The Posthumanist Turn in Thinking About Subjectivity. New Possibilities for Non-Anthropocentric Education
Abstract
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to identify shifts in thinking about posthuman subjectivity and to reflect on their significance for non-anthropocentric education.
THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The main research problem focuses on the question of how the posthumanist shift in thinking about subjectivity opens new possibilities for non-anthropocentric education. The analysis is based on the review of the literature, encompassing both Polish and international sources on posthuman subjectivity and its educational implications.
THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The analysis highlights several dimensions of posthumanist subjectivity: processual, relational, and intra-active, decentralized, embodied, and material dimensions. Taking into consideration this perspective opens up new avenues for non-anthropocentric education, in which educational practices extend beyond exclusively human interactions to include engagements with non-human beings, things, and environments. This view changes the way of understandings of who the educational subject is, what educational practices entail, and where they take place.
RESEARCH RESULTS: The findings suggest that the posthuman educational subject is co-constituted by human and non-human entities, significantly repositioning the traditional roles of teachers and learners. Educational practices thus emerge as spaces of co-creation and transformation that reach beyond the classroom. This approach enables understanding non-anthropocentric education as a practice of the shared worlds. The examples from practice (e.g., graphic assemblages, dance workshops) illustrate possibilities for co-creating learning processes and enhancing sensitivity to relationships among diverse educational actors.
CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND APPLICABLE VALUE OF RESEARCH: In the face of global ecological, social, and political crises, non-anthropocentric education appears not as a need, but as a natural response to contemporary challenges. The analyses conducted broaden the existing understanding of education by incorporating a posthumanist perspective, and their results may contribute to modifying teacher education programs as well as inspire the design of new educational practices adapted to the challenges of the Anthropocene.
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