A Co-Created Methodological Approach to Address the Relational Dimension of Environmental Challenges: When Critical Legal Analysis Meets Illustrated Storytelling

Abstract

Environmental education research needs to take into account the relational dimension of the ecological challenges of our time. It requires the development of methodological techniques that prioritize community concerns, and generally foster positive relational dynamics of the research and study group. This leads to the construction of a research and educational approach around the collective and cocreated interpretation of stories related to ecological bonds and knowledge, and the adoption of illustrations enabling participation, inclusion, and interaction among the parties. Through the lens of critical legal analysis and participatory research, we explore the beneficial effects of cocreating knowledge with the help of a specific learning toolkit (LT), built around storytelling and designed to stimulate respectful relationships between participants. The LT addresses a wide audience of indigenous and local communities, students, and researchers. Founded on participated storytelling, collective interpretation, and illustration, the toolkit includes (1) the project cover, (2) an illustrated handbook based on an indigenous story, and (3) the illustration and conceptualization of a silent book. Through the interpretation of stories on the ecological bonds between humans and nonhumans, we analyze how the process of looking for common solutions to environmental threats makes participants reflect on their relational connection to the theme and each other. We also observe how the discussion generates a sense of responsibility that comes with bringing a new idea into being. The result is that both education and research become part of the solution to the challenge itself in the shape of a harmonious relational and transformative experience. The solution lies in the recognition of the individual and collective capacity to change systems by changing relationships. Only through a collective effort towards a common sense of relational accountability and trust we can heal the wounds of our planet, and our individual and collective wounds.