Off the beaten track: Exploring the Orca Pass Initiative as a collective experiment for democratic education through a complexity lens

• Main Author: Bastrup-Birk, Henriette
• Other Authors: Wildemeersch, Danny; U0008855;
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: British Columbia; Canada; Orca
• Online Access: https://lirias.kuleuven.be/handle/123456789/445442; https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/445442/3//Popularised+summary+of+doctoral+thesis+2014.pdf; https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/445442/2//BOOK+II_Final_12+Oct.pdf; https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/445442/1//Book+I_Final_12+Oct.pdf

Grounded in a general concern about the present socio-ecologicalpredicament, the dissertation aims at contributing to the way democraticeducation is thought about in the context of collective experiments. Theauthor was particularly interested in gaining insights regardingconditions favouring significant shifts in ways of thinking about andresponding to intricate and uncertain sustainability issues. Drawing onan unconventional conception of democratic education, notably informedby complexity thinking, she constructed a framework, linking the threenotions of interruption, pedagogic subjectivation and bifurcation,through which she would explore a concrete case. Launched in the late 1990#s by a coalition of non-governmentalenvironmental grass roots organisations, based in respectively the Stateof Washington and the Province of British Columbia, this case, calledthe Orca Pass Initiative (OPI), stood out as a promising experiment fordemocratic education as revisited. Its purpose was to promoteestablishment of a marine protected area spanning the Canada/US borderso as to halt alarming decline of marine species (among which a residentpopulation of orcas) and degradation of marine and coastal ecosystems inthe inland sea now officially called the Salish Sea. Since the OPIoffered an opportunity for indigenous and western science-basedperspectives to rub shoulders, the author hoped to highlight new optionsfor action resulting from interaction between distinctively differentways of thinking about and practicing governance of marine commons.,,The inquiry led to the tentative conclusion that, while the OPI didnot, even in its heyday, bring about what could legitimately beconsidered radically novel ways of thinking about this matter of publicconcern, analysis pointed to qualitatively significant shifts over timein the vision informing the initiative as far as ethics and sharedgovernance across the border were concerned. It also suggested thatrepresentatives of Coast Salish Nations emitted messages with significant interruptive and differentiating potential regarding thesethemes at meetings of relevance to the OPI. Against this backdrop, theauthor felt able to claim that the initiative made a noteworthy movetowards embodying a space for #new style# democratic education in whichvoices, grounded in a worldview differing distinctively from thatinforming western science, had an opportunity of making an imprint.,,The inquiry also brought insights of broader relevance for educationaltheorising. It highlighted the potential of informal, collectiveexperiments for acting as #hatcheries# for fresh thinking about ourrelations to each other and to the more-than-human world and forreframing dissent and the perennial tension, at the core of allsocieties, between difference and construction of a common cosmos. Otherinsights pertained to how largely self-driven initiatives, in whichrepresentatives of usually less-listened-to segments of the populationget a chance of becoming teachers, may challenge arbitrary limits inmainstream thinking and hence usefully complement conventionalpedagogical interventions. They also pointed to how relinquishing aclear-cut distinction between process and outcome in educationalcontexts may offer an escape from the confinement of pre-definedresults. From a more practical point of view, the inquiry brought aseries of recommendation for practitioners facing the challenging issueof sustainable governance of sea basins shared by two or more countries.Finally it raised a set of questions for future research. status: published