Two-Eyed
Seeing, integrative science, ecological mè tissage, and Native science, which embraces connectedness
(Knapp, 2013). These approaches seek to look beyond the borders of Indigenous knowledge systems
and Western worldviews, and aim to bridge these seemingly incommensurable ways of knowing
(Hatcher, Bartlett, Marshall, & Marshall, 2009; Kapyrka & Dockstator, 2012; McKeon, 2012).
From a colonial perspective, land and the colonized (mostly Indigenous peoples) are considered part
of nature and consequently objects and commodities of capitalism (Engel-Di Mauro & Carroll, 2014).
In postcolonial contexts, ESE makes visible and addresses (mostly) settler colonial assumptions that
are inherent in the field as a legacy of its birth in the Western academy (Tuck et al., 2014). Whereas
postcolonial and Indigenous scholars have critiqued colonial perspectives in ESE, Engel-Di Mauro
and Carroll (2014) argue that they have not gone far enough. By failing to include land as a main issue,
“[t]hese alternative approaches remain partially mired in reproductions of settler colonial understand-
ings” (p. 72). As an alternative, they suggest drawing from an African-centered approach to place that
“promotes an integrative view of nature and people that stresses interrelation and interconnection with
the land and its histories” (p. 79).
To dismantle colonial epistemologies in ESE in Africa, Kayira (2015) suggests drawing from tradi-
tional knowledge derived from Ubuntu, a Sub-Saharan African concept rooted in human interconnec-
tions with nature. In North and South American contexts, Indigenous conceptions of a holistic
relationship with nature encompass the relations presented in the critical frameworks presented by
Kayira (2015). Addressing issues of colonialism through Indigenous conceptions helps to examine the
root causes of both land appropriation by settler colonialists in North America (Simpson, 2014; Tuck
et al., 2014) and the devaluing of traditional knowledge by Western science in Southern Africa (Kayira,
2015; Shava, 2013).

More-than-human
Inclusive approaches to disrupting the nature/culture divide that is propagated by colonial legacies are
critical in addressing environmental problems. Biocentric ethics is one such approach that calls for the
re-imagining of a common world that pays attention to the relationships and coexistence of humans
and more-than-human species (Fawcett, 2013; Fawcett, Bell, & Russell, 2002; Pacini-Ketchabaw &
Nxumalo, 2015; Pacini-Ketchabaw & Taylor, 2015). In relation to education, Fawcett (2005) explains
that teaching and learning from the environment involves learning with all the senses and fostering a
deep understanding of the lives of other animals. She calls for a biocentric ethic that values and sees
humans as part of the natural world rather than more typical ethical approaches that separate the two.
Similarly, Kahn and Humes (2009) advocate for a “total liberation pedagogy” (p. 181) that works
within and against the intersection of all forms of oppression whether directed against humans, more-
292 N. M. MAINA-OKORI ET AL.

than-human beings, or the natural environment generally. While they appreciate earlier intersectional
work in ESE, they nonetheless critique the lack of focus on speciesism and argue for the inclusion of
colonial histories and global forces in discussions of, for example, invasive species and ecological
sustainability.
C. Russell and Semenko (2016) are also concerned with speciesism and how it connects to other
oppressions, focusing particularly on the interconnections of speciesism, sexism, and sizeism in envi-
ronmental, interspecies, and social justice education. They describe a “fat pedagogy” that draws from
both ecofeminism and intersectional scholarship, moving beyond human-centered intersectional anal-
ysis by, for example, exploring how insults such as “cow” or “pig” directed at fat women reveal not
only sexist and sizeist assumptions but also animals’ perceived inferiority to humans. Similarly inter-
ested in the connections between speciesism and sexism, Lloro-Bidart and Semenko (2017) observe
that environmental and animal-focused educators often must tackle emotionally challenging topics
and they argue that women, in particular, often bear a heavier burden in addressing these. Noting the
gendered demands on women educators and building on earlier writing in ESE on ethics of care, they
advocate that educators need to seriously engage in self-care alongside the work they already do in car-
ing for both human and more-than-humans. A specific example of the sort of care Lloro-Bidart (2015)
has been involved with can be found in a study that describes her experience of looking after a kitten
with physical challenges. Drawing on insights from ecofeminism and critical disability studies, she
offers an intersectional analysis that makes clear connections between speciesism and ableism.
In her review of environmental education research focused on the more-than-human, Fawcett
(2013) acknowledges the recent focus on biocentric research on children’s encounters with nature and
argues for a shift away from anthropocentric approaches to biocentric and ecocentric ones. Examples
of recent research that does just that problematizes the notion of children’s perceptions of nature as
“innocent” and examines the colonial spaces in which animals and children interact (Nxumalo, 2015a;
Pacini-Ketchabaw & Nxumalo, 2015; Pacini-Ketchabaw & Taylor, 2015). Further demonstrating the
complexity of nature-child interactions, Nxumalo (2015b) explicates that “colonialism, racialization,
whiteness, gender, and class” (p. 4) are ever present in children’s experiences in community gardens.
Such research can be seen to heed Fawcett’s (2013) call for environmental education research to
“refract the disillusion that makes human relationships with natures a-relational, disembodied matters
of unjust resource allocation, so we can keep dreaming narratives of naturecultures” (p. 415; emphasis
in original).

