Intra-Active ‘World-Making’: Hope, Education, Utopias and Potential Eco-Socially Just Futures

Abstract

The paper is an edited extract from an MA Education Dissertation that researched the discernment of hope with young people through the Philosophy for/with Children (P4wC) process. Through the paper the role of hope in the utopian project of education is considered in rapport with the ethico-onto-epistem-ology of Agential Realism (Barad, 2007) and how education is in relationship to how we imagine and create futures as collaborative ‘world-making’ communities. The paper begins by conceptualising hope through historical and contemporary theory and debate, whilst suggesting hope is a Living Narrative of ‘openings’ and future potentials. Through exploring critical education theory (Freire, 1994; Giroux, 2011), feminist perspectives (Haraway, 1997; Held, 2006), Agential Realism (Barad, 2007) and pedagogies of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) (UNESCO, 2019) the paper dialogues with the entanglement of hope, utopias and the imaginary of education. Throughout the paper the role of teacher, the classroom as a pluriversal (s)place, and pedagogy are regarded as part of an educators response-ability (Haraway, 1997) to contribute to imagined, tangible and possible eco-socially just futures that are vitally prescient as humankind faces some of its most unprecedented global challenges. Lastly, the paper aims to contribute to wider discourse on the phenomenon of hope, pedagogies of hope and the entanglements of education with hope and utopian potentialities.