Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education 3031446747, 9783031446740

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN EDUCATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education

Ricardo Römhild

Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment Series Editors

Alan Reid Faculty of Education Monash University Melbourne, VIC, Australia Marcia McKenzie Graduate School of Education University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia

This series focuses on new developments in the study of education and environment. Promoting theoretically-rich works, contributions include empirical and conceptual studies that advance critical analysis in environmental education and related fields. Concerned with the underlying assumptions and limitations of current educational theories in conceptualizing environmental and sustainability education, the series highlights works of theoretical depth and sophistication, accessibility and applicability, with critical orientations to matters of public concern. It engages interdisciplinary and diverse perspectives as these relate to domains of policy, practice, and research. Studies in the series may span a range of scales from the more micro level of empirical thick description to macro conceptual analyses, highlighting current and upcoming turns in theoretical thought. Tapping into a growing body of theoretical scholarship in this domain, the series provides a venue for examining and expanding theorizations and approaches to the interdisciplinary intersections of environment and education. Its timeliness is clear as education becomes a key mode of response to environmental and sustainability issues internationally. The series will offer fresh perspectives on a range of topics such as: • curricular responses to contemporary accounts of human-­ environment relations (e.g., the Anthropocene, nature-culture, animal studies, transdisciplinary studies) • the power and limits of new materialist perspectives for philosophies of education • denial and other responses to climate change in education practice and theory • place-based and land-based orientations to education and scholarship • postcolonial and intersectional critiques of environmental education and its research • policy research, horizons, and contexts in environmental and sustainability education

Ricardo Römhild

Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education

Ricardo Römhild English Department University of Münster Münster, Germany

ISSN 2662-6519     ISSN 2662-6527 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment ISBN 978-3-031-44673-3    ISBN 978-3-031-44674-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44674-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: © Studioshots / Alamy Stock photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Meinen Großeltern

Thank You

On a global scale, the significant challenges of our times necessitate joint solution efforts. On a much smaller scale, personal challenges are also generally more quickly overcome and individual goals much easier achieved with the support of mentors, colleagues, and friends. Undoubtedly, this book, based on a doctoral thesis submitted and accepted at the University of Münster, Germany, is the product of such a joint effort. While this volume’s shortcomings and inadequacies are exclusively mine to own, a great number of people have had considerable influence on the finalisation of this project, and to them I owe my sincere gratitude. I want to express my deepest appreciation to my doctoral advisors, Prof. Dr. Frauke Matz and Prof. Dr. Laurenz Volkmann, for their excellent supervision, for their invaluable advice, and for their unwavering support. Thank you both for your guidance and inspiration, and for creating an atmosphere in which ideas can thrive. Thank you for helping me dream big and bringing me back down to earth when necessary. I also want to extend gratitude to the numerous guest experts from research and practice, who have given me their time and attention on one of our PhD days or on other occasions. Thank you, Prof. Dr. Bärbel Diehr, Prof. Dr. Uwe Küchler, and Dr. Jeff Share, for sharing illuminating insights and for delivering constructive criticism. Thank you, Prof. Dr. Gabriele Blell and Prof. Dr. Andrea Rössler, for allowing me the opportunity to present my ideas at the PhD colloquium and for challenging me with fantastic, thought-provoking questions. It is essential to acknowledge Prof. Dr. Dominik Rumlich in this context; thank you for your unique vii

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perspectives, for your support, and for being a great additional advisor since our quasi-adoption at the 2019 DGFF Youth Conference. I fully mean it when I say that this endeavour would not have been possible without the infinite support and encouragement of the English language education team at the University of Münster. Thank you, Stewart Campbell, Jens-Folkert Folkerts, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Julia Reckermann, Marius Ritter, Dr. Rebecca Schliekmann, Dr. Philipp Siepmann, Dr. Karoline Wirbatz, and Naime Zeineddine; and thank you, Alicia, Clarissa, Johanna, Letizia, Martha, Nicola, Phillip, Stephan, and Thomas! Words cannot express my appreciation to Dr. Daniel Becker and Dr. Stephan Gabel as well as Chris Wahlig and Amanda Halter for their eagle-eyed, extremely helpful proofreading, which has immeasurably improved this text. I am very grateful to Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment series editor Marcia McKenzie—for accepting my book proposal, for her feedback throughout the process, and for giving me the opportunity to publish the book in the series—and to Alice Green, editor for the education programme at Palgrave, for her support and guidance from the first day of this publication project. Every journey has to start somewhere. Therefore, I would like to extend a very special thanks to Prof. Dr. Michael Meyer for answering my call back in spring 2018, for providing orientation, and for encouraging me to choose a topic, which has only grown more significant to me over the past years. My first steps in academia are forever linked to Jun.-Prof. Dr. Roman Bartosch and his conference on Cultivating Sustainability—with the subtitle of my thesis and the title of this book being a nod to this event. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present my earliest ideas to an international audience and to receive invaluable feedback which helped me map a way forward in this project early on. While work on this study began in 2018, this project is part of a journey I embarked on in 2010. For starting this journey and for teaching me the art of paying forward, I will forever be grateful to Diane and Herman Martin. Likewise, my heartfelt thanks go out to Dr. Len Cagle, Prof. Dr. Werner Delanoy, and Dr. William Gaudelli, who, on various occasions, each placed extraordinary trust in a young researcher and educator, a virtual stranger, and thus created the foundation for immense personal and professional growth. Thank you for having me and for allowing me to learn with and from you. I will pay forward. It is impossible to overstate Anika Marxl’s contribution to every step of this project. Without your unique perspectives, highly critical, consistently

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accurate, eloquent, and incredibly constructive feedback, without your out-of-the-box ideas and our countless conversations, this would have been a vastly different study indeed. I could not have wished for a better PhD buddy. Thank you! Ein herzliches Dankeschön gilt auch meinen Eltern, Flori und Freya für Rückhalt, Ausgleich, Ermutigung und Bestärkung, fürs Korrekturlesen und Verzeichnisse Checken und für unzählige Corona-Spaziergänge. ~ To all of you, danke! Münster June 2022

Ricardo Römhild

Contents

1 Introduction: Perspectives from a Proleptical Position  1 2 Discourse and Language Education 17 3 Ecology and Citizenship 63 4 Documentary Film143 5 Eco-documentaries in English Language Education213 6 The Framework259 7 Conclusion:  Cultivating Global Citizenship Education Through Eco-documentaries in the English Language Classroom287 References295 Index337

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Abbreviations

EE EES ELE ELT ESD ESE GCE HRE ICC IPCC SDG

Environmental Education Education for Environment and Sustainability English Language Education English Language Teaching Education for Sustainable Development Environmental Sustainability Education Global Citizenship Education Human Rights Education Intercultural Communicative Competence Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sustainable Development Goal

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List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 6.1

A framework for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom 13 An outlook on the contribution to the framework by the discussion led in this chapter: key principles of language education for sustainable development 65 The walk within and the journey outside (based on Gaudelli, 2016; Jackson, 2019; Roemhild & Gaudelli, 2021) 137 An outlook on the contribution to the framework by the discussion led in this chapter: key principles of teaching and learning with eco-documentary films 145 An outlook on the contribution to the framework by the discussion led in this chapter: literacies involved in the learning process215 A framework for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom 265

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 4.1 Table 6.1

Antinomies of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries A film studies perspective: key insights on documentaries A film education perspective: key insights on teaching and learning with (eco-)documentaries

9 212 261

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Perspectives from a Proleptical Position

Elaborating on the concept of “disappointed hope” (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1972, p. 215) during his keynote lecture at Ruhrtriennale 2019, Homi Bhabha confronted the audience with a simple, yet excruciatingly intricate question: “In what kind of world do we want to live?” In doing so, Bhabha asks us as a society to put ourselves in a proleptical position. In other words, he invites us to take a position of anticipation which allows us to reflect on and identify where and what we are, where and what we want to be, and what we must change to get there and become that which is not (yet). Bhabha raises this question in the context of migration and the rights of refugees in the early twenty-first century, yet it could easily be reframed in the context of climate change—“the monumental problem of the 21st century, around which arguably every issue revolves, given its wide-ranging and devastating consequences” (Roemhild & Gaudelli, 2021, p. 104, in reference to Klafki, 1996). In the wake of the environmental turn, scholars in the humanities have acknowledged that the climate crisis can no longer be regarded exclusively as a crisis of the sciences. Mayer and Wilson emphasise that [the] environmental crisis in its various local, regional and global manifestations is, in fact, a cultural crisis. It is the result of modern socio-economic practices, put to use in both capitalist and socialist/communist political systems, which rest on concepts of nature and on ethical models of the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Römhild, Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education, Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44674-0_1

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­ uman-­ h nature interaction that have proven environmentally detrimental over time. (2006b, p. 1)

What becomes apparent in these words is an awakening in academic discourse—and beyond—to the effect that, in the context of climate change, Bhabha’s question requires societies to address the crisis both holistically and jointly: holistically, in that climate change and the environment need to be approached through various interdisciplinary angles of thought and action, including the sciences, humanities, arts, and languages; jointly, in that the global crisis necessitates global efforts towards solutions. Identifying today’s problems and corresponding elements in need of change leads to discussions that revolve around such concepts as the transformation towards sustainability through global interconnectedness and a sense of responsibility shared by a humanity bound together by risk (Beck, 1986). From a language educational1 point of view, assuming a proleptical position might yield insights on existing “roadblocks to quality education in a time of climate change” (Kwauk, 2020, p. 1) on three different levels. On a societal or macro-level, undoubtedly, this includes questions posed to (language) education and its role in preparing our youth to be drivers of this transformation as global citizens. This realisation is reflected in the increasing significance afforded to both education for sustainable development (ESD) and global citizenship education (GCE) as parts of what constitutes quality education in the twenty-first century, with both ESD and GCE shaping to become foundational educational paradigms the world over, including Germany. On a meso-level, it includes questions aimed at the contribution of each subject taught at schools, including English language education (ELE). As such, language education which subscribes to the task of educating global citizens can no longer exclusively ask what merit the inclusion of environmental issues into the curriculum has for the development of language literacies—for the phenomena discussed here are far too fundamental, ubiquitous, and dominant in the lifeworlds of today’s learners. Rather, it is time to invert the question. To evoke the spirit of John F.  Kennedy’s famous inaugural speech, it is time to stop 1  This book is written from the perspective of English language education, with learners in mind, whose first language is not English. More precisely, this book emerges from the German context. Its themes and discussions, however, might yield insights relevant to all language education.

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asking what sustainability can do for English language education and instead start asking what English language education can contribute to sustainable and environmental learning. Finally, on a micro-level, if learners are to assume active roles in shaping this world, they also need to be able to participate in, co-construct, and reflect on the global discourses surrounding them, particularly the global discourses on climate change. Considering the fact that these discourses are increasingly led in digital spaces, and factoring in disputes over the prerogative of interpretation in what could be labelled the “post-truth world” (Tesich, 1992, p. 13), this is not an easy task. With an abundance of seemingly positive, that is definitive, information, learners need to demonstrate a critical and reflected stance towards facts and positions existing in the discourses on climate change, including their own. In this context, eco-documentaries can be an exceptionally powerful means to foster these competences and literacies. Sitting at the intersection of discourses on climate change as a global, cultural issue and the debate surrounding factuality versus fiction, these texts invite learners to experience and explore, to immerse themselves in, and to reflect on the interconnections of sustainability, globalisation, and media.

The Case for Eco-documentaries in the Language Classroom With climate change having entered mainstream public discourse as what Cubitt (2005, p. 9) calls “the master narrative” of our time, there could not be a more compelling time to draw attention to eco-documentaries in the English language classroom.2 With documentary film experiencing an all-time high in popularity—thanks in no small part to technological evolution in terms of a generally high production value and easy accessibility via streaming platforms—environmental issues in particular have inspired some of the most widely received and successful documentaries over the past 15  years. Luc Jacquet’s nature film March of the Penguins (2005) attracted great interest globally and Davis Guggenheim’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006) was a landmark project that helped catapult environmental issues to the top of socio-political agenda. With climate change intensifying as a threat to humanity, even more attention has been devoted 2  Since this book focuses on eco-documentaries in the English language classroom, one rather profound limitation must be mentioned right at the start. This text only takes documentaries that are published in the English language into consideration.

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to questions of the environment and sustainability in documentary filmmaking, with almost every year in the past decade and a half witnessing at least one major publication. These films are commonly referred to as eco-­ documentaries (e.g., Weik von Mossner, 2014c). The term is used to refer to a sub-category of documentary film that deals with environmental issues such as climate change and its consequences. Other terms used to denote these films include environmental documentaries (Musser, 2015) or the umbrella term ecocinema (Willoquet-Maricondi, 2010a, Weik von Mossner, 2014c or Vaughan, 2018, p.  109). However, the term eco-­ documentary betrays a complexity and depth of a concept that does not allow for easy definitions. Therefore, the preliminary definition suggested in the following paragraphs serves as a baseline and point of reference. This definition will constantly evolve throughout the discussion as, for the moment, it primarily hinges on the distinction of eco-documentaries from other sub-categories of the documentary genre. Eco-documentaries and Nature Films Eco-documentaries qualify for what Willoquet-Maricondi calls ecocinema (see 2010a, p. xi; 2010c). She distinguishes ecocinema from environmentalist films, suggesting that the former has “consciousness-raising and activist intentions, as well as responsibility to heighten awareness about contemporary issues and practices affecting planetary health” (Willoquet-­ Maricondi, 2010c, p. 45). Environmentalist films, such as Erin Brockovich (Soderbergh, 2000) or The Day After Tomorrow (Emmerich, 2004), can also be described as “ideological agglomerations that draw on and perpetuate a range of contradictory discourses concerning the relationship between human beings and the environment” (Ingram, 2000, p. viii). Yet, Willoquet-Maricondi maintains that [the] overt eco-activist intent of ecocinema offers an alternative to more popularized mainstream 'environmentalist' fiction films, […] whose principal intent is to put a topical subject in the service of entertainment. While environmentalist films can have an impact on audiences' environmental values, the environmental themes in these films function primarily as backdrops to plot development, not as a call to action. (Willoquet-Maricondi, 2010a, p. xi)

Eco-documentaries are prime instances of ecocinema rather than environmentalist films because they are inherently equipped with what Nichols (2017, p. 50) calls the “voice” of a documentary, that is “a clear or at least

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identifiable ideological position” (MacDonald, 2016, p.  970). It is this voice that makes eco-documentaries “strive to play an active role in fostering environmental awareness, conversation, and political action” (Willoquet-Maricondi, 2010b, p. 10). If the only criterion for a differentiation of these films from other documentaries was their subject matter—the environment—then films like March of the Penguins (Jacquet, 2005) or the BBC series Planet Earth (Fothergill, 2006; Berlowitz et al., 2016) and Our Planet (2019) should also be taken into consideration in this book. Rather generally speaking, the term environmental documentary could serve as an umbrella term for these films. There is, though, one other distinction that needs to be drawn. While the latter group (including the BBC’s series) focuses on the worlds of plants, animals, and fungi, the former group (including An Inconvenient Truth and Before the Flood) focuses on the relationship between humans and the(ir) environment(s). Thus, throughout this book, the terms nature film, nature documentary, or wildlife documentary are used to refer to those films almost exclusively featuring flora and fauna. In contrast, the eco- in eco-documentaries implies human agency as it derives from ecology, the relationship between humans and the environment. Eco-, one could argue, carries ideology and human agency. Admittedly, nature documentaries are not free from ideology, far from it. Pastoral description and commentary as a common characteristic of nature films comes to mind as a prime example: In nature documentaries, even scenes of utmost brutality, like a hunt, tend to be presented and described as something divine, paradisiac. In eco-documentaries, nature is frequently victimised and portrayed as something weak that cannot protect itself—or the extreme opposite (floods, storms, and wildfires as expressions of the planet’s revenge). However, ideology assumes a different quality in eco-documentaries since the interaction between humans and the environment is key. In today’s socio-political climate, the use or, rather, selection of facts—a central element of what is commonly considered a documentary—may already result in positioning oneself (both filmmakers and recipients) on the (political) ideological spectrum. In a time when fact and opinion increasingly seem to merge, when acknowledging scientifically established facts seems to become an issue of political affiliation, questions of ideological positioning do not spare eco-documentary filmmakers: As cases in point, the docudrama The Age of Stupid (Armstrong, 2009) asks why humankind does not act against climate change, while Cool It (Timoner, 2010) sets out to refute what has been established as common knowledge on climate change by films like An Inconvenient Truth altogether. Aufderheide observes that

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[these] films [i.e., eco-documentaries; the author] strikingly contrast with the safari and Disney traditions in nature films because they focus on human action and interaction – not only with animals but with the ecosystems in which we all live. […] [They] give us models for new approaches to the stories of our environment. (2007, p. 121)

It is precisely because of this focus on human action and interaction with the surrounding ecosystems that Sir David Attenborough’s documentary, A Life on Our Planet, for instance, can be considered an eco-documentary rather than a nature film, in contrast to much of his earlier work. Since eco-documentaries highlight issues of ecology and sustainability, crucially, they not only touch on discourses about the environment (or nature) and (truth in) documentary films in general, as nature films would, but in addition, they also broach the cultural dimension of sustainable development—and with it, discourses in the field of global (citizenship) education. To further limit the selection of relevant films, it is necessary to disregard other types of documentary film, such as (extended) news reports (e.g., the Deutsche Welle production Climate Change: Europe’s Melting Glaciers, Hoffmann, 2019a, 2019b) or docudramas like the aforementioned The Age of Stupid (Armstrong, 2009). For reasons that will become apparent throughout the discussion, the primary focus herein is on feature-­ length films made for the big cinema screen with large, global audiences in mind. This choice is made even though it sidelines productions which could be labelled eco-documentaries, like Al Jazeera’s Oil in Our Creeks (Rasool, 2019) or #Film4Climate winner Three Seconds (Sharp, 2016). These films exclusively rely on online distribution or on a 360°-immersive, and therefore necessarily individual, viewing experience. However, digitalisation processes have not left cinema productions unaffected either. For instance, while the focus is indeed on feature-length films, these films are often embedded in an intertextual web of significance (Geertz, 1993) and set within a certain media milieu (Weber, 2019, p. 82). Thus, paratexts—(external) elements closely connected to the film proper—cannot be disregarded, for example, corresponding web presence or publicity campaigns. To allow for a more focused examination, only a handful of examples will be used throughout the discussion as points of reference. However, when- and wherever appropriate, other eco-documentaries and films may

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be used for further illustration. One of the most popular choices in scholarly discourse has been An Inconvenient Truth. When it was released in 2006, it quickly became the film of choice for many teachers in German classrooms (see, e.g., Küchler, 2009, Grimm, 2015). One could argue that more than a decade later, the time has come to include other, more contemporary films to the repertoire. Before the Flood, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet lend themselves for a plethora of reasons: Much like An Inconvenient Truth, the two films supplement their central messages with scientific facts, impressive cinematic imagery, and a personal narrative. Both documentaries condemn climate-effective human behaviour, advocate policy and far-reaching social changes, and put forth solutions that could lead to worthwhile discussions in the language classroom and even trigger action on a grassroots level. Released in 2016 (Before the Flood) and 2020 (A Life on Our Planet), respectively, the documentaries are suitable examples of ongoing digitalisation processes which have transformed documentary filmmaking in the early twenty-first century. The frame narratives surrounding the two protagonists and their respective stories, as well as the use of Hollywood-­esque cinematographic techniques, facilitate reflection on storytelling aspects of documentaries and the blurring boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. Working with these films invites learners to discuss the concepts of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ in documentary film. In a world in which digitalisation has become a cross-cutting reality of the learners’ lives, these eco-documentaries may prove to be powerful means through which learners can explore the way they acquire new information and which kinds of new information they obtain. Treating climate change as the global phenomenon that it is, by featuring stories from around the world, the two films also invite learners to reflect on their own roles in addressing the crisis as well as their own global interconnectedness and positionality within the discourse. As such, one could argue that eco-documentaries can be considered prime examples of texts to use in classrooms when it comes to the development of the ability to actively participate in global discourses on climate change—with the development of discourse literacies being the declared superordinate objective of language education in Germany (KMK, 2014, p. 11).

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An Antinomy of Teaching and Learning with Eco-documentaries The fact that eco-documentaries are highly complex texts also complicates their use in classroom settings, for educators soon face a dilemma caused by two seemingly contradictory learning objectives. On the one hand, eco-documentaries could simply be used as objects of investigation, serving to help learners reach the cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioural learning objectives, as advocated by ESD frameworks (for instance, [KMK], 2016 or UNESCO, 2017—see here particularly the goals associated with Sustainable Development Goal [SDG] 13 on p. 36). These typically aim at the promotion of sustainable lifestyles, learning about environmental processes and effects, and learning about global ecological connections and relations. These goals can generally be associated with an aspiration to educate global citizens, which includes cultural, social, economic, and ecological dimensions. In this context, eco-documentaries serve as sources of knowledge, inspiration, and motivation, and—in most cases—as canvases of environmental responsibility and justice. On the other hand, it has been a declared educational goal to help learners cultivate media literacies which aim at autonomous, critical, and reflected engagement with texts, arguably including films (e.g., KMK, 2014, p. 20). Thus, in the context of documentary films, the goal of critical media literacies has been widely acknowledged to include the development of an overtly critical stance towards the manipulative strategies used in these texts to lure the viewers into accepting and adopting certain (in the case of eco-documentaries: “green”) ideologies (e.g., Bredella & Lenz, 1994b, p. 7). To better describe and understand this dilemma theoretically, and thereby possibly open pathways towards a solution, Helsper’s (2002; 2007; 2010) concept of pedagogical antinomies proves helpful. The term antinomy is used to indicate “a discrepancy between two opposites which appears as incommensurable” (Volkmann, 2020a, p. 162)—as with this: Eco-documentaries can provide learners with access to the content matter, criticality, and general fabric of sustainability-related discourses; they can provide information and knowledge on climate change, thus helping students understand climate change as a global phenomenon, fathom its consequences and associated effects, as well as identify and reflect their own roles and positions within this discourse and the climate crisis as a whole. At the same time, however, learners are meant to dismantle the discursive

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strategies and critically analyse the positions of the given narrative in a way which may even diminish the effectiveness of the texts to achieve the general educational objective of promoting more sustainable lifestyles. Thus, eco-documentaries confront educators and learners alike with a host of connected pedagogical antinomies: Raising environmental awareness with these films as spaces of emotional involvement with the environment versus the development of abilities associated with critical film or media consumption, which aim at the dismantling of precisely those strategies used in the documentaries to promote emotional involvement. In other words, emotion is up against cognition and subjectivity (learners as feeling agents) against objectivity (learners as critical analysts). It could be argued that the opposition between goals commonly associated with ecoliteracies and film or media literacies in the language classroom translates to a field of tension between normativity and criticism. Eco-documentaries work normatively in the language classroom when employed to promote environmentally friendly ideology and corresponding worldviews. In doing so, educators use them to induce corresponding values and norms. This conflicts with the critical stance that prompts learners to investigate the truth value of facts presented in a given documentary and to question the normative ambition of a documentary. As such, one could also argue that construction—of worldviews via texts—confronts deconstruction of the same texts and worldviews. Table 1.1 sums up these juxtapositions. Table 1.1  Antinomies of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries The development of ecoliteracies and environmental awareness as a desired outcome of engaging with eco-documentaries

Critical film and media literacies and critical media consumption as desired outcomes of engaging with eco-documentaries

Normative or directive teaching for sustainable development and lifestyles (normativity)

Critical teaching against unquestioning acceptance of the film’s contents and messages (criticism)

Letting the documentaries unfold their full cinematic and emotional potential to support directive teaching for sustainability (emotion)

Questioning and unveiling emotionalising strategies employed in the films to support the development of critical film and media literacies (cognition)

Teaching approaches focusing on the subjective, emotional experience while viewing eco-documentaries (subjectivity)

Teaching approaches focusing on textual and formal analysis of eco-documentaries (objectivity)

Construction of viewpoints and worldviews via eco-documentaries

Deconstruction of the texts and worldviews portrayed in eco-documentaries

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Structure of the Book These antinomies and juxtaposed learning objectives crystallise in a set of questions. How can English language education support interaction between the learners and the world presented in eco-documentaries in a way that is conducive to ecological learning? Yet, at the same time, how can English language education enable learners to perceive the world presented in eco-documentaries as cinematically created? These questions sit at the heart of the discussion led herein. In the endeavour of contributing to the dissolution of these antinomies, this book aims at putting forth a practical, feasible, and theoretically robust concept for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries, which reflects the latest state of research in all relevant fields. To that end, this text is the result of a methodological approach associated with the spectrum of theoretical research. A theoretical approach is necessary for at least three reasons: • There is a research gap with regard to theoretical frameworks for environmental learning in language education, as identified by Uwe Küchler (2014, p. 23; 2021, pp. 64–65). This arguably extends to GCE-informed approaches to language education (see Chap. 3). • There is a research gap with regard to conceptual frameworks for teaching and learning with documentary films in the English language classroom, with only a small number of publications being devoted to this text form. Furthermore, the contributions available to the discourse seem to theorise documentaries primarily between the poles of normativity and criticism or do not yet consider pedagogical approaches that take into account the ongoing digitalisation of lifeworlds, such as multiliteracies pedagogy (see Chaps. 4 and 5). • Both points articulated above hint at the fact that eco-documentaries may be used in various complex ways in the English language classroom, which have not yet been investigated. This includes both environmental and global education as well as documentary film education, and, crucially, questions revolving around the i­ ntersections of these two areas in the context of global citizenship education and an orientation of learning towards societal and discursive participation.

