Sustainable Societies and Modern Christian Rationality: a look at the environmental movement in Porto Seguro-BA
Capitalism; environmental crisis; environmental management; social participation; modern rationality
Empirical evidence seems to render the existence of a global ecological crisis indisputable. A crisis which is troublesome to define, and which indicates socio-environmental losses on a global level, such as the rupture of planetary environmental limits, environmental racism and ecological disasters. It might be that human beings’ hegemony over the natural world is one of the main factors responsible for the current situation. Although it is complex to indicate the causes of such hegemony, a possible hypothesis suggests human’s modern rationality, with Judeo-Christian and enlightenment bases. According to this rationality, nature must be studied, unveiled, and subdued by humans which are allegedly superior to it. An understanding which legitimizes the right to exploit and maintain the present economical system, Capitalism, which prioritizes the accumulation of goods at the expense of humanity’s well-being. This exploitation is also possible through the alienation of the individual, herewith assumed as a psychosocial condition of identity and autonomy loss, at the individual and collective level. This process hinders the contrariety of the population moving towards a deeper reflection of their role in the management of natural resources. A detrimental interference to the process of Critical Environmental Education, of which its educational practice is founded on the emancipation and autonomy of various social actors, aspiring to build sustainable societies where citizenship and collective participation are non-negotiable values in the public environmental management. In this sense, Critical Environmental Education should provide the conditions for the development of the necessary abilities so that social groups in different socioenvironmental contexts exert pressure on the maintenance of the status quo. It is an educational aspect which manifests itself in favour of the effective participation of the population in socioenvironmental decisions and, it disagrees with the dichotomy established by modern rationality. It embraces Humanity and Nature as parts of the same ecosystem and, it understands the natural environment as the stage of social relations. Since public participation is fundamental for effective management of environmental resources and adopting Critical Environmental Education as the means of including various social actors in these spaces of decision making, this exploratory research, carried through the published data about the thematic of the environment – books, scientific articles – as well as throug