Action competence or action paralysis?

Injustice can paralyze. So can knowledge about overwhelming environmental problems that seem beyond cure. With the aim of creating a “participatory” environmental photo project, these issues have been central. I have been guided by the work performed by Ellen Almers (2009) who investigates what she calls action competence. The concept has been developed by Danish pedagogues like Bjarne Bruun Jensen among others. In general, action competence implies a process for engagement to take action. It is ideologically and conceptually related to democracy, empowerment and critical pedagogy. Action competence means “the development of these competencies, understandings and skills that enable students to take critical action” (Grant 1997:1). In environmental contexts this kind of pedagogy is often connected to education for sustainable development.

The opposite of action competence is action paralysis. What good would it do the kids who participate in the workshops by ph15 if they “only” learn about what environmental problems which exist? It may seem as if the barriers to take action, in the sense of social, political and economic structures, are insuperable in their barrio, what I called “ecological action space” in my dissertation. My attempt to circumvent these problems has been to contribute with tasks that help the participants increase their capacity to analyze other’s representations of the environment, discuss and reflect on whose responsibility the environment is, and to discuss and share ideas on what can be done to find ways to act. As have been pointed out time and again before, knowledge about what can be done for the environment has to be translated to practical and feasible activities that yet don’t individualize the responsibility and neglect the larger political context within which the individuals act. To find a formula for how this can be done is most likely any environmental politicians’ or environmental activists’ dream.

An interesting point of reference in the work by Almers is that she (in an interview) emphasizes that she believes that it is more fundamental that the students (through the formal schooling) get less stories of misery, and more examples for how to discuss solutions to the problems. This prepares them for action competence rather than helplessness and action paralysis. In ph15 we discussed the role of images of misery and suggestions for action through a set of governmental posters. The group concluded that environmental catastrophies and misery had a major impact than suggestions for action, since the later didn’t connect to what problems that could be avoided.

References:
Almers, Ellen (2009) Handlingskompetens för hållbar utveckling: Tre berättelser om vägen dit. Diss. Högskolan i Jönköping.
Grant, Col (1997) ”Action Competence - Factors which promote and constrain”. Background Paper for International Research Conference in Environmental Education at Christchurch.