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The approach followed here can be described as a critical analysis of existing constructs and concepts in line with the circular principles of hermeneutics in the tradition of Gadamer (1965). Given the inherent transdisciplinary character of the endeavour at hand, the processes of concept formation are informed by a variety of related disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, geography, literary studies, film studies, environmental studies, and educational studies. While it might seem a curious choice to conduct theoretical research in the midst of the empirical turn in language education as an academic discipline in Germany, it is made necessary by the conceptual scope, depth, and complexity of the question at hand, which renders empirical research impossible without being preceded and guided by a robust, thorough, and comprehensive engagement with eco-­ documentaries on a theoretical level. Practice-oriented language education does not only benefit from theoretical research but also depends on it as well, since progress in an academic field certainly necessitates both empirical and theoretical investigation. Only against the background of theories and concepts can the empirical evidence of phenomena be interpreted and explained. Education research needs theory formation to move the field along and, in doing so, to create more research opportunities for empirical work. This choice, however, poses some challenges regarding the structure of this thesis, which can be framed as caveats to the readers.3 The first challenge is that the issues dealt with in this volume are extremely complex. For instance, topics, concepts, and phenomena such as climate change, discourse and social participation, (cinematic) ecocriticism, literacies pedagogy, critical literacies, documentary, reality, genre, or indeed any other concepts and theories which have informed this book’s discussion have already had an extensive body of scholarly work dedicated to them. Given the limitations of this text, it cannot do justice to any of these complex topics or provide enough information to represent an even remotely comprehensive overview of these concepts. Choices must be made which may lead to abbreviated introductions to and overviews of relevant topics in some cases, particularly as this text attempts to balance 3  Much in the same vein as Misiaszek (2018, pp. 14–15) warns his readers of the same—in his words—“inadequacies” in Educating the Global Environmental Citizen.

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several deeply intertwined yet individually extremely expansive topics: sustainability, documentary, and language education. The second challenge is closely related to the first in that the considerable complexity of theories betrays close conceptual interconnectivity, for instance between questions having to do with sustainability, documentary, and citizenship education. However, this non-linear web of interrelations is at odds with the linear format of this—or any—book. A linear structure may even suggest hierarchies or sequencing where there are none. In researching, theorising, and writing, I have drawn inspiration from various authors and the way they structured their books in the face of vast complexity and interconnectivity of their approaches, including Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000[1970]), Hallet’s Fremdsprachenunterricht als Spiel der Texte und Kulturen (2002), Gaudelli’s Global Citizenship Education (2016), Misiaszek’s Educating the Global Environmental Citizen (2018), and Jackson’s Questioning Allegiance (2019), to name but a few. Most notably, this has resulted in the inclusion of various cross-­ references within the text and, wherever appropriate, brief summaries of key points serve as plateaus for further inquiry. It has also resulted in the somewhat unorthodox decision to attach to this introduction the outcome of my research, a design of a framework for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom (Fig.  1.1, p. 13), which will be explained successively in the course of the discussion. To that end, each chapter begins with an introductory section, in which an outlook on the respective part’s contribution to this framework is provided. Against the background of these caveats, the book’s structure thus presents itself as follows: Based on the recognition of the climate crisis as a cultural, political, and human rights crisis, this chapter, the introduction, seeks to invert the question what environmental studies and sustainability-related issues may contribute to English language education, and instead raises the question what English language education may contribute to the project of sustainability and global citizenship. Eco-documentaries are introduced as powerful means of learning in this context as three major discourses connect in these films: sustainability, (truth in) documentary, and global citizenship. Subsequently, this chapter identifies a set of antinomies in learning objectives, with the development of ecoliteracies, on the one hand (normative, affective goals), and the development of critical media/film literacy (critical, cognitive), on the other.

Fig. 1.1  A framework for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom

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Chapter 2 departs from the antinomies identified in the introductory chapter. To dissolve these potential tensions arising in the context of working with ecomedia in the language classroom, it discusses the development of an ability to critically participate in global discourses as the superordinate goal of English language education in Germany, and as its unique contribution to what is referred to as English language education for sustainable development in this volume. An examination of the points of intersection between discourse, education, and sustainability or documentary film, respectively, derives the central suggestion of this part: to view learning objectives associated with environmental learning and learning with and about documentary films not as opposing—as the antinomies imply—but rather as mutually complementing parts of the development of critical discourse literacies in the context of climate change. This forms the baseline for further, more detailed inquiry into environmental learning and learning with and about films in the subsequent parts. Against this background, Chap. 3 focuses on the first component of the central question, that is the environmental and sustainability-related aspects of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. In light of Küchler’s (2014, p. 23; 2021, pp. 64–65) call for a theoretical and methodological framework for environmental learning in the English language classroom, the sections in this chapter engage in a theoretical discussion of literary and cinematic ecocriticism, ecopedagogies, and ecoliteracies, as well as risk theory, to establish a conceptual foundation for such a framework. Applying these theories and concepts to language education within the context of the principles and objectives of both education for sustainable development and global citizenship education, the deliberations in this part culminate in an argument for a human rights-based, eco-­ cosmopolitan, critical vision of global citizenship education as a conceptual framework for English language education for sustainable development. This part concludes with a set of didactical principles and concrete implications for classroom praxis which are derived from these deliberations. Chapter 4 then provides an in-depth analysis of contemporary eco-­ documentaries from a film studies perspective. This is made necessary by commonly held beliefs that documentaries are either neutral information vehicles or cinematic manipulation attempts, both of which are indicative of conceptual simplification that seems starkly at odds with the complexity of this unique text form. As such, the chapter includes sections on theories revolving around indexicality, self-reflection in documentary film, and representations of reality within the field of tension between fiction and

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non-fiction, as well as genre and critical viewer response. On this basis, this part establishes an understanding of eco-documentaries as works of faction and multimodal designs of meaning-making, which present arguments about versions of reality rather than actually representing reality. It is in Chap. 5 that the insights gained in the film studies-guided analysis of the documentary form are applied to the educational context to answer questions about the current as well as potential use of eco-­ documentary films in the English language classroom. A survey of available film literacy models serves as a segue into more detailed examinations of the role of the learners as active participants in meaning-making processes when engaging with documentaries, the literacies involved as well as the learning process itself. Following a brief interim summary, which highlights key insights gained in the discussion thus far, Chap. 6 is dedicated to the process of designing the framework for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom (see Fig. 1.1). This includes a brief discussion of the theoretical methodology applied in the process of concept formation. This part takes up all the threads woven in the previous parts and interweaves them in order to answer the guiding question by means of a comprehensive concept, which is an expression of a multiliteracies and pluriliteracies-based approach to teaching and learning with eco-­ documentaries within the critical eco-cosmopolitan GCE-informed framework of an English language education for sustainable development. The final chapter, the Conclusion, summarises the key arguments, contextualises this contribution within the academic field of English language education, and points to (follow-up) research still in need of conducting.

CHAPTER 2

Discourse and Language Education

The antinomy described in the introduction implies the complexity of eco-documentaries as learning objects, which therefore demands adequate contextualisation in terms of education theory and associated educational goals, both with regard to environmental learning and learning with films. Upon first glance, the binary between normative educational objectives in environmental learning, on the one hand, and the development of a critical stance towards the constructedness of documentary films, on the other, may seem incommensurable. However, to approach a solution to this antinomy, the first central proposal of this book is to adopt another way of looking at this field of tension. Rather than focusing on the opposition of ecoliteracies and critical film or media literacies as mutually exclusive educational goals, this text proposes understanding both as integral parts of a broader, more comprehensive notion of discourse literacies associated with eco-documentaries in the digital age. A critical notion of discourse literacies hinges on the interplay of both critical and normative elements, as argued below. As such, the two literacy areas, ecoliteracies and film literacies, remain key objectives but are framed by the ability to actively participate in global discourses. In the case of the global discourses on climate change, the ability to participate in discourses necessitates both media or film-related and environmental aspects. To corroborate this suggestion, the following sections first elaborate on the development of discourse literacies as a general goal of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Römhild, Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education, Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44674-0_2

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language education. This discussion serves as a conceptual prerequisite for the formation of the design (Fig. 1.1, p. 13) and is based on an understanding of discourse literacies as presented by Marxl and Römhild (2023), who differentiate between structural and value-based elements of the ability to critically participate in discourses. Based on this general notion, the subsequent sections focus on discourse literacies in the context of education for sustainable development and education with and about (documentary) film, respectively.

Discourse Literacies as the Main Objective of English Language Education There seems to be a global awakening on pressing issues taking place in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, fuelled by two of its driving forces, globalisation and digitalisation. Worldwide communication, granted and amplified by the immediacy of the Internet, keeps spotlighting the inequalities and struggles of our times. The discourse on climate change demonstrates these dynamics in unique fashion with people all over the planet being affected and involved. It comprises an incomprehensible variety and number of positions and components. In recent years, global activism has attracted considerable media attention when Greta Thunberg inspired millions of people—most of them school and university students—to raise their voices on Fridays for Future demonstrations and call for political action. Next to activism, the discourse also comprises a rather normative dimension in the shape of political goals specified by the United Nations (UN) and other (non-)governmental stakeholders. There are, of course, scientific studies on climate, ecology, and sustainability, and there are also personal opinions, shared experiences, and ideas floating in the discourse. Relationships between climate and culture are ubiquitous, as Hulme notes, “for example, in social memories of past climatic extremes, in emotional moods, in technologies of adaption, in fiction, poetry and song, in narratives of blame, in dress codes and so on” (2017, pp. xiii–xiv). Eco-documentaries can be added to this list of discourse fragments as seemingly objective positions in a discourse increasingly characterised by emotionality, fierce argumentation, and irreconcilable juxtapositions. Recent years have witnessed a development in which taking a position in the discourse on climate change has become a question of political revelation. For example, the question as to whether or not one

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‘believes in climate change’ has arguably contributed to a division of societies in various countries across the globe (see, e.g., Garrard, 2021). Eco-­ documentaries serve as an illustration of these dynamics: By no means do these films represent a cohesive line of argumentation for the existence of an anthropogenic climate crisis (or at least a crisis amplified by human activity). Rather, several documentaries argue this exact point, voicing doubts on human influence on climate change or the fact that there is dramatic change at all, for instance The Age of Stupid (Armstrong, 2009) or Cool It (Timoner, 2010), the overwhelming scientific evidence notwithstanding. All these aspects are indicative of power dynamics and a high degree of value-orientation within discourses on climate change. Given this complex set of circumstances, it is not an easy task for anybody to survey the discourses on climate change, let alone participate in it—especially for English language learners, if the discourse is led in English as a lingua franca of global communication. If the development of an ability to actively participate in discourse may truly be considered a way of approaching the antinomies described earlier, the corresponding concept of discourse literacies therefore needs to acknowledge more than mere functional elements of being able to communicate in the English language: A definition of what it means to be able to take part in discourse needs to include the fact that power and values play important roles. In this sense, Pennycook’s call for a focus on “language in social contexts” is relevant, as it “goes beyond mere correlations between language and society, and instead raises more critical questions to do with access, power, disparity, desire, difference and resistance” (Pennycook, 2001, p. 5). This highlights the role of critical components which allow learners to navigate both aspects of power and value-orientation in the discourse on climate change. Towards ‘Critical’ Discourse Literacies In an effort to identify those components of discourse literacies which would render the whole concept inherently critical, Marxl and Römhild (2023) discuss and reconcile approaches to the notion that have already existed in parallel for a while. Examining the concepts of fremdsprachliche Diskursfähigkeit (literally translates as “foreign language discourse ability”; Hallet, 2008a), fremdsprachliche Diskursbewusstheit (literally translates as “foreign language discourse awareness”; Plikat, 2017) and symbolic competence (Kramsch, 2006, 2011, 2020), they arrive at two main areas

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which help define critical components of discourse literacies: The first area revolves around the development of an awareness of discourse structures; the second concerns values or a “moral compass” (Starkey, 2012, p. 10) as a point of reference for critical (self-)reflection. Since this understanding of ‘critical’ discourse literacies forms the basis of further discussion in this book, the following sections illuminate these two areas in more detail. For disambiguation, however, the text first addresses the use of the term ‘discourse literacies’ rather than the much more common term of discourse competence, which would best reflect the competence-oriented nature of the German educational guidelines for language subjects (KMK 2003, 2004, 2014).  iscourse Literacies: The Plural Matters D Agency and the capability as well as the willingness to take responsibility for one’s own (communicative) actions bear enormous significance when it comes to participating in discourse and societies. In this context, the broad scope of multi- and intertextuality as well as multimodality—that is a multitude of semiotic modes are involved—which characterise contemporary global discourses need to be taken into account. This, in turn, necessitates the mastery of multiple literacies which allow learners to experience and negotiate all relevant codes. In addition, Hallet (2008a, p. 88) explains that next to communicative capabilities, learners also need to master abilities associated with the identification of discourses, their initiation and active development, as well as critical reflection. This idea goes far beyond a narrow notion of competence. A narrow understanding of competence not only allows for a reduction of complex abilities to a set of skills, but it also permits the idea of completeness of learning. The idea that learning objectives could be checked off as complete at some point seems at odds with the complexity, variability, and dynamisms of contemporary discourses. In contrast, the notion of continuously expanding literacies accounts for this dynamism. In this context, Hallet (2016b, p. 183) argues that by moving beyond a focus on functional language use, a broader notion of competence directly corresponds with the concept of literacy. Developing competences or literacy, he explains, is not only about learners acquiring knowledge and skills, but it also includes acknowledging the relevance of knowledge and skills for their everyday lives, critically reflecting on them, and being able to apply them (Hallet, 2016b, p. 183). In other words, “being literate depends on mastering processes that are deemed valuable in particular societies, cultures, and contexts”

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(Warschauer, 1999, p.  1)—a definition of what is deemed valuable, of course, varies over time and space. With that in mind, Marxl and Römhild (2023) discuss multiliteracies pedagogy and the concept of literacies as a potentially suitable notion in the context of discourse participation. Further, Kalantzis, Cope, Chan, and Dalley-Trim explicate that [literacy] is not a matter of acquisition of technical communication skills. It is a process of learning how to make meanings that place individuals in the world, that change the world. Literacy is, as such, political; and critical literacy is an emancipatory practice in which one not only reads the ‘word’ but also the ‘world’. (2016, p. 179)

Highlighting the dynamics inherent to such a conceptualisation of literacies, Kellner and Share argue: “Literacy” in our conception comprises gaining competencies and awareness involved in effectively using socially-constructed forms of communication and representation. Learning literacies involves attaining competencies in contexts that are governed by rules and conventions. Literacies are socially constructed in educational and cultural practices involved in various institutional discourses and practices. Literacies evolve and shift in response to social and cultural change and the interests of elites who control hegemonic institutions. (2019, p. 4)

In line with Kellner and Share, the framework presented herein conceptualises competences as subordinate parts of a more complex notion of literacy. In this light, Marxl and Römhild (2023) refer to the German concept of Diskursfähigkeit as a conglomerate of various literacies. Following this line of argumentation, this text uses the term discourse literacies for three specific reasons: First, the ability to actively participate in discourses comprises multiple complex literacies simultaneously. In the case of eco-documentaries, one could argue that the two areas of sustainability-­related and film-related literacies are necessary parts of an overarching concept of discourse literacies. These areas, in turn, branch off into other literacy areas. Secondly, the term ‘discourse literacies’ is used to unmistakably express conceptual proximity to and affiliation with multiliteracies pedagogy, which focuses on processes of meaning-making, thereby empowering learners to actively participate in society (e.g., The New London Group, 1996). Being ‘world-literate,’ as it were, is key to participation in times characterised by immediate communication and

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powerful global discourses and can thus be regarded as an essential cultural technique of the twenty-first century. The significance of this approach to teaching and learning has been implied in the quote above and will be discussed in more detail throughout this text. Thirdly, the use of the plural form of literacy is deliberate, as it makes more explicit a dissociation from a narrow understanding of the term competence: In recent years, a commonly found translation of German Kompetenz has been literacy (see, e.g., Hallet, 2016b; Viebrock, 2016). However, it is not always clear if authors use the term literacy to denote a broader concept of competence or a narrower understanding of competence.  eveloping an Awareness of Discourse Structures D The first of the two areas of critical components of discourse literacies identified in previous research (Marxl & Römhild, 2023, p. 108) is the development of an awareness of discourse structures. These deliberations were informed by the different notions of discourse literacies suggested by Hallet (2008a), Hamann et al. (2016), and Plikat (2017), who, in turn, drew upon the theories of Foucault (1973), Habermas (1971), and Piepho (1974, 1979), as well as Freire (2018[1970]). The most central aspects of these theories can be summed up as follows: Foucault (1973) views discourse from a meta-communicative perspective. Discourses are described as social and cultural practices which shape socio-­ cultural relations and thus need to be deconstructed. Importantly, Foucault and later Fairclough (1989) highlight the strong connection of power and language in discourse. According to Foucault, discourse describes the entirety of positions and utterances on a topic. This understanding of discourse has repeatedly been referred to as Discourse (with a capital D) (see, e.g., Hallet, 2008a, p.  87). As such, Discourse (with a capital D) contrasts a linguistic notion of discourse (with a lower-case d), which refers to singular communicative acts (Hallet, 2008a, p.  87). To avoid confusion, this text recurs to the use of the term discourse fragment (see Altmayer, 2006, who uses the German term Diskursfragment) to denote singular communicative acts and uses discourse in reference to the broader, meta-communicative notion of socio-cultural practice in the sense of Foucault (1973). Another influential theorist in the context of discourse is Habermas, who distinguishes between communicative action in a system of norms and values from discourse as meta-communication in which these norms and values are being negotiated (1971, p. 117). Based

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on Habermas’ concepts, Piepho (1974, p. 13) introduced the notion of discourse proficiency (Diskurstüchtigkeit in the German original) to the context of language education, arguing that learners need to be able to communicate but also negotiate and assess the underlying rules of their communicative acts (Piepho, 1974, p.  13). Habermas’, Piepho’s, and Foucault’s deliberations have shaped contemporary concepts of discourse literacies. Based on their theories, Hallet, for instance, includes meta-­ discursive aspects in his concept, such as reflection of questions of power and underlying communicative rules (2008a, p. 87). There is, however, a third approach to discourse which contributes a much more radical and transformative dimension. Viewing discourse literacies through the lens of Freire’s (2018 [1970]) critical pedagogy approach means to be able to deconstruct discourses to reveal power imbalances, marginalisation, and discrimination. In this sense, Freire’s understanding of discourse literacies is akin to Fairclough’s and Foucault’s theories. Crucially, however, Freire’s concept is much more geared towards transformation on large, societal scales (i.e., external transformation). This adds a new dimension to currently existing notions of discourse literacies in language education in Germany. On this basis, Marxl and Römhild (2023, p.  109) have identified three central components in the area of developing an awareness of discourse structures: • the ability to identify and understand power relations within a discourse, which includes questions of accessibility and inclusion; • the ability to locate oneself and others in the discourse and critically reflect one’s own position in relation to other positions; • the ability to critically handle and judge information. Thus, to be critically discourse literate means to be able to both produce and understand discourse fragments in terms of their linguistic, cultural, content, and media-related dimensions. It also includes the ability to locate the positions of oneself and of others in discourses and, based on this, anticipate possible counter positions and arguments. In the context of discourses on climate change, for instance, this includes anticipating arguments against the existence of climate change. In terms of developing an awareness of discourse structures, these insights are the result of comparing and integrating existing approaches to discourse literacies in the German discourse.

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 uman Rights as a Value Base H What is still needed in this concept of discourse-structure awareness is a value base for learners’ critical (self-)reflection, which Marxl and Römhild (2023) have identified as a blind spot in current approaches to its development. In line with Plikat (2017) and guiding documents (e.g., KMK, 2016, p. 131, see here subject-specific competence 6.1), they advocate the integration of human rights as a normative meta-discourse, underlying every other discourse, which could then serve as the value base for the critical reflection of discourse fragments. According to them, this entails • the critical reflection and location of discourse fragments on the basis of human rights; • if necessary, the transformation of one’s own standpoint and opinions (i.e., internal transformation); • the assumption of responsibility for a discourse which not only acknowledges human rights but also aims at the preservation and promotion of rights for all (see Marxl & Römhild, 2023, p. 109). The adoption of human rights as an integral part of discourse literacies is not entirely unproblematic. For instance, prioritising a particular meta-­ discourse over other discourses needs to be regarded very critically from the perspective of Foucault’s deliberations. It is necessary to recognise that the choice of human rights as a moral framework might attract criticism in the sense that such education may be ideologically charged and indoctrinating. Essentially, there are two interconnected points of criticism relevant to the discussion led herein: one aimed at ideology, the other aimed at concrete legal questions. First, the concept of human rights has been accused of moral imperialism (see Bielefeldt, 1997) or of propagating Western values (see Hamilton, 2013). In a similar vein, other critics base their arguments against human rights as a dominant moral discourse on cultural relativism, calling for cultures to have the right to determine their own norms and values rather than being subjected to imposed value systems (see Osler & Starkey, 2018). However, as Plikat (2018, p.  53) points out, it is precisely this cultural relativism in contemporary concepts of cultures (as, for instance, Byram’s ICC; 1997, 2021) which renders human rights defying language and action tolerable in the first place. Second, from a legal perspective, human rights are a complicated choice in the context of climate change because its consequences are hardly ever

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legally prosecutable (e.g., Posner, 2007; Bodansky, 2010). This has to do with questions of power, authority, oppression, and government, among other things, in the sense that if human rights are truly universal and global, a sort of world government would be necessary to enforce human rights-related laws worldwide. In this context, much of the criticism against human rights can be traced back to the way individual nation states handle human rights violations. To enter discussion of human rights as a framework for individuals and their choices and actions in the context of climate change, Roemhild & Gaudelli (2021, p. 111) suggest approaching the issue from a perspective of human rights duties, such as the duty to respect, the duty to protect, and the duty to fulfil or facilitate satisfaction of the human rights of others (see also Knox, 2009, pp. 179–180). Keeping in mind that discourse literacies are being discussed within an educational context, the focus on human rights and associated duties ties in with the educational mandate in place. Due to the clearly normative nature of this educational task, the consideration of human rights as a value basis is actively warranted or even without alternative. Education is a moral act and in the context of teaching and learning with eco-­ documentaries, it is the discourse surrounding dignity and human rights in particular—for reasons discussed in Chap. 3 of this book—which may serve learners as a “moral compass” (Starkey, 2012, p.  10). This moral compass helps them to (re)consider their own standpoints, viewpoints, and opinions and, if necessary, to change them in an act of internal transformation as well as translate their awareness of discourse structures into active participation. Such an understanding of discourse literacies—one which includes critical components by default—is concordant with the goals of contemporary language education, in the sense that language education needs to be geared towards successful communication, openness, and reflexive participation in global discourses—which has gained particular significance in the current age of global challenges. This includes the abilities to evaluate social dynamics and correlations, develop and communicate one’s own standpoint, and critically reflect on one’s own (communicative) actions. As such, being critically discourse literate encompasses not only developing an awareness of the origins, perspectives, and purposes of knowledge and discourse fragments but also being able to critically reflect on one’s own as well as others’ discourse fragments on the basis of human rights as a moral compass. It needs to be emphasised that this does not neglect the important functional-communicative capabilities to be able to express

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oneself, which still form the foundation for the development of discourse literacies. Discourse Literacies and the Ideal of Bildung Current political guidelines for language education in Germany seem to promote a different notion of discourse literacies, namely one that focuses more on functional-communicative skills rather than on a broader, critical understanding. The national educational standards (Bildungsstandards; [KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2003, 2004, 2014), which are the relevant guidelines in this context, define discourse literacies as [an] ability of comprehension and communication, which is expedient in terms of content, sensitive with regards to language, nuanced, and appropriate as regards both the addressee and the situation. It comprises important intercultural competences, which, in the educational context, are being developed along with communicative competences in the context of engaging with topics, texts and media. ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2014, p. 11; author’s translation)

This definition remains rather opaque, for instance, with regard to the meaning of ‘appropriateness,’ which could arguably be interpreted solely in terms of pragmatics. As such, it does not rule out a strictly functional reading of discourse literacies. Strictly following this definition, it would already suffice to make successful contribution to discourse if learners had something to say and were able to express their thoughts. While this outcome would not qualify a learner as being critically discourse literate, with regard to the discussion led above, it might be indicative of more general criticism raised against educational standards that are rooted in a notion of education which no longer reflects the complex circumstances of the twenty-first century and the new requirements associated with these. According to Zydatiß (2010, pp. 62–63), the educational standards are characterised by high degrees of reductionism in at least two regards. First, scholars have pointed out that the educational standards ignore the personal development, orientation, and abilities of critical judgement and reflection (see, e.g., Zydatiß, 2008, p.  17; Gerlach, 2020, p.  18), which education—understood in the sense of German Bildung, tracing

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back to Humboldt’s neo-humanistic ideals—includes. It is precisely this set of critical, reflective aspects that are paramount in today’s world and its discourses, and which mark the difference between what Ayers (2010, pp. 150–151) calls “true education” and “mere training.” He argues that education “is bold, adventurous, creative, vivid, illuminating—in other words, education is for self-activating explorers of life, for those who would challenge fate, for doers and activists, for citizens,” whereas training is characterised by a lack of criticality, “for loyal subjects, for tractable employees, for willing consumers, for obedient soldiers.” In the context of language education, Heidt (2015) observes: Today, greater international mobility, transnational residency, large scale migrations, and new technologies are facilitating communication across national borders, thus transforming the structure and function of language. Hence we are confronted with language that is historically, socially, and culturally layered because of its mobility across various time and space-scales. Those layers are constantly re-contextualized at an incredibly high speed in online spaces (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, What’s App, YouTube), in the streets of multilingual cosmopolitan cities (e.g., transgressive graffiti, linguistic landscapes, street performers) or on TV (e.g., hip hop, stand-up-comedy, poetry slams). (Heidt, 2015, p. 10)

This complexity of various layers adds to an understanding of education the important aspects of multimodality and multiliteracies as well as agency and transformation. The second point of criticism geared towards the educational standards concerns their general prioritisation of functional competences over cultural, methodological, critical, and reflective abilities1 (Grimm et al., 2015, p. 13; see also De Florio-Hansen, 2008, p. 62; Rössler, 2008; Volkmann, 2020b, p.  33). According to Zydatiß (2008, p.  14), this focus on functionality may be explained by the fact that the educational standards follow a rather functional interpretation of Weinert’s (1999) notion of competence and, thus, a pragmatic theory of education in the sense of Baumert (2002). As a result, communicative competences are being scaled down to skills (Hallet, 2012, p. 8). 1  These objections largely originate from the perspective of scholars working in the field of literature pedagogy. They warn against a “de-culturalisation” (see, e.g., Rössler, 2008) and a displacement of contents related to target cultures, to the benefit of a functional-pragmatic orientation towards output (Rössler, 2008; Grimm et al., 2015, p. 176).

