The dirtiness of clean: Unearthing settler logics that sustain spatial woundings in the Capitalocene

Abstract

In this article, we first (re)trace the presence and absence of mining, metals and extractionary practices, what we call MMEs, from environmental and sustainability curricular frameworks United Nations’ Act Now Framework. Then, we critique the swelling markets, mentalities, and mastermindings used to develop and produce “clean” and “renewable” energy sources/solutions. As one of many examples, there is increasing skepticism among Indigenous communities that history may repeat itself as the quest for “clean” results in further displacement and violations of tribal sovereignty (Healy & Baker, 2021; Holzman & Waldman, 2022; Shah & Bloomer, 2018). Notwithstanding our (e.g., authors) academic positionalities in social studies education, one of our conclusions considers the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration between science and social studies on the issue of sustainability through MMEs.

Keywords:

• capitalocene
• environmental education
• economics
• social studies

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Bagwell College of Education Research Consortium (RCC) for their assistance in preparing revisions to this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We use extractionary practices as opposed to simply extraction or extractivism. As an adjective suffix, -ary denotes a relationship to or of the noun it follows. In the same way planetary describes a wide range of concerns related to planets, extractionary relates to things broadly related to extraction, not just the physical act of taking from the Earth.