Deepening intersectional analyses in ESE

Returning to Black feminist conceptualizations of intersectionality as a framework that helps to exam-
ine the complex ways that multiple oppressions based on gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, and
other human-centered categories produce unique experiences for different people, we note that these
interconnected categories of oppression are still alive today. While we acknowledge and value current
considerations and inclusion of the oppression of more-than-humans generally into intersectional
analyses, we also argue that it is imperative to take a step back and examine to what extent environ-
mental education has, in fact, addressed social justice issues.
We do not suggest abandoning the current trend toward expanded intersectional analyses, but we
do encourage feminists and other scholars within the ESE field to evaluate what progress that has been
made so far and how, in addition to taking up post-human and biocentric frameworks, we can con-
tinue to work on disrupting oppression on the basis of gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, and size.
We call for a broadening of ESE to include Black feminist and Indigenous approaches, a refocus on
social justice and Indigenous knowledge systems that address sovereignty and entail a land-based
approach to education. For instance, racism in Canada cannot be addressed without examining how
settler-colonialism and the associated historical injustices continue to impact Indigenous peoples and
the environment today (McKenzie & Bieler, 2016). As such, we need to value Indigenous peoples as
authentic knowledge holders and producers and explicitly draw on Indigenous perspectives and ways
of knowing in our work (Kermoal & Altamirano-Jimenez, 2016).
 THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION 293

We invite researchers and practitioners in the field to reflect on the intersections inherent in their
own experiences, and use these as a starting point to begin to address the interconnection of broader
issues in their teaching and research approaches. Indeed as Humes (2008) articulates, we need to be
open to acknowledging and dialoguing about our “pedagogical blind spots” and how we can address
them. We also echo Lowan-Trudeau’s (2013) call for research into how non-Indigenous people are
engaging in Indigenous environmental research. The goal to incorporate Indigenous perspectives into
ESE is the responsibility of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. The aim is that such collabo-
ration will lead to a closer examination and dismantling of the power dynamics inherent in our field
and in wider society (Shava, 2013).

Conclusion
We set out to examine how issues of intersectionality are addressed in ESE, focusing on how gender is
discussed in relation to other social identities such as class, race, sexuality, and ability. As noted, several
scholars draw on intersectional frameworks to challenge dominant structures such as patriarchy,
colonialism, capitalism, and anthropocentrism that reproduce inequality and contribute to continued
environmental degradation. For the past three decades, feminist scholars have been vocal about the
marginalization of women’s voices and the need for intersectional analyses in environmental education
research (Gough, 2013). Moving these intersectional analyses from the margins is not about elevating
them above all else (Engel-Di Mauro & Carroll, 2014), but rather about highlighting issues that are in
alignment and complementary; such a move is not about competition, but connection.
In today’s society, regrettably, subjecting almost all transactions to a cost-benefit analysis and
commodifying everything is the dominant way of thinking (Harvey, 2000). Examining the intercon-
nections of social, ecological, and economic issues can help to inform a critical and inclusive concep-
tualization of societal problems and to reveal just and sustainable solutions to these problems.
Without such analyses, ESE runs the risk of perpetuating dominant ideologies and further marginal-
izing and silencing diverse voices and issues (Howard, 2008). Given that most environmental and
social decision making is economically driven, this could be a significant component of intersection-
ality in ESE research in the future.
Intersectional scholarship calls for a focus on social justice, individual and collective well-being, and
issues of peace for all of us, human and more-than-human alike. As the challenges to global sustain-
ability increase in complexity, the ability of individuals and communities to protect their livelihood
will be challenged even more. Focusing on the interconnections between environment, social justice,
and peace will provide perspectives and ideas to address these challenges, including the use of direct
action through activism (Ceaser, 2015). Indeed, intersectional activist-oriented research can and will
play a critical role in helping to develop strategies for students, educators, and community partners to
gain agency in making a difference in their own and others’ lives (Li, 2007; Lousley, 1999; Ludlow,
2010; McKenzie, 2009).

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