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It is this coherent focus on functional-communicative competences, rather than a broader notion of critical, reflexive, transformative literacies, which renders the KMK’s educational standards insufficient for preparing learners when it comes to participating in the complex, global discourses of the twenty-first century. As such, these documents cannot form the basis for further discussion of discourse literacies in this book. Rather, education that is geared towards transformation (both external, on a societal level, and internal, on a personal level) and active participation calls for an understanding of discourse literacies which is inherently critical, (self-) reflexive, and transformative. It is this understanding of discourse literacies that is recognised here as the main objective of language education and which informs the discussion of discourse literacies in the context of both ESD and education, with and about film, as carried out in the next sections.

Discourse Literacies and Education for Sustainable Development When it comes to the content matter of eco-documentaries, that is issues arising in the context of the relationship between humans and their environments, an understanding of discourse literacies and education, as laid out in the previous section, is significant in at least two respects. First, the idea of developing a critical and (self-)reflexive awareness of discourse structures may be particularly important in the context of the global discourse on climate change, with its innumerable positions and counter positions of both scientific and non-scientific nature. Second, the inclusion of human rights as a value-based meta-discourse, which functions as a moral compass, allows learners to position themselves and others in this discourse not only structurally but also normatively. This observation warrants a closer inspection of discourse literacies in the context of ESD. In recent years, ecological issues and the climate crisis have emerged from their niche existence in German curricula for ELE and thus been integrated more consistently as compulsory content matter to be dealt with in the classroom. The consistent integration of environmental issues in the curricula reflects the existential challenges posed by climate change and the enormous efforts required by humanity as a whole to mitigate the crisis. Undoubtedly, education is key to this (Kwauk, 2020, p. 2). Against this background, two related lines of thought intersect in this section. First, it corroborates the integration of environmental issues into

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language learning as demanded by, for instance, Mayer and Wilson (2006b, p. 1) and as realised in more recent iterations of curricular guidelines for ELE in Germany. However, in resonance with environmental educator David Orr’s explicit premise that “all education is environmental education,” (1990, p. 49) and in anticipation of the inevitable publication of revised editions of relevant national and international guidelines in the coming years, this section also considers the suggestions made by authors like Buell (1999, p. 699) or Roemhild and Gaudelli (2021, p. 114), to afford ESD and its principles even more prominence in all subjects taught at schools (and beyond) so as to ensure all-round quality education in times of the climate crisis. Therefore, this section promotes the consideration of ESD as a fundamental, cross-cutting approach to teaching and learning English. In this light, engaging with ecomedia could be regarded as one possible way to contribute to sustainability education in the English language classroom. This is where the second line of thought interweaves with the first. With regard to eco-documentaries as this book’s objects of investigation, it is necessary to contextualise the use of these films in the English language classroom within the broader concepts of ecopedagogy and ESD to identify central learning objectives when dealing with eco-­ documentaries as “eco-artefacts” (see Deetjen & Ludwig, 2021b, p. 17; Summer, 2021a). To this end, the following sections discuss the development of discourse literacies in the language classroom as an educational goal which is highly compatible with the targets of sustainability education. Sustainability as a Cultural Discourse The basis of further inquiry into the use of eco-documentaries in educational settings is the acknowledgement of climate change and sustainability as cultural discourses. In their introduction to the seminal volume Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Language, Literatures and Cultures, Mayer and Wilson argue that [the] classic objectives of environmental education – the creation of awareness and concern about the environment, the creation of environmental knowledge and the acquisition of skills to identify, evaluate and solve environmental problems – must also be reached by means of education in the various disciplines of the humanities, among them the fields of language teaching, literary and cultural studies. (2006b, p. 1)

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The necessity to consider sustainability-related issues in subjects other than those for which this topic appears inherently appropriate (e.g., the sciences or geography) is further substantiated by the work of Mike Hulme. In Weathered, he argues that “climate – as it is imagined, studied and acted upon – needs to be understood, first and foremost, culturally” (2017, p. xii). Hulme’s notion of climate and climate change goes far beyond both purely physical and anthropological examination. He elaborates that “climate has a cultural geography and history which is interwoven with its physical geography and history. This geography and history of climate forms the substrate out of which contemporary beliefs, claims and disputes about climate-change emerge today” (Hulme, 2017, p. xiii). Hence, in educational contexts, learners therefore need to be prepared to access and navigate the discourses surrounding issues of ecology and sustainability, which they will eventually have to actively shape as cultural agents. Here, language education can make a substantial contribution, without disregarding or relegating the scientific literacies necessary to participate in climate change-related discourses but by instead promoting transdisciplinary approaches in education. Bartosch and Ludwig (2022, p. 7), for instance, stress the “very specific potentials of language and literature pedagogy” and suggest that ELE “take the lead when it comes to the cultural dimensions of climate.”  genda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals A Globally, two of the most influential and significant stakeholders in the discourse on sustainability are the United Nations (UN) and, when it comes to education, UNESCO. The genesis and development of global climate-related efforts, most of which have been orchestrated under the patronage of the UN, have been well documented (see, e.g., Sant et al., 2018, pp.  154–158). Watershed moments include the summit in Stockholm in 1972, which sparked the submission of the so-called Brundtland Report ([UN] United Nations, 1987), the UN’s Agenda 21: An action plan for the twenty-first century ([UN] United Nations, 1992), as a result of the Rio conference in 1992, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, and the COP 21 Paris Agreement succeeding the Kyoto Protocol in 2015, which also assumes a prominent role in Before the Flood. At the moment of finalising this book, the most recent and comprehensive UN guideline is the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ([UN] United Nations, 2015b), which specifies 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as an

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advancement of the eight Millennium Development Goals declared by the UN in 2000 (see [UN] United Nations, 2015a). The concept of sustainable development was first introduced and defined in the Brundtland Report as a “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” ([UN] United Nations, 1987, p. 39). This generally accepted definition revolves around the fight against poverty and environmental devastation (Jarvie, 2014; Sant et  al., 2018, p.  154). The current SDGs may also be interpreted in this light,2 as the preamble to the 2030 Agenda reiterates: “We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet” ([UN] United Nations, 2015b, p.  3). The scope of these goals becomes even more apparent in the following words: The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets which we are announcing today demonstrate the scale and ambition of this new universal Agenda. They seek to build on the Millennium Development Goals and complete what they did not achieve. They seek to realize the human rights of all and to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. They are integrated and indivisible and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental. ([UN] United Nations, 2015b, p. 3)

When it comes to the realisation of these goals, education plays a key role. The link between education and sustainable development was first established in Agenda 21, and nowadays ESD is a well-established concept. It refers to “a set of processes, pedagogies and practices which seek to ensure that education systems are responsive to, and prepared for, current and emerging sustainable development challenges” (Mochizuki & Bryan, 2015, p. 5). As such, ESD is “a collection of diverse disciplines, like climate change, the management of the effects of social and economic changes, environmental economics, and so on” (Grosseck et  al., 2019, p. 2). Since the three domains, the economic, the social, and the environmental, are indivisible and mutually reinforcing, ESD may be regarded as 2  While the Agenda 2030 SDGs may be interpreted in light of the Millennium Development Goals and their focus on fighting poverty, the SDGs represent considerable advancement in that they also acknowledge poverty in industrialised countries (the ‘Global North’), expanding their focus beyond poverty, to include education, global warming, infrastructure, nonhuman species, and political institutions.

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a holistic approach to education, which involves “the integration of major sustainable development issues into all teaching and learning strategies” (Grosseck et al., 2019, p. 3). Associated target competencies involve critical thinking, systematic thinking, self-awareness, and problem-solving (Grosseck et al., 2019, p. 3). The current Agenda 2030 assigns education a prominent spot by including it among the 17 SDGs. As a means of working towards sustainable development, SDG 4 (Quality Education) is to “[ensure] inclusive and equitable education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” ([UN] United Nations, 2015b, p. 19). Goal 4.7 specifies aspects and indicators of this target, SDG 4.7: by 2030 ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development. ([UN] United Nations, 2015b, p. 19)

This definition serves as a directive to the use of eco-documentaries in the English language classroom, as it identifies global citizenship, human rights, and the appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development as core elements of what constitutes quality education. SDG 4.7 establishes the inseparable link between sustainability and human rights, leaving no doubts about climate change being a question of dignity—even though a more pointed formulation such as ‘climate change’ or ‘climate crisis’ is omitted in SDG 4.7, as Roemhild and Gaudelli (2021, p. 105) remark critically. Therefore, literacies developed in learning processes with eco-documentaries, such as in the field of cultural learning, may be considered essential aspects in an effort to contribute to future sustainable development. A concept of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries needs to abide by these principles and work towards the realisation thereof. Relevant indicators as specified by the [UN] United Nations (2018) and as listed by Kwauk (2020, p. 6) to identify SDGs, referencing climate change and education or ESD, include 4.7.1: the extent to which (I) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development, including gender equality and human rights,

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are mainstreamed at all levels in (a) national education policies; (b) curricula; (c) teacher education; and (d) student assessment; 4.7.4: the percentage of students by age group (or education level), showing adequate understanding of issues relating to global citizenship and sustainability; 4.7.5: the percentage of 15-year-old students showing proficiency in knowledge of environmental science and geoscience.

Kwauk (2020, p. 6) identifies two other immediately relevant SDGs, apart from SDG 4, which reference climate change and education, namely SDGs 12 and 13: SDG 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. SDG 12.8: By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature. SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. SDG 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising, and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning.

The repeated reference to global citizenship and human rights corroborates an understanding of sustainability as a cultural discourse, which goes beyond a purely scientific interpretation of sustainability-related issues such as climate change. Therefore, in terms of guidelines, these goals are highly relevant in the creation of a framework for the use of eco-­ documentaries in the language classroom. However, regarding the (scientific) content of these films, other SDGs must also be taken into account in ensuing classroom discussions as well, for instance, SDG 6 (clean water), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 9 (industry innovation), SDG 11 (sustainable cities), SDG 14 (life below water), and SDG 15 (life on land).3

3  In a publication specifically designed for educational purposes, UNESCO (2017) specifies cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioural learning objectives associated with each of the 17 SDGs. For instance, the first cognitive learning objective for SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities, reads, “The learner understands basic physical, social and psychological human needs and is able to identify how these needs are currently addressed in their own physical urban, peri-urban and rural settlements” (UNESCO, 2017, p. 32). These goals may serve as additional planning guidance for educators.

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Sustainability in Language Education in Germany In recent years, ecopedagogical approaches have gained traction in the field of language education in Germany, and in ELE in particular. Ecopedagogies4 can be described as educational efforts to develop in learners an awareness for the necessity of sustainable action as well as the corresponding abilities to act by means of a global, transcultural, and environmentally focused orientation of teaching and learning topics, contents, and approaches (see, e.g., Volkmann, 2014, p.  48). Inspired and influenced by the emergence of ecocriticism in the 1990s,5 scholars like Sylvia Mayer and Graham Wilson (see their seminal volume Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Language, Literatures and Cultures, 2006a), Uwe Küchler (2006, 2009, 2010, 2011a, b, 2014, 2016, 2021) and Bartosch (2018, 2019, 2020a, b, c, 2021a Bartosch & Grimm, 2014a) have been instrumental in introducing and expanding ecopedagogical perspectives to the German discourse on ELE.6 In some cases, academics display a tendency to favour an understanding of ESD which is motivated by scholarly work such as environmental, animal or health studies—this can be observed both in the German discourse and on an international level, as was found in a bibliometric analysis of ESD conducted by Wright and Pullen (2007). In these cases, authors sometimes use terms such as environmental education (EE) to refer to a more nature-focused notion of ESD.  The distinction between EE and

4  In Germany, this is sometimes referred to as ecodidactics (Garrard, 2014, p. 9; see also, e.g., Mayer & Wilson, 2006a; Basseler, 2014). Here, the plural form serves as an umbrella term for all educational approaches concerned with environmental or ecological issues. Misiaszek defines ecopedagogies as “transformational environmental pedagogies centered on ending socio-environmental injustices” (Misiaszek, 2018, p. 3). Misiaszek’s understanding of ecopedagogies is examined in more detail in Chap. 3. Ecopedagogies include, for instance, environmental education and education for sustainable development. 5  One of the first definitions of ecocriticism is provided by Cheryll Glotfelty who, in The Ecocriticism Reader, defines it as “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (1996, p. xviii). For a more comprehensive discussion of ecocriticism, ecopedagogy, and associated literacy areas, see Chap. 3. 6  Other notable contributions were made by Garrard (2012c), Volkmann (2012; see also Volkmann et al., 2010), Deetjen and Ludwig (2021a), Bartosch and Ludwig (2022), and the contributors to Surkamp (2022) edited volume. Teacher journals also offer a wealth of material fit for practical use (see, e.g., Basseler, 2014; Summer, 2021b).

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ESD,7 however, is debated amongst scholars, as Briggs et  al. (2018) ­highlight. They note that “EE and ESD are characterized either as overlapping concepts or as two distinct philosophies” (2018, p. 1644). As a case in point, Nomura (2009, p. 621) argues that “ESD can only take an anthropocentric approach unlike EE” (see also the section on criticism against ESD below), whereas Mayer and Wilson (2006b, p. 1b) regard EE as a key component of ESD. Regarding the use of eco-documentaries in the language classroom, with their inherent focus on human-environment-­ interactions, these films arguably lend themselves for approaches associated with ESD.  On the other end of the spectrum, nature/wildlife documentaries would perhaps also be eligible for categorisation in environmental education. In any case, the boundaries are blurry and if one were to draw distinctions, these would depend on the actual approach, discussion topics, and associated learning goals in place. However, when it comes to the definition of learning objectives in the context of eco-­ documentaries, or rather the labelling thereof, the distinction between EE and ESD is also mirrored in the use of different designations for the target literacies. The academic discourse floats a variety of terms, including ecoliteracies (or ecological literacy, see, e.g., Orr, 1990, 1992; Capra, 1995; Stone & Barlow, 2005), environmental literacy (e.g., Stables, 1996, 1998, 2006), climate change literacy (e.g., Miléř & Sládek, 2011; Johnston, 2020; Hoydis et  al., 2023), and sustainability literacy (Stibbe & Luna, 2014) (for a more detailed discussion and distinction between various concepts of environmental literacies, see Chap. 3). The intricacies of these terms deserve to be discussed in more detail, since the definition of target literacies, associated with the use of eco-documentaries in the language classroom, bears great significance on how the concept for teaching and learning with these films could be designed. At this point, however, it is safe to say that the common denominator of ecological, environmental, and climate change literacies is an understanding of the term literacy, as defined by UNESCO: Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals 7  See Beckford (2021) for a discussion of further versions of ecopedagogies, including environmental education (EE), education for sustainable development (ESD), environmental sustainability education (ESE), and education for environment and sustainability (EES).

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to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society. (2004, p. 13)

While the first part of this definition reflects a narrower understanding of literacy (being literate in the traditional sense of being able to read and write) and may therefore need to be expanded in the sense of a broader notion of literacy, comprising all sorts of processes that are “deemed valuable in particular societies, cultures, and contexts” (Warschauer, 1999, p. 1), it is the second part which is particularly noteworthy. UNESCO’s definition includes a strong focus on active social participation. In this sense, interpretations of relevant literacies seem to be compatible with the understanding of literacy as represented by scholars in the field of multiliteracies pedagogy (e.g., The New London Group, 1996). What also becomes apparent is close conceptual proximity of this understanding of literacy to Kip Cates’ (2004) seminal definition of global education, which includes knowledge, skills, attitudes, and—crucially—action. What exactly is meant by ‘action,’ however, remains a point of discussion. It might refer to eco-activism, as intended by ecocinema (see Willoquet-Maricondi, 2010b, p. 10), which means that learners are importuned to take part in the global Fridays for Future demonstrations, for instance. On the other hand, one could argue that it might refer to other forms of active participation, some of which are perhaps more immediately reconcilable with the overall objectives of contemporary language education, that is active (communicative) participation in local and global sustainability- and climate change-related discourses. Returning to the question as to which denomination (ecological, environmental, or climate change literacy) is best suited to describe ESD-related learning objectives, let it suffice at this point to designate ecoliteracies as the term used to refer to all abilities desirable in terms of ESD, which can be developed by using eco-­ documentaries in the classroom. For the sake of establishing a baseline for further discussion, this choice is made in reference to the terminological and conceptual proximity to ecology as the characteristic focus of eco-­ documentaries—as opposed to an ever so slightly implied focus ‘only’ on the natural environment. Environmental and climate change-related literacies may well be included in a notion of ecological or ecoliteracies, which already proves to be broad enough in scope. In Germany, the development of ecoliteracies is framed by a small number of policy guideline documents, the most notable of which is the Curriculum Framework for Education for Sustainable Development

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([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2016). This document is of national relevance and aims at implementing a national strategy in the education sector, with the intention of realising the UN’s Agenda 2030 and the SDGs ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2016, p. 16). The Framework defines “education targets, guiding principles, competencies and theme areas” ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2016, p. 18) and identifies “eleven core competencies in the fields of Erkennen (Recognising) – Bewerten (Assessing) – Handeln (Acting), to which various competencies of school subjects refer, which are relevant for the learning area” ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2016, p. 18; emphasis in original). These words make apparent that ESD is understood as a transdisciplinary approach, which is governed by the following five guiding principles: • orientation at the fundamental principle of sustainable development • analysis of development processes on different levels of action • appreciation of diversity • ability to change perspectives • context- or Lebenswelt (lifeworld)-orientation ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2016, p. 18) In the spirit of the framework’s ambition to include all subjects as relevant for ESD, it also applies these principles to language education. In fact, a special edition of the document for the language subjects English, French, and Spanish ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2017) even exists. These guidelines need to be considered, particularly when identifying the literacy areas that are part of ecoliteracies (see Chap. 3) or in designing learning progressions, which allow learners to cultivate ecoliteracies.

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Criticism of Education for Sustainable Development Before conclusively tying ESD to language learning and vice versa, it is important to address recurring points of criticism that have been raised with regard to the concept of sustainable development and the corresponding notion of an education for sustainable development. In the context of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries, particularly three concerns are of interest, which are aimed at • the too neo-liberal connotation of the term ‘development’ in the UN’s definition of sustainable development and the SDGs, • the idea of sustainability education being too normative, and • the whole concept of ESD and sustainable development being anthropocentric.  he SDGs and ESD Exhibit Too Strongly a Neo-liberal Focus T First, the SDGs and ESD face the charge of bias regarding the levels of sustainability because they mainly focus on the economic level rather than the social and ecological ones. Consequently, there is an imbalance of the three ‘pillars’ of sustainability. This criticism is raised, for instance, from the field of environmental studies, where authors have pointed to the economic connotation of the term ‘development,’ which goes hand in hand with an instrumentalised notion of nature, the imperative of (economic) progress and growth, as well as “the expectation of technoscientific solutions to ecological problems” (Bartosch, 2021b, p. 3). This tendency can also be observed in the strong focus on development in the five guiding principles governing Germany’s curriculum framework for ESD (see [KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2016, p. 18). The notion of ‘development’ is not helpful in addressing the fundamental problems of today’s ecological phenomena of crisis, as has been argued by numerous authors (see, e.g., Jickling & Sterling, 2017; Selby, 2017; Misiaszek, 2018; Ideland, 2019; Dhara & Singh, 2021). It is precisely for these reasons that Misiaszek (2018, p. 10) distinguishes between capitalised and lower-case writing of Education for Sustainable Development/education for sustainable development, indicating that capitalisation signifies hegemony and top-down power relations, while the lower-case version signifies empowerment and bottom-up transformative praxis. This distinction also serves as guidance for this text, which, for example, is expressed in the use of

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lower-case in English language education for sustainable development (see below) and human rights education (HRE; see Chap. 3) (with the exception of the abbreviated forms ESD and HRE). From the perspective of social studies and global citizenship, scholars like Hayward (2012, p. 9) warn that “our sustainability crisis is a complex, multifaceted series of dynamic problems that we cannot address independently. In this sense, our sustainability crisis is also a deep political crisis.” Roemhild and Gaudelli (2022) link the strong neo-liberal focus of the SDGs to nation-statism, arguing that this correlates with a fragmentation of efforts which thwarts truly global efforts towards mitigating a global crisis. Given the current prioritisation of the state system, the SDGs may be described as “good (enough) for now” and as a useful platform to move forward. However, in light of the fundamental criticism of this neo-­ liberal (and with it, a nationalist) understanding of sustainability, it might prove beneficial to advocate for a more balanced approach to sustainability education. In this sense, Räthzel and Uzzell’s (2009) warning might apply, which is not to assume a “neutral application of the concept of sustainable development to education, particularly if the goal is to promote lasting and systemic change” (quoted in Sant et al., 2018, p. 158). This leads to the next point of criticism, as pre-emptively voiced by the German Ministry for Education and Research on their website, explaining the concept of ESD (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, n.d.).  ducation Is Being Instrumentalised for Ideological Reasons E On the German language website, the Ministry for Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, n.d.) asks, “But why education? Would stricter laws not be much better suited for enforcing the general conditions for sustainable development? And is there not the danger of instrumentalising education for a specific topic?” This query posed by the ministry aims at the heart of what constitutes quality education, also touching on the issue of normativity in education. To address the first part, it would be logical to assume that stricter laws might facilitate change, and in fact, protesters around the world keep demanding more comprehensive and rigorous environmental legislation from their governments. With the SDGs being the outcome of political summit meetings and debates, it seems reasonable to conclude that the Agenda 2030 was also meant to guide national policy makers towards more sustainable legislation. However, Sant et al. (2018, p. 158) point out that “the original policy-focused idea of sustainable development actually

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conceals deep value conflicts in communities in order to find policies that can encourage economic development.” Stricter laws alone cannot address deeper socio-cultural issues that prevent true transformation from happening in a broader scope. What is needed is an awareness and recognition of the necessity for change within societies. This is where education comes into the equation, as a means of multiplying values. The German Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, n.d.), for example, suggests that apart from the acquisition of content knowledge, it should also be the goal of quality education to help learners develop competences needed to shape their own environments. As the ministry maintains, quality education as such goes beyond factual knowledge and enables everyone to cultivate abilities such as progressive thinking, interdisciplinary knowledge, autonomous action, and participation in societal decision-making processes. This description ties in with the general education objective of the development of discourse literacies. However, the question remains as to whether or not education is being instrumentalised for green ideological reasons, that is for an ecological, anti-neo-liberal agenda. In answering this question, it is paramount to keep in mind that education is necessarily a normative act. Given the understanding of education discussed in the previous section, critical elements inherently pervade all levels and types of education (see, e.g., Matz, 2020, p. 53). Following the line of argumentation presented by Marxl and Römhild (2023) in the context of critical discourse literacies, this necessitates the consideration of a value-based meta-discourse, as a foundation for (self-)reflection. This basis assumes moral dimensions as soon as one recognises that climate change is a human rights issue. In Questioning Allegiance, educational philosopher Liz Jackson (2019, p.  5) discusses morality in educational settings and addresses the question as to whether it is morally justified to teach actively for or against certain values. She reasons that, if a topic is morally undisputable, it is justified to teach it directively (see Jackson, 2019, p. 6). Human rights and the protection of other people’s human rights, one could argue, sit at the heart of what should be morally indisputable. Therefore, teaching about sustainability and climate change in a way that eventually serves the protection of everyone’s human rights should be considered morally justified. Consequently, questions of morality in the context of climate change as a human rights issue should also be addressed in English language lessons when dealing with eco-documentaries. This way, the notion of education for sustainable

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development proves to be easily compatible with a transformative and participatory understanding of education (Bildung).  here Is a Strong Anthropocentric Focus in the Notion T of Sustainability and ESD The third objection against the notion of sustainability, as promoted in the SDGs and ESD, is closely connected to the other two points. Acknowledging the climate crisis as a cultural crisis and discourses of sustainability as cultural discourses invites educators across all levels and subjects to join the discussion. On the flipside, it also highlights an inevitable vulnerability of these discourses. Since culture, one could argue, is necessarily concerned with humans, a cultural understanding of sustainability and climate change is prone to criticism of anthropocentrism from the perspective of ecocritical voices. McDowell (1996, p. 372) reminds his readers that any textual attempt, literary or filmic, “to listen to voices in the landscape […] is necessarily anthropocentric. It’s our language, after all, that we’re using, and we inevitably put our values into the representation.” For example, in Education, Cultural Myths, and the Ecological Crisis, Bowers (1993) reveals the anthropocentrism pervading textbooks. As Willoquet-­ Maricondi observes, Bowers does so by highlighting how the use of language and our calendar system, “which emphasizes a linear sense of history, reinforce the myth of human progress and supremacy” (2010b, p. 4).8 However, Bowers also addresses “strategies to reform education so it will meet the environmental challenges facing us and help us develop greater moral responsibility for the long-term effects of our actions on the ecosystem” (Willoquet-Maricondi, 2010b, p. 4). Outlining his concept of “eco-justice pedagogy,” Bowers explains that it must [combine] a responsibility for contributing to social justice (in the domains of both culture and natural ecology) while at the same time helping to conserve traditions essential to communities that retain the mutuality and moral reciprocity of the commons. […] The task of conserving what contributes to the recovery of the ecological and cultural commons, in turn, requires an understanding of local interests, needs, and traditions. This understanding needs to be framed within the larger context of worldwide ecological trends

8  This thought is particularly interesting with regard to a film like A Life on Our Planet, which uses the timeline of Sir David Attenborough’s life as a canvas to tell a story of economically positive and environmentally negative development or progress.

