This article explores how concern about animal welfare and animal rights relates to ecological citizenship by discussing student assignments written about the Dutch Party for Animals or PvdD. ‘Animal welfare’, ‘animal rights’, and ‘ecological citizenship’ perspectives offer insights into strategic choices of eco-representatives and animal rights/welfare advocates as well as educators. The assignments balance animal issues with socio-economic ones, explore the relationship between sustainability and ethics, and attribute responsibility for unsustainable or unethical practices. Analysis of student assignments reveals nuanced positions on the anthropocentrism-ecocentrism continuum, showing students’ ability to critically rethink their place within larger environmental systems. Some students demonstrated compassion for nonhumans, indicating that biophilia is evenly distributed among different groups of students. This article finds that fostering pro-environmentalism and animal welfare or rights requires the deepening of the debate contesting but also connecting key issues in sustainability and ethics. This analysis can be valuable for political parties representing nonhumans, or for education practitioners in getting students to think about the challenges in human-environment relationships and for advancing support for ecodemocracy. https://ro.uow.edu.au/asj/vol8/iss1/10/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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One of our most distinctive powers is imagination, our capability to imagine or fantasize about possible futures. Systematic use of imagination can be a powerful method to analyze possible next steps in the present. In 2012, UNESCO coined the term Futures Literacy (plural: the future does not exist, FL), the ability that enables people to understand the role the “futures” play in our behaviour, and expectations. Imagination is a developable skill that allows us to separate expected futures from desired futures using fantasy. FL can be used as a method to achieve the 5 Inner Development Goals: 1. Being (relationship to self), 2. Thinking (cognitive skills), 3. Relating (caring for others and the world), 4. Working together (social skills ) and 5. Tackling (steering the transition). It is argued that using FL can lead to paradogical insights!
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