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such as global warming and the toxic contamination of the environment. (Bowers, 2001, p. 25)

For the argumentation presented herein, two insights derived from Bowers’ words are especially noteworthy. First, his outline of eco-justice pedagogy hints at a process of scaling and changing perspective. This aspect bears great potential for the discussion of the cultural dimension of ESD later in this book (Chap. 3). Second, and closely connected to this change of perspective, Willoquet-Maricondi (2010b, p. 5) points out that even though—or rather precisely because—anthropocentrism inherently pervades all human attempts of reconciling the cultural and the environmental, anthropocentrism should not be accepted unquestioningly. Rather, she elaborates, [a] shift in paradigm from an unquestioned anthropocentric perspective to an ecocentric one would require, for instance, taking climate change as well as other environmental problems caused by human action into account when considering development projects in both richer and poorer countries, or when assessing personal and broader cultural lifestyle choices in the developed countries and their “export” to developing countries. (Willoquet-­ Maricondi, 2010b, p. 5)

As such, Willoquet-Maricondi (2010b, p.  5) argues that “our very understanding of what constitutes ‘development’ and ‘progress’ needs to undergo scrutiny and debate.” This shows that there is a close connection between the criticism that pinpoints the neo-liberal and anthropocentric views in the concept of sustainable development. Recall at this point that eco-documentaries are characterised precisely by the fact that they address, question, and highlight human-­environment-­ relationships. As illustrated by A Life on Our Planet, however, eco-­ documentaries also frequently address biodiversity and mass extinction in the nonhuman realm—but the films seek the roots of and solutions to these problems in the area of the humanly possible. Thus, a change of perspective, as called for by Willoquet-Maricondi (2010b, p. 5), is exactly what is necessary, as it will not be feasible to fully overcome anthropocentric views and discussions when engaging with these films. Misiaszek (2018, p.  9) corroborates this perspective, reminding his readers that a certain anthropocentricity in our perspectives may be helpful “because we, as humans, are the only beings/'things’ that have reflection on our actions

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and these reflections are the cause of Earth’s imbalance (i.e., unsustainability), but also this reflection, collectively, can construct actions towards balance/sustainability.” As such, attempts to fully overcome anthropocentrism would not be expedient if the educational goals associated with teaching and learning with eco-documentaries are to enable future (human) generations to take part actively and constructively in the design of a sustainable world. Sustainability, in this context, is understood both in terms of anthropocentric sustainability, that is with respect to social, economic, and environmental justice, as well as in terms of biocentric sustainability, that is with respect to biodiversity and the prevention or mitigation of another (anthropogenic) mass extinction event. First Steps Towards a Language Education for Sustainable Development In conclusion, this section has sought to elucidate the connection between the development of discourse literacies as the main objective of language education and the principles of ESD in the context of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. As a point of departure, the climate crisis and corresponding discourses on sustainability were acknowledged as a cultural crisis and cultural discourses, respectively. In doing so, the great educational potential of language learning was brought into the equation: On the one hand, it is now possible to understand eco-documentaries as discourse fragments, as positions within the global discourse on climate change. This thought is worth considering when moving forward, as it might have significant effects on the way educators and learners approach eco-documentaries on a continuum between normativity (with the documentary being treated as a vehicle for information and everything it shows being taken at face value9) and criticism (with the documentary being seen as a filmic attempt to manipulate and engaging with it revolves around the deconstruction and unveiling of manipulative strategies). This point is important and will therefore be discussed in more detail in the next section on education with and about film. On the other hand, it has been 9  Stoddard (2007) found that if high school history students’ views align with the views of the filmmaker presented in documentary films, a strong confirmation bias could be observed, that is the students do not see nuances and deviating perspectives. As Hess (2007, p. 194) notes, the same study indicates that “many students and their teachers trust documentary films as valid sources of information and as authentic representations that depict what happened in the past.”

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found that the discourse on climate change and related discourses (for instance, on sustainability, on education for sustainable development) are connectable to many other discourses of our time. In the context of ­developing discourse literacies, this includes human rights. This meta-­ discourse may serve learners as a basis for (self-)reflection and assessment of current discourses, thereby enabling them to develop their own positions. As such, climate change and issues of sustainability prove to be excellent topics for language education. At the same time, with the development of discourse literacies, language education has to pursue important learning goals which help work towards lasting, systemic change in the sense of sustainability. Mayer and Wilson (2006b, p.  2) stress this point when they write that “language is the key medium in which an environmentally informed sense of self develops.” They continue: The focus on texts in English, moreover, reflects the importance of English in an international context: given its status of a lingua franca in international environmentalism, the teaching of environmentally relevant English texts contributes to students’ competencies in our increasingly globalised world. (2006b, p. 2)

As such, language education for sustainable development goes far beyond the development of functional-communicative means necessary to facilitate conversations on climate change. Rather, as part of the cultivation of sustainability-related literacies, it includes the development of a sense of self and a sense of planet—a phrase used repeatedly by Ursula Heise (2008b, 2012). Moreover, in the context of cultural learning, it connects these notions to human rights education and global citizenship education. There is a considerable transformative element inherent to ESD and, by extension, language education for sustainable development. However, the great societal and environmental transformation (external) must be preceded by transformations on an individual level (internal). As Bartosch and Grimm (2014a, p. 13) note, “education [and] a change of attitudes […] must precede any technological or scientific ‘fix’ of the crisis ahead.” Language education can contribute to this development of an ability to actively participate in discourse and society. While these insights emphasise the importance of not only asking what the environment can do for English language learning but also inverting the question and asking what ELE can contribute to ESD, they also raise new questions. For instance, if human rights education and global

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citizenship education assume such prominent roles in the concept of ESD and in the SDGs, the currently dominant paradigm of intercultural learning and the development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC), as presented by Michael Byram (1997, 2021), must be reviewed critically, as it works on the premise of the existence of one’s own and other cultures rather than on the accentuation of global interdependencies. Not only does the notion of intercultural learning seem to be at odds with the concept of discourse literacies, as described by Marxl and Römhild (2023), but it is also highly debatable whether the paradigm of ICC is a suitable approach to teaching and learning about global, culture-transcending phenomena at all, especially in the sense of transformative, participative sustainability education. This discussion will be continued in Chap. 3. A second aspect in need of clarification is how current notions of education with and about film can be integrated into the discussion of the educational principles and goals associated with eco-documentaries—after all, documentary films are a rather special type of text.

Discourse Literacies and Education with and about (Documentary) Film The discussion of critical components of discourse literacies and, in this context, fundamental educational objectives in language subjects, such as English, remains highly relevant when it comes to eco-documentaries as filmic texts. In this context, particularly the idea of developing an awareness of discourse structures might prove helpful for learners and educators to facilitate the positioning of these films in the relevant discourses. At the same time, the underlying deliberations on education, which have led to the internal differentiation of discourse literacies, carry implications which, in turn, could enrich the conceptualisation of both education with and about (documentary) film as well as the associated concept of film literacies. Thus, in terms of education with and about eco-documentary films, the interpretation of discourse literacies laid out thus far sparks further discussion in the following three respects: • understanding eco-documentaries as discourse fragments; • synchronising notions of Bildung in general language education and education with and about (documentary) film (Filmbildung); • conceptualising film literacies.

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Understanding Eco-documentaries as Discourse Fragments Following the argumentation of Marxl and Römhild (2023), being able to position oneself and others as well as being able to reflect on one’s own position in relation to the positions of others are important aspects in the context of developing an awareness of discourse structures. The authors refer to these abilities within the scope of “fragment positioning” (Fragmentpositionierung in the German original; Marxl & Römhild, 2023, p. 108). Discursive fragments, however, not only include singular utterances but may also take the shape of material manifestations such as works of art, texts, or films—which, in the sense of Hallet (2002), are themselves polyphonic and pervaded by other texts. These fragments coalesce to form an intertextual, intermedial, and transmedial network, which constitutes the respective discourse. As has been suggested earlier, eco-documentaries like Before the Flood or A Life on Our Planet may be regarded as discourse fragments, representing positions offered for discussion and negotiation in the bigger context of the global discourse on sustainability and the climate crisis. This does not preclude eco-documentaries from becoming the central topic of ‘their own discourse’—prominent examples are the debates on An Inconvenient Truth’s factuality (e.g., Adam, 2007) or the discussions of Leonardo DiCaprio’s role as a legitimate representative of the environmental cause surrounding (and also addressed in) Before the Flood (Stevens, 2016: 00:05:30–00:06:15). Eco-documentaries tend to feature scientists’ reports, include news coverage of climate change-related extreme events, or are themselves part of a more comprehensive, intertextual information campaign. Like all other contributions to the discourse on climate change, these films take the shape of socially contextualised actions. Contributions to discourses occur in communicative interaction aimed at and resulting in the construction of realities. As such, eco-documentaries are expressions of society’s knowledge and certain attitudes towards the topic of climate change. They constitute collective knowledge systems or social knowledge structures (see Gardt, 2012, p. 29), while simultaneously shaping this knowledge and forming social realities. Eco-documentaries, therefore, are simultaneous reflections of and contributions to one of the most dominant discourses of the early twenty-first century. In educational settings, learners should therefore be able to position an eco-documentary in relation to other fragments available and accessible within the sustainability discourse and climate crisis. This facilitates contextualising the arguments

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presented in the documentary rather than overgeneralising the statements as ‘the only’ truth. This is an important step towards mitigating the effects of both taking the contents of a documentary at face value and taking an overly critical stance against insinuated manipulation attempts exuding from the documentary. The former would devaluate other fragments of discourse; the latter would lead to insinuations that would undermine the educational goals. In both cases, positions in the framing discourse are being devaluated, which impedes further, deeper, and more balanced discussion. Synchronising Notions of Bildung If it is indeed not the goal to either take information presented in eco-­ documentaries at face value or to exclusively deconstruct possible attempts at filmic manipulation, the question remains as to how teaching and learning with eco-documentary films can be tied back to the goal of developing discourse literacies. To this end, it might prove helpful to examine the relationship of general (language) education and education with film in particular. In the sense of reversing the question for the additional, subject-­ specific value of including eco-documentaries in language education and instead asking what contribution language education can make to this overarching objective of school education, the following paragraphs highlight the intersections of education with and about (documentary) film to the notion of Bildung. However, it is necessary to stress that the German term Bildung is extremely multifaceted and looks back at centuries-long genealogy. It would not be possible or indeed desirable to address and trace the complexity of this term in the scope of this volume. Therefore, the following sections can only serve as approximations to the discourse on Bildung, focusing on those contributions which are of immediate relevance for establishing a viable working definition within the context of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. Eco-documentaries as Experiences of Crisis Following the idea that education is a transformation of discursive orders, educational scholar Helene Decke-Cornill (2016, pp. 67–68) refers to a reflexive and critical notion of Bildung, which can be understood as the detachment from one’s own disposition and the disposition of the world. This concept is rooted in the interpretation of Bildung being not only a

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process of growing into existing circumstances but also including the ability to reflect on and change the surrounding conditions. According to Kokemohr (2007, p. 21), education describes a process of engaging with and reflecting on insubsumable experience, which includes transforming fundamental figures of one’s own concepts of the world and the self. Education, Decke-Cornill (2016, p. 68) states, would therefore be a process of productive engagement with experiences of discrepancy, which, due to its crisis-like development, enforces a radical change in people’s understanding of themselves and their environments. From this moment of crisis, the author argues, arises a chance for education. Walberg emphasises that a moment of failure […] [serves as a] point of departure for education […] – a failure on the inaccessibility of the foreign or a failure on new problem areas, which cannot be handled by means of a recurrence to existing figures of concepts of the world and the self. This feature seems […] to be fundamental for a notion of education as a process of transformation, which cannot come to rest by achieving a result. There is no ‘chattel’ which can avoid this constitutive failure. (2011, p. 105; author’s translation, emphasis in original)

Thus, Decke-Cornill ties education closely to experiences of crises, which spark transformation. She argues that art—including film—may serve as an impetus for transformation. Her line of argumentation can be traced as follows (Decke-Cornill, 2016, pp. 68–69): (a) People grow up in (already existing or continuously constructed) circumstances which determine who they can be; (b) the restrictions at work in these circumstances are not transparent but appear so natural that they are not noticed; (c) through crisis-like experiences with things resistant to subsumption, the natural can become questionable and noticeable. As Decke-Cornill (2016, p.  69) points out, this idea is also known from aesthetic theories (see Shklovskji, 1917; Bakhtin 192910; Brecht, 1948) and conceptions in literary theory (see Link, 1974). In these contexts, art is seen as “something which resists” (Bergala, 2006, p. 55). Cook (1994, p. 207; emphasis in original) explains that “the text defamiliarizes something for someone. The ‘something’ is the world (though in a sense which includes texts and language) and the ‘someone’ must be the reader.” This idea of experiencing 10  The original was published in 1929. The edited German version, which is listed in the bibliography, is available as Bakhtin, 1971.

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crises deserves more attention, particularly in the context of eco-­ documentaries. With these texts, one could argue, a variety of such experiences might be conjured up: for instance, in terms of • the content matter of the climate crisis (see, e.g., Zumbansen & Fromme, 2010); • the concept of documentary film (textual characteristics of contemporary documentary films as contrasted with what learners might expect [Chap. 4]); • the concepts of reality and factuality in documentary films (Chap. 4); • an understanding of the world and one’s own positionality within this world (the content of eco-documentaries which might result in a type of [reverse] cathartic experience [Chap. 5]); • learners being confronted with their own global interconnectedness and responsibility for the realisation of other people’s human rights (Chap. 3). Decke-Cornill (2016, p. 70) stresses the fact that (adolescent) people ordinarily do not seek out these experiences of crisis when they go to the movies—on the contrary, it is quite the opposite; film has often and prominently been described as a form of escapism from the crises of the world11 (e.g., Addis & Holbrook, 2010). It is the task of schools, then, to introduce learners to films that would spark experiences of crisis and which learners would usually not access in their lifeworlds. Decke-Cornill cites the former chief editor of Cahier du Cinéma, Alain Bergala (2006, p. 55), who claims that “[if] art’s sole purpose is to be fun, school is not to interfere: Everybody finds ways and means of having fun more easily and quickly on their own.” As Decke-Cornill (2016, p.  70) points out, this position is representative of an utterly transformation-focused notion of education, but it disregards the fundamental functional and pragmatic objectives of language education which, according to her, may also be achieved when acknowledging the role of experiencing and enjoying films 11  Based on her own teaching experience, Decke-Cornill (2016, p.  74) warns that the teaching and learning processes should not stop at the experience of crisis and confusion. In this context, Combe and Gebhard (2012, p.  20; author’s translation) suggest that three elements—“the crisis-like, confusing initial constellation,” “the role and weight of imagination,” and “the chance to verbalise the occurrence for oneself and for others”—are fundamental to striking the fine balance necessary to facilitate processes of experience and education.

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in school contexts.12 Based on Bergala (2006), Decke-Cornill (2016, pp. 70–72) identifies four major objectives for education with and about films in school contexts, which can also be applied to the use of eco-­ documentaries in the English language classroom: • School needs to create opportunities to encounter new films and engage with them. For Bergala (2006, p. 51), school explicitly functions as a complement to the experiences in the learners’ lifeworlds, offering the unknown rather than confirming and reiterating the known. • The educator and the learners may assume the role of an introducer—or, using the contemporary term, an influencer—to initiate contact between the learners (and teachers) and new films and experiences of education. • School may serve to teach the frequent interaction with film, which, according to Bergala (2006, p. 86), also includes revisiting the same film at a later point in time. This objective also entails attempts at film production as well as film-related communication, which are common features of recent methodological concepts for teaching film (see, for instance, Henseler et al., 2011; Blell et al., 2016b). • School is supposed to establish connections between films and, thus, to make apparent a film’s intertextuality. Considering eco-­ documentaries as discourse fragments, one could add all other types of discourse fragments—verbal and material, analogue and digital— to the list of intertextual connections of a given eco-documentary. This is in line with Hallet (2016b, p. 180), who reminds his readers of the necessity to help learners understand and negotiate films as part of a general ability of cultural and discursive participation. Further illustrating the significance of this objective, he stresses that “filmic representations and narratives (film discourse with small ‘d’) can only then be understood adequately if their relation to cultural discourses (Discourse with capital ‘D’) and their corresponding 12  The significance of experiencing film, that is Filmerleben, in the learning process with and about eco-documentaries is discussed later in this book. Following Bergala’s line of argumentation consistently would perhaps lead to the exclusion of aspects of fascination and enjoyment in the learning process. This would result in a rather strong focus on object-­ oriented analysis, which is not necessarily desirable when it comes to learning about climate change with these films.

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r­eference to those discourses is noticed” (Hallet, 2016b, p.  180; author’s translation, emphasis in original). The connection between film education and the development of discourse literacies is most apparent in the latter objective. Surkamp (2004c, p. 247) refers to this close correlation between filmic discourse fragments and the broader context or discourse as (cultural) meaning-making and functional potential (Semantisierungs- und Funktionspotenzial). Hallet (2016b, pp. 180–184) explains that the educational aspect of this approach lies in two insights: First, the central element of film literacies (Hallet uses the term Filmverstehen, which directly translates as understanding or comprehending film; for a discussion of different terms used to denote film literacies, see the next section) is the acknowledgement and construction of relations between societal discourses and a given film. Second, understanding film can only really come into effect once the recipients are able to actively participate in cultural, film-related discourses themselves—this means taking part critically and autonomously in terms of both reception and production. As Hallet (2016b, p. 181) points out, this understanding finds its equivalence in the core notion of literacy. Conceptualising Film Literacies in Language Education The notion of education with and about films outlined above extrapolates a necessity for a broad, comprehensive understanding of those manifold abilities involved in the development of active participation in everyday cultural, global (film-related) discourses. The German discourse surrounding the use of film in the classroom employs a variety of terms to denote the entirety of desired students’ capabilities associated with learning with and about film. In recent years, some of the most common conceptualisations have revolved around the terms film-related competences (e.g., [KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2004, 2014), film-related skills (e.g., [KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2004, 2014), film literacy (e.g., Hallet, 2016b; Viebrock, 2016), and Filmbildung (e.g., Blell & Lütge, 2008; Blell et al., 2016b; Blell & Surkamp, 2016; Kammerer, 2016). However, it is not always possible to draw clear distinctions between concepts of film literacies based on the use of terminology, as the term literacy, for example, has been used as an English translation of the German word Kompetenz

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in some publications (see, e.g., Blell & Lütge, 2004; Lütge, 2012, pp.  12–21; Thaler, 2014, pp. 33–34; Viebrock, 2016; see also Hallet, 2016b, p. 177). To better contextualise these different terms, as well as to collate the notion of film-related education discussed above and the underlying ideas betrayed by these terms, this following section is tripartite. First, it sheds light on relevant educational guideline documents and on how film-related capabilities and learning objectives are modelled in these to elicit the curricular preconditions for the use of eco-documentaries in the English language classroom. Then, in analogy to the discussion led earlier on discourse literacies, the concepts of film competence and film literacy are juxtaposed to elucidate what exactly is meant by film literacies in this book. This precedes a discussion of how, if at all, the notion of film literacies is different from the concept of Filmbildung, as put forth by Blell and Lütge (2008).  ilm Literacies in German Curricula for English Language Education F For a discussion of the concept of film-related competences in the German English Language Teaching (ELT) discourse, the Bildungsstandards ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2003, 2004, 2014) lend themselves as an entry point, since they determine the curricular terminology and didactical categories on the grounds of which teaching and learning with film is conceptualised. Given the fact that in the year 2000 film played a major role in the lives of learners in Germany (see Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverband Südwest 2000, p. 9 [JIM study 2000], where film ranked fifth (39%) in a list of topics on which learners considered it important to stay up-to-date), it would be logical to assume that the medium’s significance in the lives of learners would be represented in the educational policy documents of the early 2000s. However, identifying film-related competences in these documents proves to be difficult, as Hallet (2016b, p. 181) has observed. Subsumed under the headline “functional communicative competences” ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2004, p. 11; [2014], p. 14), related skill sets or competence areas, such as audio/audio-­ visual comprehension (Hör-/Hörsehverstehen in the German original) are mentioned, but descriptors in this area do not venture beyond receptive skills. The objectives listed for students up to year ten, for instance, state that learners should be able to follow films whose content is mainly conveyed through images and action ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen

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Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2004, p.  11). The same is true for upper-level students (years 11–13), although the area of text and media competences ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2014, p.  20) now complements receptive audio/audio-­ visual competences. This relationship, however, is not made explicit throughout the document. Rather, this conclusion needs to be drawn based on an underlying understanding of the term ‘text’: Text and media competence enable learners’ comprehension and interpretation of continuous and discontinuous – including audio and audio-visual – texts in terms of their references and preconditions. It [i.e., text and media competence; the author] comprises the recognition of conventionalised, culture-specifically influenced characteristics of texts and media, the usage of these characteristics when producing their own texts, and the reflection of the individual reception and production process. ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2014, p. 20; author’s translation)

Hallet (2016b, p. 182) speculates that the omission of the term ‘film’ in this description was because film-related competences are extremely complex and that the Bildungsstandards are ill-equipped to model film-­ related competences suitably. The reason for this incapacity lies in the general orientation of the KMK guidelines, which is characterised by a focus on functional-communicative language use, as has already been found in the context of general discourse literacies. With regard to film, this manifests itself in a conceptualisation of film-related competences informed by the skills paradigm. For instance, one of the few explicit references to film is made in the context of language learning competences ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2014, p.  22). Here, film is used as one example for situations in which learners encounter the English language and, using this situation to their advantage, are supposed to further their communicative skills. These rather unspecified skills are hardly suitable in preparing students to engage with films and take part in discourses on these films in those areas recognised in the Bildungsstandards, such as Hör-/Hörsehverstehen, which, as Hallet (2016b, p.  182) remarks, have nonetheless been met with broad and indiscriminate reception in academia. However, the skills paradigm conclusively fails to provide

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educators with approaches to dealing with films, especially with contemporary eco-documentaries. As will become apparent later in the course of the discussion, simply listing a set of skills to be acquired fails to do justice to the complexity of contemporary eco-documentaries in at least two respects: First, reducing film-related competences to receptive skills in the areas of audio and audio-visual learning ignores the existence of multimodality and multimodal meaning-making in film. Second, the idea of a fixed set of skills to be learnt to master a medium seems starkly at odds with the ever-changing, dynamic nature of contemporary genres. Furthermore, the skills paradigm does not accommodate the critical aspects necessary in the scope of discourse literacies. Thus, the skills-informed notion of film-­ related competences favoured by the Bildungsstandards proves to be unfit to address and conceptualise the complexity of film in general and eco-­ documentaries in particular. The same is true for the conceptualisation of film-related abilities in the curricula of the individual federal states. Since the KMK Bildungsstandards function as a national guideline, this observation can be generalised to all federal states, and it also applies to all school forms in Germany’s tiered system, as illustrated by Heinecke’s (2007) study on film-related curricula guidelines for beginner and intermediate levels (years 5–10) in all federal states. Neither is there a discrimination of potentially differing processes in these guidelines, nor have the potentials of meaning-making with documentaries or fiction films been identified. In fact, there is no space afforded to creative meaning-making with films at all. This is in stark contrast to the idea of productive, communicative language learning in the sense of developing discourse literacies and participating in society. Bonas and Wilts (2016, p.  99) describe the effects of such a limitation on reception and the identification or summary of supposedly unambiguous information as the prevention of subjective meaning-making. In summary, the guidelines relevant for ELE in Germany do consider film as a potential object of language learning. However, it is rather difficult to find passages entirely and explicitly devoted to film. For the most part, it remains a matter of interpretation to locate film in these documents. In addition, current conceptions of film-related abilities in the educational standards and in federal curricula abet too strong a focus on receptive skills, thereby scaling down the highly complex concept of education with and about film to mere comprehension. This is indicative of a necessity for adaption and change of these guidelines rather than a too

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ambitious concept of education with and about film. Globalisation and digitalisation processes continue to relentlessly transform the world in which learners and educators live. The results of the German JIM study on the media use of adolescents illustrates this: While in the year 2000 only 6% of learners used the Internet to watch films (Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest, 2000, p. 42), 20 years later, more than 50% of 12-year-olds and older watch films online (on Netflix, to be precise; Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest (2020, p.  45)). Hence, education needs to keep up with the times. What is needed, therefore, is an alternative theoretical framework which rests on a notion of education with and about film, geared towards active participation in discourses and in society. For reasons which will become more apparent in the upcoming discussions (for instance, in those which analyse documentary from a film studies perspective [Chap. 4] or those that relate these insights back to film educational contexts [Chap. 5])), the framework presented herein resorts to multiliteracies pedagogy (The New London Group, 1996; The New London Group, 2000; Kalantzis et al., 2016), with its inherent focus on social participation in times of globalisation and digitalisation—multiliteracies pedagogy has already been introduced as a potentially appropriate theoretical framework in the context of general discourse literacies. The match between multiliteracies pedagogy, discourse literacies, and film education (as outlined earlier in this section) becomes apparent when recalling the words of Kalantzis et  al. (2016, p.  179), “Literacy is […] [a] practice in which one not only reads the ‘word’ but also the ‘world’.” Therefore, it is possible if not, more importantly, necessary to accommodate a broader and more comprehensive understanding of competence (erweiterter Kompetenzbegriff ), which various authors have called for in the context of film (see, e.g., Lütge, 2012; Blell & Surkamp, 2016; Hallet, 2016b).  ilm Literacies Versus Film Competence F The concept of literacies has been discussed as a corresponding notion in the context of discourse participation, where it was introduced as an alternative to the term competence. While Hallet (2016b, pp. 183–184) also highlights the social, participatory, critical, and discursive value of the literacy concept in the context of film, it seems as though he uses the terms competence and literacy interchangeably. This might merely be an issue of

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how two highly complex notions are translated into German.13 However, upon closer inspection, there seems to be an important distinction between the notion of literacy and competence which prohibits a straightforward equalisation. As Zydatiß (2008, p.  17) points out, while the notion of competence remains a rather fuzzy one in the Bildungsstandards, it is nonetheless simultaneously associated with concrete goals that learners can achieve. For instance, the document postulates that “learners can combine information derived from the text and from external sources”; “learners can employ appropriate strategies for solving comprehension problems” ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2014, p. 15; author’s translation). Given the idea that film as a medium keeps evolving—as do the societies, cultures, and contexts in which learners live—the question arises as to whether it is possible to speak of conclusively achievable goals at all; for that matter, the same question could be asked in the context of discourse participation. The notion of completion is inherent to the (narrow) concept of competence but not to the concept of literacy, as expressed by the idea of learning by design (Kress, 2003; Kalantzis et  al., 2016, pp. 220–223). According to Kalantzis et al., “we live in a world of designs,” that is “patterns of meaning available to us in the form of our cultural and environmental heritage – the conventions of language, imagery, sound, gesture, touch and space” (2016, p. 221). In interacting and engaging with these “resources for meaning” (Kalantzis et  al., 2016, p.  222), learners transform these available designs—and themselves—“remaking the world by designing it afresh” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 222). This may take the form of representing meaning to oneself (reading, listening, viewing something) or by communicating with other people. The authors highlight that “this is the reason why, when we design, we never simply replicate available designs. We always rework and revoice the world as found” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 222). The products of this process are “tangible, communicated trace[s], such as an image, an object, an oral utterance or a written text” (Kalantzis et  al., 2016, p.  223). These products, these 13  In some instances, Hallet (e.g., 2016b) and other authors use the term Filmverstehen (literally: film comprehension or understanding film), which serves to prove the point that translating literacy into German can be difficult—Hallet describes this choice of word as “awkward” himself (Hallet, 2016b, p. 177; ungelenk in the German original). Filmverstehen, however, is an unfortunate term, as it implies a rather strong focus on reception, in lieu of language production and active discourse participation.

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re-designs, now join the entirety of available designs and enrich them, rendering the whole process a circle of meaning-making and transformation. There is no definite conclusion. Considering the deliberations on transformation and change presented earlier, one could argue that the notion of film literacy (as opposed to film competence) inherently connects learning with and about film to education which is not geared explicitly towards practising and perpetuating existing circumstances but is instead geared towards transforming them (Decke-Cornill, 2016, p. 68). This goes far beyond the goals commonly associated with Filmverstehen, which seem to revolve merely around film analysis and receptive skills. This is the first of three reasons for use of the term film literacies in its plural form in this volume rather than film literacy: It is a means of disambiguation in light of the common synonymous use of competence and literacy. Nonetheless, it must be noted that a more comprehensive, broader notion of competence—as called for, for instance, by Lütge (2012), Blell and Surkamp (2016), or Hallet (2016b)—would approximate a notion of literacy as advocated within the multiliteracies framework. However, in analogy to the argumentation presented in the context of discourse literacies, the term film literacies also more obviously signifies conceptual proximity to multiliteracies pedagogy, which is the second reason for using the plural form. The third reason arises from the fact that this notion of literacies goes far beyond the original meaning of literacy—to be able to read and write—and comprises understanding and producing texts on different levels, using different text formats, genres, and semiotic modes of meaning-­ making. Without going into much detail at this point, it becomes apparent that engaging with film is a highly complex process and that it is not possible to pinpoint one single literacy. Rather, it is more appropriate to speak of a multitude of literacies involved in this process. I ntersections Between Film Literacies and Filmbildung In Filmbildung im Fremdsprachenunterricht: neue Lernziele, Begründungen und Methoden, Blell and Lütge (2008) lay out their concept of Filmbildung. Their deliberations originate in the observation that: only with a pedagogical approach which enables the learner to engage in permanent, actively-experiencing and recognising examination of media and real worlds can the ‘dualism between filmic object and recipient ­subject,’

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which has repeatedly been attended to theoretically, be overcome (2008, p. 126; author’s translation, emphasis in original)

The reasons that motivate Blell and Lütge’s observation will be discussed in more detail in Chap. 5 in the context of the role of fascination and experiencing film in the learning process, yet it is already possible to detect a strong focus on the learner being an active participant in the learning process. Blell and Lütge explicitly suggest that the term Filmbildung be used instead of Filmkompetenz (film competence). Informed by the premises of multiliteracies pedagogy, Blell and Lütge’s notion of film literacies adopts a pronounced orientation towards social and discursive participation. This raises the question as to whether the ideas of a literacies-informed education with and about film is comparable or even compatible to Blell and Lütge’s concept of Filmbildung. Blell and Lütge (2008, p. 126) develop their notion of Filmbildung on Humboldt’s idea of Bildung, which, according to Küster (2004, p. 159; author’s translation), denotes the “discursive construction of a reflexive relation of the self to the world.” Blell and Lütge argue that this understanding is far better suited to keep a “healthy scepticism” (Blell & Lütge, 2008, p. 126, the authors refer to Hellwig, 2008, in this context) of primarily cognitive, competence-oriented ideas of completion or achievability, which, as Blell and Lütge explain by referring to Klieme (2004, p. 11), does not necessarily capture affective components of engaging with films. In this context, Blell and Lütge (2008, p. 127) briefly discuss the notion of literacy, indicating that, with its discursive orientation, it already entails a pronounced socio-cultural dimension and, thus, affective factors and fascination. Acknowledging the self-reflective dimension of literacies pedagogy, the authors cite literacy scholar Richard Kern: Becoming literate is […] a matter of engaging in the ever-developing process of using reading and writing as tools for thinking and learning, in order to expand one’s understanding of oneself and the world. (Kern, 2000, pp. 39–40)

Yet, Blell and Lütge opt not to refer to the notion of literacy but rather use Filmbildung, reasoning that the latter is much more comprehensive and multi-layered. According to the authors, this better expresses the cultural studies-informed aspects of cultural and medial meaning-making processes than the term literacy. However, one could argue that precisely

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these aspects of critical self-reflection can be identified in a notion of literacies, as advocated in multiliteracies pedagogy.14 Furthermore, a multiliteracies-­informed notion of film literacies adds to the more reflexive elements of Filmbildung: the more pronounced idea of active social and discursive participation not only in but also through (documentary) film (see Römhild, 2022 as well as Nash, 2014, p. 387). Highlighting the element of transformation in multiliteracies pedagogy, especially the idea of learning by design corroborates the insight that Filmbildung, as understood by Blell and Lütge (2008), and the term film literacies, as used herein, are very similar on a conceptual level. To conclude, the term used in this book to denote those abilities associated with education with and about film in the English language classroom is film literacies. Understood in the context of Bildung, the term film literacies carries transformative, critically participative, social, cultural, multimodal, and communicative/discursive elements.

Summary The previous sections have sought to explore target dimensions associated with the use of eco-documentaries in the English language classroom. These promise to be helpful in devising constructive approaches to teaching and learning with these films. In educational contexts, eco-­ documentaries confront teachers and students with pedagogical antinomies between normativity and criticism, emotion and cognition, and construction and deconstruction. Consequently, it seems that one must choose between two objectives: either use these texts as information and ideology vehicles, by letting them unfold their full cinematic potential to help learners develop ecoliteracies in the sense of sustainability education, or prioritise (critical) film literacies, by exploring, identifying, and deconstructing the filmic strategies employed to convey certain viewpoints. In an attempt to approach this dilemma of seemingly conflicting educational goals, it has been argued that it is important to view the texts (and media in general) in context. Eco-documentaries are situated in various discourses; they constitute parts or fragments of these discourses while 14  In fact, Lütge proceeds to refer to Filmkompetenz as film literacy in more recent works published on the topic of teaching and learning with film (particularly Lütge, 2012, p. 12). There, she explains that film literacy is a complementary construct to the more reception-­ focused Hörsehverstehen (Lütge, 2012, p. 17).

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also shaping the relevant discourses at the same time. Therefore, the development of discourse literacies may be a first step towards approaching the central antinomies identified in the context of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. Discourse literacies automatically take on a media dimension as soon as one acknowledges that discourses in the twenty-first century are, to a large extent, shaped and perpetuated by media. However, other abilities also need to be considered as parts of the overarching notion of discourse literacies when it comes to eco-documentaries. Learners need to cultivate ecoliteracies, which include the development of both a sense of self and a sense of planet. Language education is predestined to support learners in this endeavour, as the necessary principles of both human rights education and global citizenship education can easily be integrated into the scope of cultural learning. The other major area focuses on the text form of documentaries. Film literacies complement ecoliteracies in terms of the learners’ ability to contextualise eco-documentaries within the relevant discourses. As such, the notion of discourse literacies forms the theoretical framework for the reconciliation of ecoliteracies and film literacies in the context of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. Hence, educators do not need to choose between either aspect. Ideally, both ecoliteracies and film literacies work together towards the development of discourse literacies. All three perspectives featured in the discussion thus far, that is a general discussion of discourse literacies and the objectives of language education in Germany, the exploration of targets associated with ESD, and the examination of the relationship between film and (language) education, highlight the importance of transformation and social participation. Yet, especially the combination of the three perspectives, necessitated by the exceptionally multifaceted nature of eco-documentaries, paints a picture of education as being inherently transformative (both on a societal and on an individual level) and participative (both in society in general and in discourses). As such, this chapter has been directive for the conceptualisation of learning processes with eco-documentaries in language classrooms. In the context of education with and about film, Hallet concludes his article on film literacy as follows: Eventually, the purpose of engaging with films in school contexts lies in the relationship between the filmic discourse and the social and cultural discourses, to which the former answers and refers. If learners identify this connection themselves then, on the one hand, they are able to comprehend

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films; on the other hand, films then contribute to a deepened and reflected understanding of the lifeworld and reality. Film education is then school education in the best sense. (Hallet, 2016b, p. 191; author’s translation)

Along the same lines, one could conclude that if learners are able to contextualise a given eco-documentary themselves, that is identify the structural and moral connections between the film and the corresponding socio-cultural discourses, then education with eco-documentaries could be school education in the best sense. However, before being able to justify this ambitious verdict, it is necessary to address several aspects that need further clarification: First, in terms of content matter, the notion of ecoliteracies needs to be explored further, particularly with regard to the cultural dimension of ESD and the implications for language education for sustainable development (Chap. 3). Second, the text form of eco-­ documentaries deserves further attention as a special case in the realm of film (Chap. 4), which must be followed by a more detailed discussion of the implications for teaching and learning with eco-documentary films in the language classroom (Chap. 5). Only then can the design of a concept for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries be tackled (Chap. 6).

CHAPTER 3

Ecology and Citizenship

The intersections of environmental studies and film studies have increasingly attracted attention among researchers in recent years. With the twenty-first century entering its third decade, a wealth of book-length contributions is available to those seeking to engage with ecocinematic theory: By discussing the politics of filmic representation of nature, pioneering works such as Mitman’s Reel Nature: America’s Romance with Wildlife on Film (1999) and Bousé’s Wildlife Films (2000) establish a foundation for a generation of scholars interested in analysing films more critically when it comes to aspects and representations of nature and ecology. Ivakhiv’s Green Screen: Environmentalism and Hollywood Cinema (2000), Cubitt’s EcoMedia (2005), Brereton’s Hollywood Utopia: Ecology in Contemporary American Cinema (2005), Carmichael’s The Landscape of Hollywood Westerns: Ecocriticism in an American Film Genre (2006), and Murray and Heumann’s Ecology and Popular Film: Cinema on the Edge (2009), as well as Willoquet-Maricondi’s Framing the World: Explorations in Ecocriticism and Film (2010a) and Weik von Mossner’s Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film (2014b), not only offer ecocritical perspectives on films and the film industry but also contribute to the contouring of cinematic ecocriticism. All these works emerged from the field of literary ecocriticism, which, since its inception

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Römhild, Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education, Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44674-0_3

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in the 1990s, has diversified to include, among other things, theoretical discourse, music, photography, virtual realities, as well as film and video. It is from the context of this young and expanding academic field of study, (cinematic) ecocriticism, that one can derive insights in an attempt to outline ecopedagogically informed language education which frames the use of ecomedia in the English language classroom. Part of tapping into this text form’s potential is to use eco-documentaries in the language classroom in ways that are conducive to ecological learning. As such, it is necessary to determine what constitutes ecological learning in the language classroom. To this end, this part of the book is devoted to a discussion of ecocriticism and ecopedagogy, or ecodidactics, in their current states. This includes an overview of theoretical ecocritical approaches and derived educational objectives to contribute to the contouring of a language education for sustainable development. This is followed by a discussion of current conceptions of relevant literacies and the definition of ecoliteracies as one of the pillars of the desired learning outcome: the learners’ ability to participate in the global discourse on climate change by engaging with eco-documentaries. Ecoliteracies are examined in terms of their functional, critical, and cultural dimensions, among other aspects. One of the main arguments developed from this discussion is that there is a conceptual discrepancy between central aspects of the cultural dimension of ESD (human rights and global citizenship), on the one hand, and current paradigms in deciding how to approach the cultural dimension of language education, on the other. Hence, when it comes to the development of discourse abilities pertaining to eco-documentaries, revision and reconsideration of conventional approaches to cultural learning are necessary. The final sections therefore explore alternative ways of thinking about culture and cultural learning in the context of ecology and ecopedagogies and discuss such notions as human rights education, global citizenship education, and eco-cosmopolitan language education, as parts of an ecocosmopolitan GCE framework for engaging with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom. Figure 3.1 provides an outlook on this part’s contribution to the framework for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries.

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Fig. 3.1  An outlook on the contribution to the framework by the discussion led in this chapter: key principles of language education for sustainable development

Contours of Language Education for Sustainable Development Based on the observation that language education for sustainable development goes far beyond the development of functional-communicative means to converse about climate change, this section sets out to collate theoretical insights from (cinematic) ecocriticism as well as current ecopedagogical approaches to explore and determine fundamental elements of environmentally oriented language education with eco-documentaries. The literary theory of ecocriticism is a sound starting point for educational inquiry because the two fields of study are closely related. In recent years, ecocritical perspectives have increasingly informed ecopedagogical thought, and, as Garrard (2012b, p. 1) notes, “[ecocriticism] has been preoccupied with pedagogy since its inception.”

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Ecocriticism and the Environmental Turn in Literary and Cultural Studies Literary ecological criticism, or ecocriticism for short, emerged in the early to mid-1990s as an “environmentally conscious approach to the study of texts and to the investigation of the relationship between these texts and the physical environment” (Willoquet-Maricondi, 2010b, p.  2). One of the earlier definitions is provided in Cheryll Glotfelty and Harald Fromm’s The Ecocriticism Reader (1996), which is described by many as the foundational anthology of the field. In the introduction, Glotfelty asks: What […] is ecocriticism? Simply put, ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment. Just as feminist criticism examines language and literature from a gender-conscious perspective, and Marxist criticism brings an awareness of modes of production and economic class to its reading of texts, ecocriticism takes an earth-centered approach to literary studies. (Glotfelty, 1996, p. xix; emphasis in original)

As Garrard (2012a, p. 3) points out, this definition renders ecocriticism “an avowedly political mode of analysis.” The fact that there is compatibility with other political modes is attested by the development of movements such as ecofeminism, ecoracism, social ecology, and environmental justice, as well as an active community that researches intersections between postcolonialism and ecocriticism (see, e.g., DeLoughrey, 2014; Huggan & Tiffin, 2015; Glas & Volkmann, 2021), which are practised by advocates who “seek a synthesis of environmental and social concerns” (Garrard, 2012a, p. 4). While discussing Richard Kerridge’s (in Kerridge & Sammells, 1998, p. 5) definition of ecocriticism, which suggests that “ecocriticism seeks to evaluate texts and ideas in terms of their coherence and usefulness as responses to environmental crisis,” Garrard notes that the idea of a “monolithic conception of ‘environmental crisis’” (2012a, p. 4) needs to be regarded cautiously and critically, arguing that “both as a science and as a socio-political movement, ‘ecology’ itself is shifting and contested” (2012a, p. 4). From this, the author arrives at a broad definition of ecocriticism as “the study of the relationship of the human and the non-human, throughout human cultural history and entailing a critical analysis of the term ‘human’ itself” (Garrard, 2012a, p. 5). The field of ecocriticism is inherently interdisciplinary because of its close ties with the science of ecology and its proximity to other sociopolitical modes of inquiry. Therefore, Garrard (2012a, p. 5) reminds his

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readers that “ecocritics may not be qualified to contribute to debates about problems in ecology, but they must nevertheless transgress disciplinary boundaries and develop their own ‘ecological literacy’ as far as possible.” The interdisciplinarity is what prohibits narrow definitions of the field—as Buell (2005, p. 11) observes: “Cheryll Glotfelty was being candid rather than evasive in defining ecocriticism in extremely sweeping terms, […] in whatever way these terms may be defined.” However, it is also this level of interdisciplinarity, the fact that “ecocriticism gathers itself around a commitment to environmentality from whatever critical vantage point” (Buell, 2005, p. 11), which has contributed to the creation of fault lines within the field, ultimately causing its extreme diversification. One of these fault lines may already run through the terminology used to refer to the field of study and associated concepts, as Buell indicates in the preface to The Future of Environmental Criticism (2005). Buell makes an argument for the use of “environmental” rather than “eco” when labelling this type of literary and cultural criticism—even though, as he admits repeatedly, the term “ecocriticism” is the widely acknowledged umbrella term. Since arguments over terminology pervade environmental studies (see, for instance, environmentalist cinema vs. ecocinema) and are also relevant in educational contexts (see, for instance, environmental education vs. education for sustainable development), Buell’s reasoning deserves closer attention. However, while his arguments for the use of “environmental” (Buell, 2005, p. viii) may be reasonable and valid, particularly his reasons against the use of “eco” are what is of immediate relevance here. Buell (2005, p. 11) argues that “the environmental turn in literary studies has been more issue-driven than method or paradigm-driven,” which renders the “catchy but totalizing rubric of ‘ecocriticism’ […] less indicative than ‘environmental criticism’ or ‘literary-environmental studies’.” For Buell, the term ‘ecocriticism’ “implies a non-existent methodological holism. It overstates the degree to which the environmental turn in literary studies was ever a coordinated project” (Buell, 2005, p.  12). Furthermore, the author hints at the “implicit narrowness of the ‘eco’, insofar as it connotes the ‘natural’ rather than the ‘built’ environment and, still more specifically, the field of ecology” (Buell, 2005, p. 12; emphasis in original). However, it is precisely this last argument, which may be turned against the use of “environmental”: On the other hand, "ecocriticism" suffices if – like poet-critic Gary Snyder – one is careful to use the term in mindfulness of its etymology and of its

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metaphorical stretch. "Ecology" derives etymologically from the Greek oikos, household, and in modern usage refers both to "the study of biological interrelationships and the flow of energy through organisms and inorganic matter." Metaphorically, furthermore, "ecology" can be stretched to cover "energy-exchange and interconnection" in "other realms" too: from technology-based communication systems to the "ecology" of thinking or composition (Snyder, 2004, pp. 4, 9). […] Looked at it this way, a perfectly plausible case can be made for speaking of environmentally valenced work in literature studies as "ecocriticism." (Buell, 2005, p. 13; emphasis in original)

It may seem otiose to dwell on terminology—but, in the context of this book, there is a relevant argument to be made on the basis of this discussion: Ecology, defined as the study of the relationship between humans and their environments (human or nonhuman), may allow just as much conceptual depth as does “environment,” as Buell argues. As such, the use of “eco” (in ecocriticism, ecoliteracies, eco-documentaries, etc.) in this volume may, in Buell’s words, be described as a “strategic ambiguity” (Buell, 2005, p. viii)—broad enough to accommodate or at the very least approximate the “hybridity of the subject at issue” (Buell, 2005, p. viii). Waves and Forces With regard to the development of ecocriticism, Buell (2005, p. 17) and other authors (e.g., Heise, 2008a) distinguish at least two waves. According to Heise (2008a, p. 384), first-wave ecocritics “focused either on historical or on textual analyses so as to foreground the importance of nature-oriented writing for the American literary canon and the urgency of ecological issues without any explicit theoretical framing.” Buell (2005, p.  21) adds that “for first-wave ecocriticism, ‘environment’ effectively meant ‘natural environment.’” Soper (1995) describes this type of early ecocriticism as “nature endorsing,” whereas the second wave of ecocritical perspectives could be described as “nature skeptical”: In later iterations of ecocritical research, nature as a concept moves closer to the focus point of query. Second-wave ecocriticism is characterised by being “too diverse and diffuse to summarize, let alone stereotype, but its connections with political environmentalism and ecological science are, on the whole, more complex and ambivalent” (Garrard, 2014, p. 1), in comparison to first-wave ecocriticism. However, as pointed out by Buell, the metaphor of waves may be problematic: Contrary to the implications of this metaphor, no distinct succession and no clear point of transition can be identified. “Most

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currents set in motion by early ecocriticism continue to run strong, and most forms of second-wave revisionism involve building on as well as quarrelling with precursors” (Buell, 2005, p. 17). As an alternative way of categorising different strands of ecocriticism, Garrard (2012b, p. 9) suggests thinking in terms of centripetal and centrifugal forces. He argues that an “emphasis on place and dwelling – notably in bioregionalism and much ecocritical pedagogy [if it builds on the principles of place-based education; the author]  – impels us to hunker down in our locale” (Garrard, 2014, p. 9). On the other hand, “centrifugal ecocriticism […] is fascinated by hybrid spaces, cosmopolitan identities and naturecultural ironies” (Garrard, 2014, p. 9). In the scope of an ecocritical reading—or rather, viewing—of such eco-documentaries as A Life on Our Planet, both perspectives promise to yield vastly different yet comparably deep insights into the displayed relationship between human and nonhuman spheres. A centripetal reading might reveal the manifold ways in which nature is glorified and/or depicted as being vulnerable, as something that humanity must protect. A centrifugal reading might hint at cosmopolitan ideals of world citizenship coming together as humanity and tackling the challenge of climate change; or it might nod to those naturecultural ironies mentioned by Garrard—in the case of A Life on Our Planet, incidentally, in terms of precisely the same example used by the author: “the unanticipated biodiversity of horribly polluted landscapes such as the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear accident site” (Garrard, 2014, p. 9).  ommon Threads in a Diverse Field of Study C In an essay titled “Ecocriticism and the Transnational Turn in American Studies,” Heise (2008a, p. 387) notes, “[the] ecocritical lack of engagement with theories of globalization and transnationalism has begun to be recognized as a challenge for the field, and some critics have made efforts to broaden ecocritical research from its Anglo-American focus.” It is safe to say that this change has indeed contributed to even more diversification within the field. Today, “[race], class and gender stand out as important ecocritical categories in current practice, inflecting work in postcolonial ecocriticism, environmental justice, and globalization studies” (Glotfelty, 2014, p. xi). Particularly the field of environmental justice and the numerous connections to globalisation theories have contributed cosmopolitan perspectives and critical questions having to do with eco-power relations— especially in educational contexts, as will be discussed later.

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Another common theme of contemporary ecocriticism is constituted by efforts of overcoming anthropocentrism. Garrard (2012a, p.  202) explains that “[the] metaphysical argument for biocentrism is meant to sustain moral claims about the intrinsic value of the natural world, which will in turn affect our attitudes and behaviour towards nature.” Arguments for biocentrism often emerge from a perspective of deep ecology, which can be classified as one of the more radical forms of environmentalism. According to George Sessions, editor of the anthology Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century, [Deep] ecology is concerned with encouraging an egalitarian attitude on the part of humans not only toward all members of the ecosphere, but even toward all identifiable entities or forms in the ecosphere. Thus, this attitude is intended to extend, for example, to such entities (or forms) as rivers, landscapes, and even species and social systems considered in their own right. (Sessions, 1995, p. 270; emphasis in original)

While deep ecologists highlight the inherent value of human and nonhuman life on Earth, which is “independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes” (Sessions, 1995, p. 68), this school of thought has also attracted criticism aimed at the relative ease with which it is possible to approximate ecofascism from some of its central assumptions (e.g., Ferry, 1995). Another key aspect of deep ecology is the idea that “[the] flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantially smaller human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires a smaller human population” (Sessions, 1995, p. 68; emphasis in original). Deep ecologists place great value on nonhuman entities and forms, thus distinguishing themselves from “shallow” approaches, which, according to deep ecologists, “take an instrumental approach to nature, arguing for the preservation of natural resources only for the sake of humans” (Garrard, 2012a, p. 24). With this perspective, deep ecologists highlight the role of systemic thinking when it comes to ecological issues, although varying degrees of systemic embeddedness may be identified. However, not only deep ecologists identify systemic thinking as a central aspect and challenge of engagement with the environment. Environmental humanities specialist Timothy Clark (2012, p. 152) notes, “[if] that tired term ‘the environment’ has often seemed too vague—for it means, ultimately, ‘everything’—yet the difficulty of conceptualizing a politics of climate

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change may be precisely that of having to think ‘everything at once’.” Economist Jeffrey Sachs (2015, p. 6), engaging with the concept of sustainable development, argues that “complex systems require a certain complexity of thinking as well. It is a mistake to believe that the world’s sustainable development problems can be boiled down to one idea or one solution.” And, from a philosophical perspective, Bayo Akomolafe observes that [we] are relational beings. We are essentially non-essential. We are relationships. We are not things in a vacuum, in a container. […] And that's a radical, very disturbing, frightening picture of what a human being is. As a result, we can no longer think of the self as the industrial, capitalist self, that is atomized and separate from all other selves. We have to think of the self as a connection. (2018, 2:30–3:00)

While scholars have created numerous theoretical connections to related fields of study, they have also engaged in diverse approaches to genre, with cinematic ecocriticism being one example of many. Kerridge (2014, p. 373) highlights that literature is conducive to environmental purposes because, among other things, it “can provide an all-out apocalyptic vision of catastrophe, to shock and scare us deeply,” it may help us understand “particular instances of damage and the ecological and human consequences,” it can “provide poetic engagement with the natural environments we are losing or [are] at risk of losing,” or, referring to Ursula Heise’s work, it helps us to “‘see’ climate change—spatial and temporal perspectives reaching beyond the narratives of individual lives.” As these examples imply, Kerridge argues that there might be more to engaging in environmental thought through literature than just raising awareness: Referring to Nicole Seymour’s (2012, p. 60) statement that “the politicalintellectual Holy Grail of ‘awareness’ might not actually be the measure of success,” Kerridge (2014, p. 363) suggests that “awareness is not producing change.” What is needed, he argues, is to recognise and acknowledge the role of emotion and affect when it comes to ecocritical inquiry because it might lead to people caring. Care, in turn, “is making a difference to our behaviour” (Kerridge, 2014, p. 365). To make people care, however, is not an easy task. Discussing the success or failure of An Inconvenient Truth in motivating its audience to care about global warming, Ursula Kluwick notes,

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An Inconvenient Truth […] presents itself as informative, educational, and persuasive, but it stops short of being practically or politically, motivational. The essential dilemma of climate change communication, namely the challenge of forging a connection between knowledge and behavior, is not something the film sets out to address. Essentially, this omission points to a break in the perception of reality, a widespread discrepancy between a passive kind of knowledge which accepts climate change as a theoretical fact, and a more active form of awareness which entails the realization of how climate change relates to individual lives. It is in this gap that the resistance arises to the fundamental recognition of how the individual is affected by but also implicated in the environmental crisis. Intellectual does not equal emotional acceptance. (Kluwick, 2014, p. 506)

Therein lies an important argument that revolves around the role of emotions when engaging with eco-documentaries in educational contexts. From Ecocritical Theory to Educational Principles for Transformative Action The diversification of ecocritical perspectives, positions, and schools of thought has translated into varying forms, theories, and practices of ecopedagogies. Glas and Volkmann (2021, pp. 48–49) identify a spectrum of approaches, ranging “from ‘deep ecopedagogy’ advocating immediate change and calling for action on one end to a ‘shallow’ version of ecopedagogy on the other, which ‘merely’ aims at creating ecological awareness and learning from ecological research.” Consequently, basic conceptual pillars and learning objectives of current ecopedagogies can be traced to central notions of ecocriticism, such as questions surrounding the relationship between humans and their environments, the influence of humans on their environments, potentials of and limits to environmental protection and sustainability, moral, social, and political influences and effects, as well as the role of language, literature, and cultures (Basseler, 2014, pp.  4–5). Glas and Volkmann note that although there are different ecopedagogical positions, [what] they share, on an abstract plane, is the objective of creating an awareness of the interconnectedness of humans and nature according to a holistic worldview, the appreciation of sustainability and diversity; insights into the

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complexity and fragility of biosystems; and, finally, the questioning of Western ideologies of unrelenting technological progress. In more concrete terms, an ecologically oriented pedagogy aims at creating ecological knowledge, furthering an understanding of sustaining natural resources and the environment, and empowering learners to deal with nature and natural resources more responsibly. Ultimately, ecological approaches strive for a change in consumer behaviour, with students starting in their own personal environment. (Glas & Volkmann, 2021, p. 49)

Yet, despite these objectives, there seems to be a discrepancy between theory and praxis. The term ‘praxis’ is used deliberately here, in reference to Freire’s notion of praxis, as “reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed” (Freire, 2000, p.  126), further described by Michael Apple and Wayne Au as the unification of critical reflection and critical action. It seeks to be a pedagogy that enables students and teachers to be "Subjects of their own history." They become actors (and it is a constant process of becoming) who can look at reality, critically reflect upon that reality, and take transformative action to change that reality, thereby deepening their consciousness and working toward a more just world. (2009, p. 991)

Crucially, it is a declared goal for both learners and educators to gain a wider understanding of—in this case—environmental issues and injustices as well as develop problem-solving capacities. This relates back to Garrard’s (2012a, p. 5) observation cited earlier that experts in the field of ecocriticism and, by extension, ecopedagogies also need to develop their own ecological literacies. In a sense, teaching for environmental justice may arguably be regarded as a form of initiative towards solving ecological issues, hence, praxis (see Misiaszek, 2016, p. 590). However, as Kwauk and Iyengar (2021, p. 8) note, the fact that “teachers lack systemic support to become change agents for sustainability” represents a major roadblock. This includes the provision of suitable frameworks. For instance, scholars in Germany have repeatedly pointed out the lack of conceptual frameworks for implementing ecopedagogical approaches in the language classroom, most notably Uwe Küchler: It can be observed with some astonishment that foreign language education  – defining itself as a discipline open to all matters of contemporary, inter/transcultural, and communicative affairs  – has not followed suit in

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providing this subject with a theoretical and methodological framework. (2014, p. 23; emphasis in original)

More recently, Küchler emphasises: With ecology's strong presence among the current topics in the TESOL [Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages; the author] classroom, it is surprising that research at the intersections between language acquisition, intercultural learning, and environmental humanities remains a terra incognita. (2021, pp. 64–65; emphasis in original)

Becker (2022) and Küchler (2021) provide overviews of currently available perspectives in the German secondary education context, which confirm Küchler’s observation. In summary, only a small number of contributions specifically aimed at the secondary English language classroom exists, for instance in the edited volume Teaching Environments: Ecocritical Encounters (Bartosch & Grimm, 2014a). More recently, however, further steps towards such a comprehensive theoretical foundation are observable. Collectively, the contributors to Surkamp’s (2022) edited volume on education for sustainable development in the English as a foreign language classroom, for instance, approach the questions for ELE’s contribution to ESD from a variety of angles, including discourse (Diehr, 2022b), literature (Genetsch, 2022), cultural learning (Freitag-Hild, 2022), content and language integrated learning (CLIL) (Diehr, 2022a), as well as school structure and curriculum (Kroschewski, 2022, Kuty, 2022, Nöth, 2022). Internationally, the intersections of language education and education for sustainability also increasingly attract attention, resulting, for instance, in individual research papers (e.g., Zygmunt, 2016; Cates, 2022), edited volumes (e.g., de la Fuente 2022; Kleppe & Sorby, 2022; Lütge et al., 2022), as well as a special issue of Sustainability journal (Zhang & Greenier fc.). Of other contributions available in the German context specifically, most either focus on connections between environmental learning and literary genres (see, e.g., Küchler, 2009 for films; Volkmann, 2012 for ecopoetry; Hempel & Matz, 2013 or Schönbauer, 2019 for dystopian literature; Alter, 2015 or Summer, 2021a for songs; or Becker, 2022 for hashtags), a language specific understanding of environmental literacy (e.g., Küchler, 2011b; Basseler, 2014), or environmental topics as global issues (e.g., Hammer, 2015; Bastkowski, 2019). As such,

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Küchler (2021, p.  67) holds that “to date, a comprehensive theoretical foundation for the teaching of ecology, environment, and sustainability in the context of foreign language education and TESOL is still lacking.” Therefore, this text on eco-documentaries lends itself as a contribution for exploring another genre for use in the environmentally oriented English language classroom, on the one hand. For instance, as has been briefly mentioned in the context of centripetal and centrifugal forces within the field of ecocriticism, it would be entirely possible to conduct an ecocritical viewing of eco-documentaries—this could entail both contentrelated learning objectives (e.g., on the depiction of nature in the films) and text-related goals (e.g., to critically examine the films as products of an industry which has an impact on climate). On the other hand, however, the discussion thus far already warrants a more comprehensive contextualisation and framing of the use of eco-documentaries in ELE, the insights of which might be transferrable to other ecopedagogical endeavours in the language classroom. Building on the assumption that the development of an ability to actively participate in the global discourses on environmental issues, such as climate change, marks the unique contribution that ELE may make towards a more general notion of education for sustainable development, and based on perspectives from ecocriticism, it is possible to identify more generalisable principles of a language education for sustainable development. In this context, Beach et al. (2017, pp. 7–8) offer a helpful outline of English language pedagogy which adopts a climate change perspective. They list the following five aspects: 1. Foregrounding climate change as the most important issue facing life on Earth. 2. Understanding the causes and effects of climate change locally and globally, as well as the efforts to deny them. 3. Overcoming individualism and nationalism, and adopting a systemsbased, global perspective. 4. Creating solidarity with the oppressed and exploited, addressing the unequal impacts of climate change, and striving for social justice. 5. Envisioning and enacting transformational changes through individual and collective action, in which everyone is accountable for their actions and inactions.

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This list echoes some of those aspects central to ecocritical thought: systemic thinking, a moral dimension, and global or cosmopolitan perspectives (rather than national ones)—which are all closely intertwined. Systems-based thinking may refer to both humans’ embeddedness in their (human and nonhuman) environments—almost in terms of a functional understanding of how (eco)systems work—and an individual’s interconnectedness to the world—in the sense of a cosmopolitan global citizenship, which has direct implications for the moral dimension of environmentally oriented language education. Beach et al. (2017, p. 6) argue that “language classrooms are spaces of discovery, possibility, and participation where students learn to empathize with experience of people like and unlike themselves.” As such, “they are places of moral and ethical reflection about new ideas and complicated human realities.” Given their relevance to both ecocriticism as literary theory and ecopedagogy, these aspects must be considered when defining a notion of ecoliteracies as one of the conceptual pillars of English language education for sustainable development. However, before exploring ecoliteracies in more detail, it is worth examining existing guidelines pertinent to sustainability education in the endeavour to extrapolate further general elements and dimensions of language education for sustainable development. Greening the Language Classroom: Principles for Transformative Action Existing guidelines highlight both the transdisciplinary nature of any education that works towards sustainability and the special role language education can play in this endeavour. For the German context, the most relevant guidelines are represented by UNESCO (2017) and the national curriculum framework ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2016, 2017). In addition, Mochizuki and Christodoulou (2017) have provided educators with another useful resource within the framework of UNESCO’s push for ESD, which in part focuses on language education as well. UNESCO (2017, p.  10) lists eight cross-cutting key competences learners need to acquire. These competences, according to UNESCO (2017, p.  10), include “cognitive, affective, volitional and motivational elements; hence they are an interplay of knowledge, capacities and skills, motives and affective dispositions.” In light of the insights gained from a discussion of ecocriticism, it is not surprising that systemic thinking,

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collaboration, critical thinking, and integrated problem-solving form four of the eight competence areas, the others being anticipatory, normative, strategic, and self-awareness competences (UNESCO, 2017, p. 10). Mochizuki and Christodoulou demonstrate that language education is uniquely positioned to contribute to this notion of ESD. They stress the importance of language education in developing critical thinking skills and a sense of connection and interdependence (Mochizuki & Christodoulou, 2017, pp. 158–159). The authors propose three principles that guide the embedding of ESD in language classrooms: . Include SD content in language by using the ‘open content space.’ 1 2. Recognize and use language as a ‘power tool’ to create a peaceful, just, and ecologically sustainable world. 3. Use literature to enable learners to make informed decisions and take action as responsible global citizens. (Mochizuki & Christodoulou, 2017, p. 160) The first principle may greatly depend on specific (national or federal) contexts, and there may be an abundance of ideas and suggestions for educators who wish to include sustainability-related content in their English language classes in Germany (see, e.g., the overview provided in the previous section). However, it has been argued that curricular obstacles exist in Germany, particularly regarding the focus on target country and target culture teaching, which, according to Römhild and Gaudelli (2022), work against a consistent integration of ESD in language education. The authors argue that a shift towards a topics-based curriculum would considerably strengthen efforts towards ESD by allowing a more GCE-informed approach. In short, while the use of open content space in existing curricula might be a feasible short-term measure to incorporate sustainability-related issues into language education, a truly consistent recognition of ESD as a cross-cutting theme of all education calls for a much more fundamental curricular change in language education. The second principle reminds readers of the functional-communicative dimension of language in the context of ESD.  According to Mochizuki and Christodoulou (2017, p. 162), language is “an effective tool for: communication, critical thinking, peace, social justice, advocacy, [and] identity.” For instance, they note, “[there] is a language for peace and it is one we need to use if we are to bring peace. […] The language of peace enables us to defuse situations of violence, deal effectively with conflict and

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improve our relationships generally” (Mochizuki & Christodoulou, 2017, p. 165). The third principle reflects the common notion of environmental studies and ecopedagogies that a transition towards sustainability requires a move beyond the mere development of awareness and towards action. The idea that transformative action is the ultimate outcome of sustainability-related learning processes can be found in different yet interlinked contexts within guideline documents. For instance, the different key competence areas mentioned earlier inform learning objectives that are commonly described in three domains: the cognitive, the socio-emotional, and the behavioural (UNESCO, 2017, p. 11; these are reflected in the three areas recognising, assessing, and acting in the German curriculum frameworks, see [KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2016, p. 91, 2017, p. 19). In the case of the German guidelines ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2016, 2017), the specifications in each of these dimensions revert to the notion of global competence described by [OECD] Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2018, pp.  7–8), which, in turn, is reminiscent of Kip Cates’ (2004) seminal definition of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and action as the four pillars of global education. As such, according to the major stakeholders in global efforts towards ESD, action is an inherent part and goal of any ecopedagogy. The case made here is that in a language educational context, active participation in the global discourse on sustainability and climate change may be defined as a language-specific form of action towards sustainability. It is acceptable—and desirable—for students to take time to engage with the issue, learn about sustainability, and develop the literacies needed to actively participate in the discourse and society as responsible beings. What is needed, then, is a compatible concept of ecoliteracies as part of discourse abilities which can do justice to the complexity of sustainability-related learning processes.

Ecoliteracies: Concepts, Dimensions, Goals When it comes to literacy concepts associated with ecopedagogies and attempts at relating these literacy concepts to language learning, it is important to keep in mind the

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interdependent and complex nature of learning that requires subjects and disciplines to redraw their traditional boundaries, rethink connectivity and complexity, and to engage in collaborative project work and transdisciplinary exchange. (Bartosch, 2021b, p. 2)

Thus, while ecoliteracies are interpreted from a language education perspective below, this does not mean that the literacies concepts discussed here represent stripped versions of originally (nature)scientific literacies. Rather, the discussion emphasises those aspects that are most relevant to language education or to which language education might contribute the most. There is a vast number of literacy concepts available in the scientific discourse, which may partly be due to the fact that the environment and associated literacies have been approached from various perspectives and angles and could therefore be described as a travelling concept (in reference to Neumann & Nünning, 2012). For instance, climate literacy revolves around the students’ ability to conceptualise “global warming and climate change, such that they become informed decision makers” (Shepardson et al., 2017, p. xi; see also Hufnagel, 2017, p. 43). Climate science literacy aims at improving the learners’ “understanding [of] essential principles of Earth’s climate system, assessment of scientific information; meaningful communication about climate change; making informed and responsible decisions with regard to actions that may affect climate” (US Global Research Program, 2009). The notion of climate change literacy, as understood by Johnston (2020) (see also Bartosch, Hoydis & Gurr, 2023; Miléř & Sládek,  2011), echoes this emphasis of informed decision-making. Sustainability literacy, “a more humanities-sensitive concept,” as Bartosch (2021b, p. 5) notes, hinges on “the ability to take steps toward building a more sustainable self and society” (Stibbe & Luna, 2014, p.  10). Like many other literacies concepts, it comprises “skills, attitudes, competencies, dispositions and values that are necessary for surviving and thriving in the declining conditions of the world in ways which slow down [sic!] that decline as far as possible” (Stibbe & Luna, 2014, p. 10). If one were to categorise existing notions of environmentally oriented literacies, a continuum between the poles of anthropocentrism and biocentrism might be applied. On such a continuum, the literacy concepts mentioned thus far could be positioned in the anthropocentric spectrum. Arguably, they reflect a stronger focus on humankind in both underlying assumptions regarding the role and significance assigned to humans in

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confronting and possibly solving sustainability-related problems, as well as the anticipated beneficiary of actions being carried out by literate future generations. Towards the other end of the spectrum, literacy notions informed by the environmental sciences or heavily influenced by deep ecology approaches highlight systemic thinking and the embeddedness of humans in nature, representing more biocentric views and, in some cases, quasireligious voices. For instance, ecological literacy as advocated by Fritjof Capra (1982) or David Orr (1990, 1992) draws on the idea of Gaia, that is Earth as an evolving, living super-organism. Capra explains, [Detailed] studies of the ways in which the biosphere seems to regulate the chemical composition of the air, the temperature on the surface of the earth, and many other aspects of the planetary environment have led the chemist James Lovelock and the microbiologist Lynn Margulies to suggest that these phenomena can be understood only if the planet as a whole is regarded as a single living organism. Recognizing that their hypothesis represents a renaissance of a powerful ancient myth, the two scientists have called it the Gaia hypothesis, after the Greek goddess of the earth. (1982, p. 86)

Based on this systems theory-informed approach, Orr (1990, p. 3) defines ecological literacy as “a quality of mind that seeks out connections,” arguing that “it is the opposite of the specialization and narrowness characteristic of most education.” The author continues to describe an ecologically literate person as someone who has the knowledge necessary to comprehend interrelatedness and the attitude of care or stewardship. This implies a minimum level of practical competence in order to act on the basis of knowledge and feeling. Competence can be derived only from experience of doing and the mastery of a "practice". Knowing, caring, and practical competence together can be regarded as the basis of ecological literacy. (Orr, 1990, p. 3)

According to Orr, this also includes “a broad understanding of how people and societies relate to one another and to natural systems, and how they might do so sustainably” (1990, p.  3). The assumption of a deep embeddedness of humans in surrounding systems becomes particularly evident when Orr concludes, “[to] become ecologically literate is to understand the human enterprise for what it is: a sudden eruption in the enormity of evolutionary time” (1990, p. 3).

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In ecopedagogical circles, and particularly in environmentally oriented language education, the most widely discussed notion seems to be environmental literacy. From an environmental studies perspective, Coyle (2005) argues that one goal of environmental literacy education is to move beyond the development of awareness (2005, p. ix) and towards environmental stewardship (2005, p. xi). To achieve this goal, the author distinguishes three levels of learning for environmental literacy (2005, p. xiii), the first of which is environmental awareness. The second level is deeper environmental knowledge in the sense of a “personal conduct level” (Coyle, 2005, p. xiii). Coyle (2005, p. xiii) explains, on this level, “unlike general environmental awareness, people willingly go a step farther to take personal action and make the connection between environmental issues and their own individual conduct.” The third level is environmental literacy. According to Coyle, [True] environmental literacy takes time. It can't be placed in an educational "microwave." It starts out with framed information but also involves imparting the subject's underlying principles, the skills needed to investigate the subject, and an understanding of how to apply that information. (2005, p. xiii)

Importantly, this notion of environmental literacy necessitates systems literacies as well. Referring to Monroe and Kaplan (1988), Coyle (2005, p. 57) notes, “students can address global environmental issues only after they have a knowledge of problem identification and the range of interrelationships and alternatives.” At this point, an intermediate summary is in order. Environmental literacy captures aspects from all the literacy concepts addressed above. This is substantiated by Kaya and Elster’s (2019, p. 14) definition of environmental literacy as “the ability to perceive, interpret, and make informed decisions about environmental issues, understand ecosystems, and be aware of the importance of natural phenomena.” Becker (2022, p. 452) points out that this ability can be conceptualised as inherently multidimensional, as environmental literacy is constituted in the dynamic interplay between different components. Reflecting the central elements of more general concepts of ecopedagogy, such as ESD, the North American Association for Environmental Education ([NAAEE] North American Association for Environmental Education, 2011), for instance, postulates knowledge, skills, and attitudes/dispositions as integral components,

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which are part of the three competence areas defined by UNESCO (2017) and the German curriculum framework ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2016, 2017): recognising, assessing, and acting. It is in the area of acting—or “environmentally responsible behavior” ([NAAEE] North American Association for Environmental Education, 2011)—where “competences, knowledge, and dispositions are brought to bear within a particular context” ([NAAEE] North American Association for Environmental Education, 2011). Becker (2022, p.  452; emphasis in original) concludes, “[environmental] literacy, in other words, is essentially realised in action for the environment.” In this context, Bartosch (2021b, p.  5; emphasis in original) asks, “[vita] activa rather than vita contemplativa – but what if we need a new notion of something like ‘contemplative activism’ or ‘active contemplation’?” This point is worth considering as, in a sense, the development of discourse ability encompasses active contemplation and reflection and therefore might also be regarded as a form of contemplative action—both in terms of a more general notion of discourse ability as a superordinate goal of language education for sustainable development and in the more specific context of learning with eco-documentaries. For further discussion of ecoliteracies in the context of language education with eco-documentaries, it is helpful to draw on Stables’ (1996, 1998, 2006) concept of environmental literacy, which is also central to Küchler’s (2009) approach to dealing with the environment in ELE. This understanding of environmental literacy is explicitly geared towards engagement with literary texts from an ecological perspective. Küchler (2009, pp. 360–361) summarises the three premises on which this construct relies: First, the environment is regarded as a cultural construct. Second, engaging with the environment is to be understood as a semiotic engagement, with language being considered an arbitrary sign system. As such, reading the environment, for instance, in texts and films, is interpretation of symbols and conventions of perception. Complexity arises from stereotypes, conceptions of nature, assumptions, or subjective theories. Thirdly, Stables distinguishes three levels of environmental literacy: the functional, the critical, and the cultural. In what follows, this distinction forms the basis of a more detailed discussion of ecoliteracies, as envisaged in the current ecopedagogical and language education discourse. The notion of ecoliteracies used in this book is meant to be more akin to environmental literacy rather than Orr’s concept of ecological literacy, in the

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sense that ecoliteracies would perhaps occupy a more central position on the continuum between anthropocentric and biocentric concepts, accommodating aspects from both schools of thought. Recollecting the debate on terminology led in the previous section and by Lawrence Buell (2005), the terms ecoliteracies and environmental literacies are used synonymously below. Knowing the Systems: The Functional Dimension of Ecoliteracies While Stables highlights the fact that each of the three terms, functional, critical, and cultural (environmental) literacy, is “disputed and multifaceted” (2006, p. 155), he ventures that “functional literacy is perhaps the least problematic, though even this is not easy to define unambiguously” (2006, p. 155). The notion he uses conceptualises functional literacy as comprising “the literacy skills necessary to function effectively in a given society; consequently, what it means to be functionally literate changes from time to time and place to place” (2006, p. 155). Functional environmental literacy, then, can be understood to “involve being able to name, use and respond appropriately to things in one’s environment” (2006, p. 155). Küchler notes that this may be embedded in the exploration of one’s own situatedness within one’s environment (2009, p. 361). In other words, learners need to know (about) the (eco-)systems of which they are a part. With regard to eco-documentaries, this includes, for example, learning about the greenhouse effect, nitrogen cycle, and water cycle but also about human interaction with the biosphere or global food supply chains. Once again, it is evident that to develop functional environmental literacy, this particular subject-oriented design of learning needs to be taught in more than one subject at school; it is an inherently transdisciplinary endeavour. An example provided by Küchler (2009, p. 361) demonstrates what language education can contribute to the development of functional environmental literacy. He suggests asking questions aimed at basic knowledge on climate change—which necessitates, among other things, the acquisition of appropriate vocabulary—climatic peculiarities in one’s own region, and—relating these questions to the study of films in language education—in how far personal realities correspond or differ from realities displayed in films. By emphasising that literary texts are components of environmentally oriented language education, another, slightly different notion of functional literacy can be identified as being particularly relevant in a language

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learning context. Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 146) explain that “functional pedagogies equip students to work out how texts are organised to achieve different purposes, and to learn how to use these texts in real-life contexts to enact socially powerful meanings.” A corresponding understanding of functional literacy is focused on textual meaning-making processes and the learners’ ability to analyse and, ultimately, apply them. For instance, a common feature of eco-documentaries is using a language for advocacy, that is a language that prioritises and addresses the viewers’ agency, subjectivity, and emotionality, in addition to focusing on purposive, transformative action towards resolving issues. To understand how this type of language is used in a film, and to ultimately be able to add this style to their own repertoire (application), learners need to analyse how emotionalising language is applied, how arguments and evidence are being presented, or how justifications for a certain viewpoint are being brought forth in a film. Further, a common trope used in eco-documentaries is the pastoral description of nature as a paradise in peril, thus calling on humankind, that is the viewers, to take action and save nature. This is oftentimes coupled with evidence for anthropogenic climate change and the display of possible solutions (techno-focused but also on an individual level)—as, for instance, in Before the Flood, Cowspiracy, or A Life on Our Planet. In addition, learners also need to consider cinematographic choices employed in the texts to achieve emotional effect (see Mochizuki & Christodoulou, 2017, p. 171), thus understanding that “different genres are designed to create different kinds of meaning for different social purposes” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 153). In summary, functional environmental literacy aims at the cultivation of systemic thinking, which includes the development of knowledge and acquisition of communicative means, such as vocabulary. A related but slightly different interpretation of functional environmental literacy aims at asking questions about the social purpose of language and texts, as with eco-documentaries. Neither reading is neutral in the sense that both hint at the necessity of critical inquiry, be it regarding the condition of systems and one’s own position within systems or in terms of social purposes of language and texts.

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Asking the Right Questions: The Critical Dimension of Ecoliteracies What qualifies as “critical” is contested, particularly in academic debate. Unsurprisingly, then, the notion of critical (environmental) literacy has been approached from various angles. In many cases, critical ecoliteracies include a component of deep analysis (or, in the Derridean sense: deconstruction) of texts “within the context of certain ‘theoretical’ or ‘ideological’ frameworks which themselves should be made transparent” (Stables, 2006, p. 156). On the basis of a broad understanding of text, Stables adds that environmentally oriented education should not be limited to reading texts about the environment, but that it should include seeing our dealing with literary texts as intertextual, where those texts are embedded within, and exist with relation to, hosts of other texts, many of which are non-verbal and not "authored". In other words, while we specialise in literary texts, we see these within the context of the "book of the world" and not merely as representations. (Stables, 2006, p. 157)

As such, critical environmental literacy is also aimed at conscious and informed participation in ideological and philosophical discourses on environmental issues. In the context of eco-documentaries, this comprises critical analysis of a film, contextualisation within the broader scope of societies, and possibly the discovery of arguments and inspiration for actions towards a more efficient and sustainable life. Küchler (2009, p. 362) offers a set of guiding questions in this context. Learners should be encouraged to inquire about how environmental conduct is being constructed in terms of language/symbolism and iconography. In addition, questions should be asked about the perception of a topic and how it changes, depending on the use of different linguistic or cinematographic forms of expression, forms of discourse, or genres. Much of this could be addressed, for example, through ecocritical viewings of eco-documentaries in the sense of López’ (2015, 2021) notion of ecomedia literacy: Learners would critically examine the ecological impact of a film (e.g., in terms of production and distribution) on the environment (ecological footprint) and be encouraged to explore ways in which films help spread ideologies and “beliefs about the relationship between humans and the living systems that sustain them” (López, 2019, n.p.) (ecological mindprint). In terms of the ecological footprint, for instance, learners could

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discuss the question as to whether multiple location changes and the corresponding flights during the production process of an eco-documentary are justifiable or even necessary to explore the impact of climate change and specific solutions in concrete contexts. With regard to the ecological mindprint, A Life on Our Planet pursues a narrative that revolves around the inseparability of human and nonhuman sustainability, which could spark the investigation of which notion of sustainability and development is being promoted in the film. Learning processes could also follow a more ecolinguistically informed trajectory by inquiring about how language and metaphors are used to conjure up certain images of nature and perpetuate, for instance, development- or progress-based ideologies (see, e.g., Küchler, 2021; Stibbe, 2021). In this context, David Selby argues that vernacular learning may be conducive to “fostering an ethic of concern for the planet” (Selby, 2017, p.  1). He describes vernacular learning as “place-based learning rooted in close intimacy and connection with the natural world” (2017, p. 1), which hinges on, among other things, ecolinguistic perspectives on literature and discourses. A shift of focus from ecocritical viewings of films to the social implications carried by such education highlights a second, related understanding of critical ecoliteracies, which aims at the development of an awareness of socio-environmental injustices and, ultimately, social transformation in the sense of Paulo Freire (2000). Freire’s school of thought of critical pedagogy is fundamental to Greg Misiaszek’s notion of ecopedagogy, arguably one of the most evidently critical concepts of environmental pedagogy and literacy. Misiaszek’s point of departure is his observation that while systemic thinking in the sense of “knowledges and understandings of how our actions cause environmental ill” (2018, p. 1) are being taught in existing ecopedagogies (such as EE or ESD), more essential questions are not being asked, such as why the deeper connections between social and environmental violence occur and what these socio-environmental connections are. Therefore, Misiaszek puts forth a concept of ecopedagogies, which centers on deepening and widening understanding oppressions from the connections between acts of environmental and social violence (socio-environmental) for thorough and rigorous reflection in determining necessary actions to end the oppression (i.e., praxis). Although ecopedagogies have multiple definitions, they are all grounded in critical thinking and transformability to construct praxis within social-environmental justice models

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(Gutiérrez and Prado 2008; Gadotti & Torres, 2009; Gadotti 2008[a], 2000; Kahn, 2010). Ecopedagogies' overall goal is for students to critically understand how environmentally harmful acts lead to oppression for humans (anthropocentric aspects) and all else that makes up Earth (biocentric aspects), the politics of the acts, and how to problematize the acts to end socioenvironmental oppressions. (Misiaszek, 2018, p. 3; emphasis in original).

Misiaszek’s concept of ecopedagogies is not to be regarded as an alternative to other environmental pedagogies (e.g., EE and ESD). Rather, he suggests that critical thinking and transformability should be central to these approaches: “All education is for development, but I argue that we must teach to question who benefits, who does not benefit, and what populations suffer the most for others’ development” (Misiaszek, 2018, p. 4; emphasis in original). In the context of classrooms, the associated idea of ecopedagogical literacies specifies core goals of ecopedagogies. Ecopedagogical literacies entail the students’ ability to “‘read and re-read’ (i.e., code and recode (Freire, 2000)) environmental problems and then reflect upon actions needed to save the planet from various perspectives, with specific attention to perspectives of those who struggle the most with the problem” (Misiaszek, 2018, p. 21). It is in this concept that Misiaszek’s deep roots in Freirean critical pedagogy are the most discernible: This definition of ecopedagogical literacies aims at societal transformation in the Freirean sense, with transformation referring to “change that counters current structures and normative ideologies, often paradigm-shifting, and is lasting rather than temporary changes, needing transformational action determined [by] reflective needs of socio-environmental justice (i.e., praxis)” (Misiaszek, 2018, p. 21; emphasis in original). While ecopedagogies share with other current environmentally oriented pedagogies a focus on action, the emphasis on action for transformation “within current socio-politicaleconomic structures” (Misiaszek, 2016, p.  590; emphasis in original) is what marks this notion’s unique conceptual contribution. With its inherent focus on socio-environmental justice, this understanding is highly relevant to the fostering of ecoliteracies in the context of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. A common theme of films like A Life on Our Planet is to address environmental justice issues. William Gibson explains that environmental justice, or eco-justice, “does not mean merely another aspect of justice,” but rather that

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the term eco-justice retains the ancient claim upon human moral agents to build and nurture responsible, equitable, compassionate relationships among humans in the social order. And it incorporates the realization that has come like a revelation to our own time, that human societies cannot flourish unless natural systems flourish too. (Gibson, 2004, p. 7)

Precisely in this vein, A Life on Our Planet, for instance, asks how development and progress are currently being framed and how development can be made just and sustainable for all humans and the biosphere. Evidently, there is a considerable moral/ethical dimension to ecoliteracies, which calls for reflexive and critical pedagogical approaches (see, e.g., Parham, 2006; Misiaszek, 2016, 2018) to sustainability-related issues. Recently, Deetjen and Ludwig (2021b) have brought forth a concept of critical environmental literacies for the ELE context in Germany. Based on Misiaszek’s (2018, p.  21) definition of ecopedagogical literacies, Deetjen and Ludwig offer the following definition of critical environmental literacies: Critical environmental literacies refer to the ability to recognise and critically evaluate local as well as global environmental practices and problems from various perspectives and across multiple scales of space and time and to react accordingly both as an individual and collectively. (Deetjen & Ludwig, 2021b, p. 13)

From an ecopedagogical point of view (as in Misiaszek’s understanding of ecopedagogies), questions could be asked as to what exactly constitutes “critical evaluation” and if this really entails the idea of societal transformative praxis. Furthermore, the description of “various perspectives and across multiples scales of space and time” or asking “to react accordingly” remains rather vague. What is important, though, is the recognition of scales as a significant factor in environmental learning. In this case, the scales are later specified as micro-level (“My class and I”), meso-level (“My community and I”), and macro-level (“My planet and I”) (Deetjen & Ludwig, 2021b, p. 14), which still call for further discussion and differentiation. In terms of actual classroom practice, Deetjen and Ludwig suggest that the central elements of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and awareness be fostered by means of relatively well-known, three-step approaches to teaching, “the traditional PPP (Present—Practice—Produce) as well as the more recent pre-, while-, post model” (2021b, p. 15). This also needs

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further examination, and possible alternatives to these instructional models will be discussed in the context of designing a concept for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in Chap. 6. In summary, the discussion of the critical dimension of ecoliteracies has revealed at least two relevant and related interpretations of what constitutes the “critical”: a more text-oriented understanding and a more socially transformative notion. On the one hand, critical ecoliteracies comprise the idea of engaging in critical viewing and posing questions about the film that have to do with its ecological footprint and mindprint—in the language classroom, the latter might include a particular focus on how language and style is used to promote certain ideologies. This is the more literary understanding of critical ecoliteracies. In a more societal understanding, critical ecoliteracies include moral/ethical elements that have to do with socio-environmental justice and which aim at societal transformation in the sense of Freire and Misiaszek. Thusly interpreted, both functional and critical ecoliteracies form an integral part of what learners need to develop in order to be able to participate in the global discourse on climate change. However, the global significance of environmental issues and the associated discourses necessitates the differentiation and discussion of the third dimension of ecoliteracies, the cultural dimension. Rethinking the Status Quo: The Cultural Dimension of Ecoliteracies The cultural dimension of ecoliteracies is perhaps the most problematic or challenging one. Culture is a contested construct, and the very definition of cultural learning has far-reaching consequences for the design of a conceptual framework for language education for sustainable development. In the context of environmental pedagogy, Stables notes that the culturally literate person is aware of the cultural practices and conventions that are dominant within a particular cultural group; [they] will know when festivals take place, for example, and what they represent, and will understand the dominant value systems within these societies. (Stables, 2006, p. 156)

Küchler (2009, p. 361) adds that this also includes reflecting on cultural constructions of images of nature or approaches to solve environmental issues as well as intercultural comparisons. Following the trajectory of

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literary ecocriticism, culture is read as text. In this sense, cultural ecoliteracies “relate to the significances that things in the environment have for specific cultural groups: National Parks, for example” (Stables, 2006, p. 156). The matter gains complexity, though, once one reconsiders what constitutes culture and cultural groups in the age of globalisation, digitalisation, and climate change. Active participation in the global discourse necessitates the development of complex and intricate cultural literacies. Hence, there is a broader discussion to be held in the context of cultural ecoliteracies, one that moves beyond the identification of environmentally relevant cultural practices and conventions. If the climate crisis is indeed a cultural crisis, the spotlights need to be turned onto the principles of cultural learning underlying current ecopedagogies and how learners are being prepared to navigate the crisis. For this reason, the following sections offer a critical discussion of existing approaches to the cultural dimension of ecoliteracies before alternative notions to the current concepts are examined in the subsequent sections.  he Current Paradigm: Intercultural Learning T Ecopedagogical approaches in language education in Germany have largely been embedded in and therefore informed by the paradigm of intercultural learning. For instance, Küchler (2006) makes a case for intertwining ecocritical and intercultural education based on Patrick Murphy’s (2000, p. 103) concept of “ecocultural interrelationship”: Natural environment should be a component in the definition of socioculture, much like socioculture should be a component in the definition of natural environment. The seemingly so simple and yet overarching objective for teaching efforts, be it with environmental or intercultural orientations, is interdependence and, concluded from this, exchange and dialogue. (Küchler, 2006, p. 169; emphasis in original)

As an overarching goal of language education for sustainable development, the strong focus on interdependence, exchange, and dialogue echoes both the general calls for global citizenship-informed approaches to the sustainability-related learning raised by UNESCO in SDG 4.7 and the arguments presented herein in the context of the development of discourse ability in learners. However, interpretation of the term intercultural has been the focal point of heated debates in the language pedagogy community (and beyond), ever since its inception in the field in the 1990s.

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Some concepts of ecoliteracies or ecopedagogies seem to build upon a more traditional, Herderean understanding of cultures than others—one that is based on ontological categories such as the self and the other, as well as assumptions of more or less clearly identifiable (national) cultures. A case in point—if not reflected upon thoroughly—is the common theme in ecopedagogical literature, including eco-documentaries such as Inhabitants: Indigenous Perspectives on Restoring Our World (Boutsikaris & Palmer, 2021), to remind readers of different images of nature and different concepts of the relationship between humans and their environments in Western versus non-Western/indigenous cultures, with situated, indigenous, or ‘non-Western’ knowledge running the risk of becoming a quasi-essentialist category in itself. Other contributors vaguely highlight the need for a move beyond intercultural learning in ecopedagogy, calling for inter- and/or transcultural learning approaches (e.g., Bartosch, 2020a), while some seem not to focus on cultural aspects in their concepts of ecoliteracies (e.g., Deetjen & Ludwig, 2021b). Given the criticism raised against traditional understandings of interculturality, particularly in terms of a conceptual inadequacy for describing and explaining the increasingly complex realities of learners’ lives in times of globalisation and digitalisation (see, e.g., Hallet, 2002; Antor, 2006; Delanoy, 2006; Freitag-Hild, 2010; Blell & Doff, 2014; Matz et al., 2014; Römhild & Matz, 2022), certain developments within the interculturality discourse promise to add much-needed perspectives, which might also be relevant in the context of ecopedagogies. One of these perspectives is provided by Küchler (2006), who, in his argument for the reconciliation of environmental learning and intercultural learning, refers to Patrick Murphy’s term of “another” (rather than “other”) to “avoid binary oppositions and better stress the quality of difference and diversity” (Küchler, 2006, p. 164). Murphy argues that “[what] we find repeatedly is the construct of [an] alienated other being used to repress or suppress the relationship, the anotherness, between groups in order to objectify and distance one group or culture from another in the service of some form of dominion” (2000, pp. 96–97). The ontological binary between self and other, he argues, needs to be overcome, as it is “fundamentally insufficient to represent the range of relational distinctions among entities existing in the world” (2000, p. 96). The same argument is central to Bredella and Christ’s Didaktik des Fremdverstehens (1995, p. 11), where the self and the other are conceptualised as relational terms. Within the field of intercultural business communication, contributors to Jürgen Bolten’s special

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issue of interculture journal (2016) collectively highlight the need for the consideration of metacognitive aspects in a timely notion of interculturality. The authors stress the importance of culture-reflexive elements (Nazarkiewicz, 2016) and perspective-reflexive language (Von Helmolt, 2016) to help relate the notion of interculturality to a level of interpersonal interaction. Von Helmolt raises an important point when she refers to the concept of indexicality to argue that linguistic representation of interculturality “always inevitably leads to generalization” (2016, p. 33). This is worth keeping in mind for a discussion of the currently dominant paradigm in language education, a context to which the idea of indexicality can easily be transferred in the sense that how students learn to communicate about a topic may also inevitably lead to generalisation and categorisation. This conceptual shift within the interculturality discourse runs in parallel with a development in the language education discourse in Germany, which is witnessing an increasing number of scholars promoting an integrated view of inter- and transcultural aspects rather than categorically siding with either position (see, e.g., Delanoy, 2006, 2012, 2014, Delanoy, 2024; Blell & Doff, 2014, Volkmann, 2014; Freitag-Hild, 2018). Transculturality can be defined as an “approach to culture particularly suited to exploring the hybridity of the individual and collective identities and the cultural connections between things in an increasingly globalized world” (Doff & Schulze-Engler, 2011, p. 3). In the German context, it is closely associated with philosopher Wolfgang Welsch (1992, 1999, 2010, 2011), who introduced the concept to the German discourse in the 1990s. As Römhild and Matz observe, It is […] surprising that in the ELT community, a transcultural understanding of cultures (as being hybrid and fluid) is often treated as a novel idea, a relatively young construct that slowly challenges interculturality as being the predominant paradigm (see e.g., Blell & Doff, 2014, p.  81; Göbel, [Lewandowska & Diehr] 2017, p. 108; Hallet, 2020, p. 3). This disregards the fact that both inter- and transculturality entered the discourse at the same time (in the 1990s) and fails to acknowledge that there has been a heated debate for at least 25 years about which paradigm to follow. (2022, p. 146)

In light of this heated debate between interculturalists and transculturalists, Delanoy (2023) warns that it would be unwise to ignore centripetal forces, those which can be observed in phenomena ranging from a strong

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sense of place-based belonging to nationalist separatist movements. The core argument for a dialogic relationship between inter- and transculturality is that “only the combination of both schools of thought promises successful preparation for the challenges of the 21st century” (Römhild & Matz, 2021, p. 147). Treichel (2011, pp. 280–282) explains that intercultural methods contribute a more hands-on action orientation, whereas transcultural concepts add important reflexive elements. Thus, strategic intercultural abilities are complemented by transcultural meta-competences, thereby forming a comprehensive concept. In this book, this understanding forms the basis of what is henceforth referred to as cultural literacies (rather than inter-/transcultural literacies; see also Chap. 5). Included in this notion are such aspects as an orientation towards frameworks of cultural meaning and social relations; activation of common goals, values, and resources; engaging and dealing with diversity and transdifference by conscious reflection of one’s own experiences, values, and stereotypes; target-oriented use of systemic complexity; and emotional competence as well as cultural sensitivity to take into account other agents’ concepts of perception, thinking, feeling, and action in one’s own agency (Treichel, 2011, p. 280). All these are central to living together in this world, actively participating in society and global discourse, as well as in shaping a more socio-environmentally just and sustainable future. The key to this remains the premise that “cultures are hybrid, dynamic and thought of as discursive practice: Cultures are what people make as a result of everyday practices; they are not what people have (see, e.g., Hörning & Reuter, 2004)” (Römhild & Matz, 2022, p. 147). A traditional, Herderean understanding of cultures is incompatible with the notion of cultural literacies as suggested herein. However, while this notion of cultural literacies is known to theoretical discourse, and while it reflects a clearly identifiable paradigm shift within the interculturality community, this is far from the type of intercultural learning promoted in curricula for language education at German secondary schools. Based on the recommendations submitted in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001; see also Companion Volume, 2018), German national guidelines ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2003, 2004, 2014) and federal curricula prioritise Byram’s ICC (1997, 2021) as an approach to cultural learning and global education. While ICC has been criticised on numerous occasions, in light of approaches to teaching and learning in a

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globalised and digitalised world (see discussion above), the following section explores some of the points of criticism most relevant to environmental learning.  he Incompatibility of ICC and Language Education for T Sustainable Development The argument presented here—that ICC is incompatible with an understanding of language education for sustainable development as laid out in the previous section—can be derived from the fundamental conception of cultures within the ICC framework and the corresponding myopic perspective on citizenships, which appears to reflect a regional lens exclusively. This impedes the development of a sense of interconnectedness across different scales, which is central to the ideas of GCE, and thus ESD. It has been argued that the way ICC has been incorporated into the relevant curricula has led to an equalisation of culture and nation, which, in turn, encourages prioritisation of the national category over any other possible category (see, e.g., Römhild & Matz, 2022; Römhild & Gaudelli, 2022). In doing so, the guideline documents reproduce and perpetuate essentialist narratives and discourses of national cultures or, at the very least, binary oppositions such as one’s own and the foreign. As such, identities and socio-environmental affiliations are only being conceptualised on a national level, whereas other levels of identity formation are being neglected: The ‘other’ becomes the sole focal point of identity formation, and, as a result, a number of issues arise from this. For a start, the focus on the national category might be interpreted as being symptomatic for curricula dominated by economic competitiveness rather than geared towards social participation and transformation, which, from the outset, thwarts efforts to think in terms of global solutions for global issues. Furthermore, Römhild and Gaudelli maintain that instead of the particular target country/target culture teaching, language education for sustainable development needs frameworks and approaches which “[underscore] that the significance of an issue or topic is not neatly categorical but quickly escapes those human-centric compositions” (2022, p. 26). Otherwise, one could argue, a learner is bound to identifying with one concept of citizenship by virtue of an oppressive and exclusive understanding, most likely the national one, thereby disregarding the possibility and necessity of negotiating multiple citizenships, such as global citizenship or ecological citizenship.

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At this point, it is important to note that, in the revised edition of his ICC model, Byram (2021) has distanced himself from this unfavourable reading of ICC.  He insists that the strong association of ICC with an equalisation of culture and nation has been the product of misunderstanding and misinterpretation (see, e.g., 2020, p.  23, 42 or 77). While he argues that his revised model can and should be applied to both crossnational and intra-national contexts, the examples provided throughout his argumentation still invite the reader to think primarily in terms of national cultures. Byram refers to a variety of geopolitical entities as conceivable intercultural contexts, but he never leaves the context of regionalisation—there is no mention of other, de-territorialised forms of cultural contexts and social spaces which have become especially relevant for societies and identity formation in the learners’ lives in the twenty-first century. Thus, even taking into account Byram’s revised volume (2021), the line of argumentation presented here still remains, particularly because the current German curricula pertinent to this discussion are designed on the basis of his first publication from 1997. In short, Römhild and Gaudelli surmise that with the current curricula promoting ICC in this way, [the] self becomes part of a generalized, romanticized version of an imagined community (see Anderson, 1983), ignoring the fact that this community is also characterized by internal hybridity, diversity, contrasts and mechanisms of exclusion. Likewise, the foreign is assigned a uniform (often national) culture. With its promotion of categories such as the self and the other/the foreign, ICC is not only unfit as an approach to cultural learning in the context of ESD, but it actually harms the endeavor. It facilitates the curricular formation of an earlier "us" and a later "other" rather than a sense of global interconnectedness throughout. (Römhild & Gaudelli, 2022, p. 20)

Therefore, language education for sustainable development requires a different framing for the cultural dimension of ecological learning—one which relies on a conceptualisation of cultural literacies in the sense of Treichel (2011) and Delanoy is (e.g., 2022, 2023). For the discussion of this framework, it is helpful to recall the definition of quality education provided by UNESCO in SDG 4.7, which explicitly mentions HRE and GCE as pillars of quality education in the age of climate change. In summary, Stables’ (1996, 1998, 2006) distinction of functional, critical, and cultural environmental literacy has served as a basis for the

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discussion of ecoliteracies in the context of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. All three dimensions are integral to a notion of ecoliteracies, with each of them providing unique, complementary perspectives and learning objectives. Only as a conglomerate can the functional, critical, and cultural dimensions form a comprehensive notion of ecoliteracies, which becomes especially apparent in the context of such aspects like socio-environmental justice. However, particularly the cultural dimension still requires more detailed discussion and clarification. What is needed is a framing for the cultural dimension, which allows the development of cultural literacy from the start, without falling into the intercultural trap. For this reason, the following sections discuss approaches to the conceptualisation of cultural ecoliteracies that are more in line with central aspects of language education for sustainable development, as outlined in Chap. 2 and by SDG 4.7, that is critical discourse literacies, human rights, and global citizenship education.

Climate Change as a Question of Dignity: Human Rights Education and Pedagogies of Hope The climate crisis is as much a cultural crisis as it is a human rights crisis.1 While the intersections between human rights and climate change have been explored within the fields of sustainable development and social justice (e.g., Sachs, 2008; Levy & Patz, 2015; [OHCHR] United Nations Human Rights Office of the Commissioner, 2015), as well as legal studies for some time already (e.g., Aminzadeh, 2007; Posner, 2007; Limon, 2009; Knox, 2009; Bodansky, 2010; Caney, 2010), they have recently also attracted attention from a pedagogical perspective (Roemhild & Gaudelli, 2021). Arguing in terms of sustainability and socio-environmental justice, the matter seems rather evident. Worldwide, climate change threatens people’s “basic capability to support themselves with dignity” (Sachs, 2008, p. 334), as it “undercuts the rights to health, to food, to water, and […] it may even affect the right to self-determination” ([OHCHR] United Nations Human Rights Office of the Commissioner, 2015). Furthermore, Levy and Patz (2015, p. 311) add to the list of potentially infringed human rights the rights to freely determine one’s political status, to freely pursue economic, social, and cultural development, and the right to education 1

 This section has informed the discussion led in Römhild (2023).

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itself. Levy and Patz (2015) stress that there is an imbalance between those who tend to be affected by climate change and the associated human rights restrictions, particularly to the disadvantage of low-income countries and poorer people within high-income countries. Arguably, this tendency in itself is detrimental to human rights overall, as McNaughton explains: Certainly, equality is fundamental to international human rights. In the human rights framework, equality has instrumental value  – inequalities adversely impact on the enjoyment of a full array of civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights. But equality also has intrinsic value – equality in dignity and rights. (2017, p. 1065)

From a legal perspective, the matter is far from being evident. For a start, while climate change certainly affects human rights, it does not necessarily violate them, legally speaking (Bodansky, 2010, pp. 520–521). In addition, prosecution can be extremely difficult (Bodansky, 2010, p. 253) because it would be impossible for a victim of global warming to show that one particular corporation or factory caused his injury. Any theory would need to allocate liability on the basis of market share or some other proxy for degree of responsibility, and although American courts sometimes do this, the difficulties of using such theories for global warming are considerable. (Posner, 2007, p. 1934)

Therefore, in line with Knox (2009), Römhild and Gaudelli (Roemhild & Gaudelli, 2021, p.  111) point out that “the discussion is not so much about human rights as it is about ‘human right duties’ that have relevance to climate change.” Among these duties are the duties to respect and protect the human rights of others, as well as the duty to fulfil or facilitate satisfaction of the human rights of others. The question remains as to what implications can be derived from this for (language) educational contexts. Given the discrepancy between a moral imperative to address the climate crisis as a human rights crisis (socio-environmental justice viewpoint), on the one hand, and the realities of tied legal hands, while unrelenting human activity further amplifies the problem, on the other, one might be inclined to ask how exactly language education for sustainable development, based on the work with eco-documentaries, may contribute to meaningful, lasting change—or, somewhat

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more dramatically, if there is reason for hope in sustainability education at all. Slow Violence and Slow Hope Recall at this point the reference to Homi Bhabha’s keynote lecture at the Ruhrtriennale 2019 in the introduction to this text: When Bhabha refers to the concept of disappointed hope, he asks us as a society to put ourselves in a new proleptical position, to reflect on where we are and to identify what we need to do to help ourselves now. Bhabha’s focus on this particular occasion is on migration and refugee experiences, another global issue relevant to human rights and which is, arguably, connected to the climate crisis. He argues that dealing with these issues is not a sentimental approach towards helping other people because sentimentality, empathy, and sympathy fall short of the matter—particularly in rich societies, people are not in the same position as refugees and therefore do not share the same experiences. Helping other people, Bhabha reminds his audience, needs to be motivated by a sense of responsibility. However, in terms of climate change, humanity as a whole is affected, albeit not in equal scope, as has been pointed out above. Humanity as a society is bound together by the anticipation of (among others, climate-related) catastrophe. Ulrich Beck (1986) describes this as risk society. Again, it is worth emphasising that this does not mean that risks or manifested catastrophes are distributed equally over space and time. In fact, Rob Nixon (2011) uses the term “slow violence” to indicate that climate change-related injustices are oftentimes invisible, slow, and gradual, and mostly affect the vulnerable, poor, and disempowered. Examples for slow violence are plentiful; forced migration in the cases of Nepalese villagers who had to abandon their homes because of droughts, or inhabitants of pacific archipelagos who had to evacuate and emigrate to Fiji due to sea level rising, as depicted in Before the Flood, come to mind. It is a widely received notion amongst observers that those who have least contributed to the problem are the ones who have to bear the direst consequences of climate. It is in these ideas of slow violence and risk society where the moment of current disappointment— even failure and despair—lies. However, Bhabha (2018, p. 10) points out that “we need to understand what we may call the ‘rationality of risk’: risk, not simply as the ‘last act’ of desperation, but as a kind of ‘disappointed hope’, to recall Adorno’s phrase.” Beck, too, hints at the significance of hope in his concept of risk

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society. Asked in an interview (Phoenix, 2013, see 25:00–27:10) whether there is, in his opinion, a way out of this crisis, Beck refers to Hegel and his idea of a ruse of reason: Even if nobody wants anything to happen, something, motivated by reason, is still going to happen. He explains that risk, as the anticipation of catastrophe, also exists to develop new utopias and hope. In other words, precisely because the risk society is all about anticipation and the avoidance of catastrophe, it is also a hope society. Put differently, from disappointment, a place of fear, despair, failure, crisis, and continuing risk, emerges hope.2 Hope is essential for transformative action and sustainability-related pedagogies. Misiaszek (2016, p. 603) reports from several of his studies that participants recurred to the idea that “ecopedagogy must be full of hope,” because “without hope fatalism is emphasised and socio-environmental oppressions are normalised.” Misiaszek further corroborates his argument that ecopedagogies need to be transformative and utopian to a certain degree because “education must allow students to dream of possible utopias, countering fatalistic educational models in which large societal transformation is impossible and ‘alternative’ thinking is delegitimised and portrayed as useless” (2018, p.  22). This is based on Freire’s position that [the] ability to observe, to compare, and to evaluate, in order to choose, through deciding, how one is to intervene in the life of the city and thus exercise one's citizenship, arises then as a fundamental competency. If my presence in history is not neutral, I must accept its political nature as critically as possible. If, in reality, I am not in the world simply to adapt to it, but rather to transform it, and if it is not possible to change the world without a certain dream of vision for it, I must make use of every possibility there is not only to speak about my utopia, but also to engage in practices consistent with it. (2004, p. 7)

Freire’s plea for such pedagogy emphasises a necessary element of hope and (or: for) transformative action in citizenship education. Referring 2  Bloch (1985, p.  157) distinguishes between abstract and concrete utopia. Weik von Mossner (2022: 167) explains that “[while] the former is a form of escapism and has compensatory functions, Bloch understands the latter as a form of social dreaming that has ‘the power of anticipation’ and serves as a potentially transformative ‘methodical organ for the New, an objective aggregate state for what is coming up’.” In this sense, hope is concrete utopia; “an unfinished forward dream,” as Bloch (1985, p. 157) calls it.

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back to socio-environmental injustices, this can easily be related to a moral component, which then needs to be included and recognised in ecopedagogical settings. Robinson notes, [Climate] justice responds to the moral argument – both sides of the moral argument – to address climate change. First of all, to be on the side of those who are suffering most and are most effected. And secondly, to make sure that they're not left behind again, when we start to move and start to address climate change with climate action, as we are doing. (2015, 08:01–08.30)

She moves on to quote her mentor Wangari Maathai, “In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called upon to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground,” and continues, “And that’s what we have to do. We have to reach a new level of consciousness, a higher moral ground” (Robinson, 2015, 20:21–21:26). It would be fatalistic, then, not to seek reason for hope. Engaging with Nixon’s (2011) notion of slow violence, Christof Mauch develops his concept of slow hope as such: But if we acknowledge that human manipulation of the Earth has been destructive force that has caused huge converging threats, particularly over the last couple of centuries, we can also imagine that human endeavors can help us build a less destructive world in the centuries to come. (2019, p. 18)

Mauch calls for “not only an acknowledgement of our present ecological predicament but also a language of positive change [and] visions of a better future” (2019, p. 18). However, corresponding change and transformation, as indicated by the name of his concept, is going to be slow. Following Akomolafe’s (2014, p. 2) famous words, “The times are urgent, […] let us slow down.” Slowness—understood as a different, deeper kind of awareness of the world and ourselves—might just be what is needed, as Mauch (2019, p. 21) argues: “In a world where developments are evolving ever more rapidly, slowness can be frustrating but also inspiring.” In the context of literary studies and language pedagogy, Bartosch confirms that “[it] is not the idealization of slowness but the potentials of ‘slow scholarship’ (cf. Bergthaller et al., 2014) that let us understand why language and literature matter when it comes [to] cultures of climate” (2021b, p. 7).

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In addition to the many reasons why literature can be regarded as conducive to environmental purposes, Mauch (2019, p. 19) calls for “narratives of hope,” arguing that “the arts and humanities have the potential to remind us of past environmental change and positive visions for our environment.” Through literature, learners can access or generate hope. This is particularly evident in the context of eco-documentaries. WilloquetMaricondi (2010c, p.  44) states: “As a specific type of environmentally oriented cinema, ecocinema can offer us alternative models for how to represent and engage with the natural world; these models have the potential to foster a healthier and more sustainable relationship to that world.” Hope is a common theme in eco-documentaries, which often feature plot trajectories turning hopeful towards the end of the film. A case in point is A Life on Our Planet, which demonstrates slow violence and environmental destruction over the span of Sir David Attenborough’s lifetime but also transforms this into a message of slow hope: Transformation will take at least another lifetime, but it is possible. In short, what is needed is a future-oriented perspective (‘hope’) on living together sustainably in a socio-environmentally just world, whereby education for sustainable development is not a concept for negative compensation but rather for developing and intensifying sustainable living approaches. Yet, this presupposes critical reflection on the now (i.e., the ‘disappointed’) and the kind of world in which learners are currently living. It is crucial to recognise current failures and crises—such as socioenvironmental injustices—not only in terms of learners identifying them, engaging with them, discussing them in the classroom but also on a conceptual level, in terms of educators reflecting on preconditions and existing frameworks to do so. In this sense, it must be reiterated that language education for sustainable development is still in need of an adequate framework, particularly in terms of cultural learning, as current ELE does not nearly tap its potential for critically and constructively engaging with the era-defining issue of climate change. The dominant paradigm of categorising and demarcating identities, by means of ICC’s fundamental differentiation of the self and the other, works against the development of a sense of interconnectedness and responsibility for others, which is key for acknowledging one’s own human rights duties in the face of another person. Yet, the educational tools to move from disappointment to hope have been known for a while. Osler and Stokke note that

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HRE [Human Rights Education] can contribute to a politics of hope. Educators and activists seek to inspire hope by increasing knowledge and awareness of human rights. Educators can also promote hope by equipping their students with the experiences, skills and attitudes to stand up for their rights and the rights of our fellow humanity. They can prepare them to be effective citizens, prepared to show solidarity with those whose rights are denied and to engage in struggles for justice. In this sense, HRE is not neutral but concerned with enabling citizens to adhere to a 'principle [that] recognizes our responsibilities to others across difference, at local national and global scales'. (Osler, 2016, p. 29). (Osler & Stokke, 2020, p. 3)

Human Rights Education as Pedagogy of Hope Human rights education is an approach to civic or citizenship education that “promotes a broadly humanistic regard for all people, whereby individuals think and act in solidarity with all members of the human community” (Hahn, 2020, p. 9). This idea of universal inclusivity sits at the heart of human rights education and informs one of the central goals: to “expose young people to universal standards and means for protecting and ensuring rights for all” (Hahn, 2020, p. 9). As such, human rights education can also be considered an alternative to more narrow, nationalistic approaches to citizenship education, which focus primarily on responsibilities, rights, and duties within a national society. The broad humanistic ideology underlying human rights education is reflected in a typology of human rights education categories provided by Bajaj (2011). Bajaj suggests three types of HRE initiatives, “(1) HRE for Global Citizenship, (2) HRE for Coexistence (to sustain peace in postconflict societies), and (3) HRE for Transformative Action (in the tradition of Paulo Freire’s work)” (overview provided by Hahn, 2020, p. 10). These strands are not mutually exclusive, as the example of climate change demonstrates. To address climate change as a human rights issue necessitates learners to develop a global mindset and an awareness for their own interconnectedness in the sense of global citizenship education (1) to be able to assume responsibility, to coexist peacefully and to combat socioenvironmental injustices (2) through meaningful, sustainable transformative action (3). Within the context of language education for sustainable development, it seems reasonable to turn the spotlight on the idea of HRE for global citizenship. Firstly, with global citizenship education just taking root in

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the language educational discourse in Germany, it seems appropriate to highlight that HRE and GCE can—and arguably, should—walk hand in hand when it comes to teaching and learning about climate change and sustainability. It is not by coincidence that SDG 4.7 mentions both HRE and GCE as part of what constitutes quality education in the twenty-first century. Secondly, the goals associated with GCE, such as an awareness of one’s own global interconnectedness, can serve as a basis for further engagement and, ultimately, transformative action. Thirdly, from the tradition of HRE for GCE emerged the now widely accepted distinction of teaching and learning about, for, and through human rights, which may serve as a useful conceptual framework for human rights educational practices in (language) classrooms. Based on Lister’s (1981) definition of teaching about, for, and in human rights, the [UN] United Nations (2011) distinguishes the aforementioned teaching and learning about, for, and through human rights. Hahn (2020, p.  10) explains, “[education] about human rights includes developing knowledge of human rights norms and principles, the values that underpin them, and the ways they can be protected.” In terms of the climate crisis, this entails, among other things, acknowledging climate change as a human rights issue by learning about those rights that are being infringed upon, as a result of climate change, as well as recognising one’s own role in protecting the rights of others. “Education through human rights,” Hahn (2020, p. 10) continues, “includes teaching and learning in ways that respect the rights of teachers and students.” There is a (classroom-) cultural dimension to this notion, in the sense that the learning environment allows students to experience human rights consciously. Using ecodocumentaries in the language classroom offers manifold opportunities for learners to engage in education through and for human rights, the latter aiming “to empower learners to exercise their rights and respect and uphold the rights of others” (Hahn, 2020, p. 11). For instance, the website for Before the Flood features a climate action hub, which provides ideas for grassroots projects that could be discussed in terms of their significance for everyone’s human rights, thereby cultivating language for human rights and advocacy; or these projects could even be carried out locally. A combination of these three dimensions may work towards a human rights culture in the classroom and beyond. Only if learners are able to appreciate the value of human rights in their own lives and in their own immediate surroundings will they be able to transfer their dispositions and, ultimately, actions to increasingly larger scales. This idea is expressed in

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Starkey’s (2023) argument for the cultivation of a language of human rights (lower case)—as opposed to the “hypocrisy inherent in the rhetorical use of the language of Human Rights in diplomatic posturing.” Based on these deliberations, Matz and Römhild (2021, 2022) postulate a number of principles, which could inform human rights-oriented teaching and learning processes within language education for sustainable development: • Learning scenarios need to be relevant to the learners’ lifeworlds, in order for them to appreciate the significance of human rights in their everyday lives as well as their own role in upholding human rights for others. Socio-environmental injustices pervade all societies on various levels. • This involves a high degree of self-reflection and an awareness of one’s own position in the discourse on human rights and the climate crisis as a human rights issue. • To address socio-environmental issues, learners need to develop problem-solving skills. This could be achieved through meaningful and complex tasks which involve problem-posing and (communicative) action orientation. • In addition, materials and texts should be multimodal, offering multiple perspectives on a given topic, so as to avoid myopic (e.g., nationalistic) views. This way, the notion of universal inclusivity within the human rights discourse can be made accessible for learners. Arguably, the idea of human rights can be considered rather utopian. However, as has been stated before in the context of slow hope, utopia and hope are exactly what is needed, particularly in education: Without hope, there is no aspiration, no ambition, and, ultimately, no efforts for change. Furthermore, the discussion should not only focus on human rights but rather revolve around everyone’s human rights-related duties and responsibilities as well. From a philosophical perspective in particular, the cultivation of an awareness of one’s own position and responsibility is key for the development of a sense of global interconnectedness. Philosophically speaking, human rights are universal; they are the only available value system which is recognised globally and independent of nation states. As such, human rights can provide a powerful moral basis for critical literacies—both as part of ecoliteracies in the sense of Misiaszek (2016, 2018) and as part of a more general ability to actively and critically

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participate in global discourses, as laid out in Chap. 2. On the grounds of this moral basis, self-reflection and transformative action may be achieved. Thus, language education for sustainable development, based on the principles of human rights education, can be regarded as an instance of slow hope, and, as such, it can be embedded into a broader framework of global citizenship education.

Contouring a Global Citizenship Education Framework The currently dominant approach to the cultural dimension of ecoliteracies, intercultural learning in the sense of Byram’s ICC (1997; 2021), focuses on categories such as ‘the own’ and ‘the foreign,’ which has arguably led to a prioritisation of the national category over others, thereby motivating the conceptual equalisation of nation and culture. Perhaps it is partly because of this underlying notion of culture that ESD has been criticised as being too individualistic, too nationally oriented. In light of the deliberations on the climate crisis being a human rights crisis, it appears logical to venture that, for successful ESD, learners are required to develop a sense of interconnectedness with the world. In other words, to address the climate crisis and issues of sustainability in education which aims at transformative action, it is necessary to move from the paradigm of intercultural education towards global citizenship education. The connection between ESD and GCE has been identified and promoted by many stakeholders, most prominently UNESCO in SDG 4.7 and in international academic discourse (see, e.g., Misiaszek, 2016, 2018; Sant et  al., 2018; Roemhild & Gaudelli, 2021). From a socio-environmental justice perspective, Misiaszek (2018, p. 6) maintains that “GCE is an essential framework within all environmental pedagogies […] because environmental violence is not confined to geopolitical borders, among other social-constructed boundaries, but is global in its impact.” Therefore, global citizenship and ecopedagogies must be combined in education. In a similar vein, Hayward (2012, p. 13) highlights the fact that this combination of environmental education and global citizenship education “recognises that citizenship is not only legally-defined membership of a political community, but also a state of belonging, feeling affiliation and participation in communities that can extend across national borders.” In recent publications, UNESCO (2019, 2021) also reiterated their

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conception of interweaving and overlapping ESD and GCE.  In these reports, relevant ESD and GCE pedagogies are considered to overlap in four thematic areas: (1) sustainable consumption and production education, (2) climate change education, (3) human rights education, and (4) cultural diversity and tolerance education, in order to work towards “learning to know, to do, to be and to live together” (UNESCO, 2021, p. 19). Before exploring how GCE can provide a framework for the cultural dimension of English language education for sustainable development, it is necessary to draw an important terminological distinction. The term GCE has only recently entered the language pedagogy discourse in Germany, most notably within the field of ecopedagogies (e.g., Römhild, 2021; Römhild & Gaudelli, 2022; see also Freitag-Hild, 2022; Lütge et  al., 2022), whereas the term global education has been in use much longer (see, e.g., Mayer & Wilson, 2006b; Lütge, 2015a, b; Cates, 2022) and largely in conjunction with Cates’ (2004) definition of four dimensions of global learning (knowledge, skills, attitudes, action). Around the turn of the millennium, Graham Pike identified two poles of a continuum of global education: On the one end, he noted “a broader geographical perspective so as to equip students to compete more effectively in the global marketplace,” juxtaposed by a “fundamental reevaluation of the content and purposes of schooling in line with a transformative vision of education in a planetary context” (Pike, 2000, p. 64). This is in line with Robin Richardson’s observation that [the] term 'global education' is as good as any to evoke the whole field. […] It implies a focus on many different, though overlapping levels from very local and immediate to the vast realities named with phrases such as 'world society' and 'global village'. It implies also a holistic view of education, with a concern for children's emotions, relationships and sense of personal identity as well as with information and knowledge. (quoted in Ballin & Griffin, 1999, p. 1)

More than 20 years later, global education remains a fuzzy umbrella term, too wide in scope to serve as a coherent framework for pedagogical approaches. Global education seems to split into different trajectories, among them those which reproduce the status quo by remaining within the conceptual boundaries of twentieth-century, nation-focused pedagogies (intercultural learning; democratic education) and those which seek

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to overcome the status quo through pedagogies for transformation— including global citizenship education. Davies (2006, p. 6) suggests that “[what] seems to happen with global citizenship education is a confirmation of the direct concern with social justice and not just the more minimalistic interpretations of global education which are about ‘international awareness’ or being a more rounded person.” The latter, a shallow or soft version of global education, has attracted much criticism as “lacking a coherent conception, having been invoked as a slogan system rather than a way of organizing curriculum” (Gaudelli, 2016, p. 36). Arguably, the current academic discourse on language education in German-speaking countries has not yet fully implemented global education as a way of organising curriculum. What is necessary is a coherent framework of global citizenship education, particularly (but not exclusively) when it comes to ESD. Definitions of GCE have been offered by numerous organisations and scholars, most notably by Oxfam (2015), in the scope of the Maastricht Declaration (O'Loughlin & Wigamont, 2002), and by UNESCO (2014), indicating that GCE conceptions are far from cohesive. Summarising these three most prominent definitions of GCE, Gaudelli (2016, p. 47) identifies three key aspects: • “First, each demonstrates a nonlinear effort to locate GCE in a particular learning space.”—This pertains to questions as to where GCE would fit, as a whole-school programme, an after-school programme, or a community-based programme. • “Second, these various conceptions of GCE vacillate around the deeply problematic North-South gap within GCE, particularly resonant as school systems grow more focused on economic growth at the direction of governments and policy bodies.”—This hints at existing (power) asymmetries not only between what can be considered the North versus South but also, recalling Misiaszek’s arguments in the context of ecopedagogies and Nixon’s concept of slow violence, ‘in the Souths within the Norths.’ • “Third, examining these three in concert, the shift towards social action and engagement is the most pronounced.”—While earlier forms of global education were aimed at raising awareness, “the shift of the past two decades has clearly moved attention to learning that is focused on doing in a social sense,” or, in other words, social transformation.

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Based on these aspects and in line with UNESCO (2015), Römhild and Gaudelli define GCE as an educational discourse (and related practices) that at its core aims to engage young people in learning about interdependencies that tie together injustice, ecological devastation, and human diversity, a discourse with a goal of promoting a more peaceful, harmonious, and just world. (Roemhild & Gaudelli, 2021, p. 106)

GCE is normative in that there is a clear value premise, which “invites people to literally think and be in the world differently, in a way that is neither rewarded monetarily nor valued socially” (Gaudelli, 2016, p. 48; emphasis in original). In this sense, GCE is linked to and informs everyday thought and action, an idea expressed by Gaudelli’s (2016) title phrase Everyday Transcendence: The central goals of GCE are of everyday significance, to develop a sense of global interconnectedness through the myriad links people share with others and their environments on a daily basis. This idea ties in with a discursive understanding of culture as everyday practice—as opposed to a static notion of culture which conveys the own/ foreign distinction. This, in turn, is believed to lead to the assumption of responsibility and, ultimately, transformation. Arguably, GCE is highly idealistic and aspirational and, one might add, potentially dangerous by imposing utopian ideology on learners. As to idealism and aspiration, GCE could perhaps be described as a project under way, one which responds to the “everydayness of global thinking” (Gaudelli, 2016, p. 48) that is already ubiquitous. There is an innate sense of becoming in GCE, an educational desire to create a better future on the basis of and by resolving the disappointments of the present. To reiterate a phrase used in the previous section, without aspiration there is no change. As to GCE potentially propagating utopian ideology, this arguably depends on whether GCE-informed teaching and learning processes remain on a shallow level of some sort of one-world-ism or whether these learning processes reach deeper, more hard-edged, and analytical levels of engagement with oneself and the world. Global Citizenship Education as Discourse: A Short Overview One of the few certainties within the vast GCE discourse is that “there can be no one dominant notion of global citizenship education as notions of

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‘global,’ ‘citizenship,’ and ‘education’ are all contested and open to further argument and revision” (Peters et al., 2008, p. 11). From this follows that there can also be no dominant notion of what it means to be a global citizen. To gain an overview of existing conceptualisations, categories, or types of GCE, a meta-review of typologies provided by Pashby et  al. (2020) is helpful. Based on a heuristic spanning the three discursive orientations neo-liberal, liberal, and critical (and their interfaces), the authors use social cartography to locate the most impactful typologies of GCE of recent years: Andreotti, 2006, Shultz, 2007, Schattle, 2008, Gaudelli, 2009, Marshall, 2011, Camicia & Franklin, 2011, Oxley & Morris, 2013, Andreotti, 2014a, and Stein, 2015. At this point, the goal is not to provide conclusive clarification but rather to survey the discourse and identify positions which frame and thereby allow the pursuit of goals associated with language education for sustainable development as outlined thus far. Three aspects of current GCE typologies are of particular importance in this context: • the distinction between soft and critical GCE (Andreotti, 2006, 2014b), • different philosophical approaches to what it means to be a global citizen, which directly relates to the role of (underlying concepts of) culture, and • different conceptual orientations of GCE pertinent to environmental learning. S oft Versus Critical GCE The distinction between soft and critical global citizenship education (Andreotti, 2006, 2014b) is seminal to the current discourse. Andreotti engages in a discussion of one of the main points of criticism raised against GCE: the idea that GCE is a “civilising mission”(2006, p. 1). The argument here is that GCE serves “as the slogan for a generation who take up the ‘burden’ of saving/educating/civilising the world” (Andreotti, 2006, p.  1), which of course raises questions about power relations between those who do the ‘saving’ and those who are being ‘saved.’ The point of departure, in other words, is the acknowledgement of a general framing and limitation of GCE by what Pashby et al. (2020, p. 146) call “a common metanarrative: the modern/colonial imaginary.” The authors explain, “[this] metanarrative naturalises a Western/European standpoint and corresponding set of colonial and capitalist social relations, projecting a local

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(Western/European) perspective as a global design” (Pashby et al., 2020, p. 146). Andreotti (2006, p. 1) argues that a generation educated within the framework of this metanarrative is bound to “project their beliefs and myths as universal and reproduce power relations and violences similar to those in colonial times.” The recognition of this dynamic and, with it, notions of power, voice, and difference are at the heart of what Andreotti calls critical global citizenship education. The adjective ‘critical,’ she elaborates, does not imply that “something is right or wrong, biased or unbiased, true or false. It is an attempt to understand origins of assumptions and implications” (Andreotti, 2014b, p. 49)—which is, of course, also the understanding of criticality reflected in Marxl & Römhild’s (2023; see also Chap. 2) notion of critical discourse abilities. Whereas a soft notion of GCE is arguably vulnerable to criticism targeted at ideology and indoctrination as a driving force of promoting change, critical GCE “tries to promote change without telling learners what they should think or do, by creating spaces where they are safe to analyse and experiment with other forms of seeing/thinking and being/relating to one another” (Andreotti, 2006, p. 7). The fact that Misiaszek (2016) identifies critical global citizenship as a suitable theoretical framework for his concept is testimony to the significance of Andreotti’s work for the context of ecopedagogies, with their focus on socio-environmental injustices. He argues that the goals of his concept include increased understanding of and respect for the world's diverse cultures. A fundamental shift between traditional and global framings of citizenship is that traditional nation-state citizenship is largely based on a homogeneity of a global culture, while critical global citizenship is framed by cultural heterogeneity. (Misiaszek, 2016, p. 596)

What becomes apparent in Misiaszek’s words is the importance of a concept of culture(s) which allows for hybridity, dynamics, and everydayness; and, relating thereto, the ability to reflect on one’s own assumptions—not only in the case of learners but also of educators and, one might add, scholars working in the field of ecopedagogies. Andreotti warns that “[if] educators are not ‘critically literate’ to engage with assumptions and implications/limitations of their own approaches, we run the risk of (indirectly and unintentionally) reproducing the systems of belief and practices that harm those we want to support” (2006, p.  8). In a similar vein, Abdi

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(2014, p. 19) cautions that “[the] way we teach and learn about global citizenship can be problematic: specifically, when it is conceptualized, constructed, and delivered in pre-packaged epistemic and pedagogical boxes.” With regard to the climate crisis and language education for sustainable development, underlying concepts of culture(s) such as ICC rank high on the list of assumptions or pedagogical boxes in need of critical reconsideration. It must be noted that Andreotti (2006, p.  7) recognises potential problems with critical GCE in terms of inducing in learners a feeling of guilt, internal conflict or even paralysis, critical disengagement, and a feeling of hopelessness. This highlights the significance of the discussion led above on a more hopeful approach to environmental learning through HRE within a critical GCE framework.  hilosophical Approaches to GCE and the Role of Culture P To understand why underlying concepts of culture and the implementation of cultural learning matter in the context of GCE and ESD, considering different philosophical approaches to GCE is worthwhile. Roemhild and Gaudelli (2021, p. 107) describe GCE as an “‘affiliative’ discourse,” which “attracts those who recognize the limitations of state-only education, particularly in an era of rapid integration of global systems in every domain, including the political, social, economic, ideological, and cultural.” This is not to say that GCE excludes the national domain from discussion. In fact, multiple positions within the discourse examine the national as a powerful category of both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Pashby (2012, p.  9), for instance, defines GCE as “an ideal” which “encourages students to adopt a critical understanding of globalization, to reflect on how they and their nations are implicated in local and global problems and to engage in intercultural perspectives.” Aboagye and Dlamini (2021, p.  26) describe this as a multicultural reading of GCE. While fully recognising that such expansive notions as intercultural learning, much like global education and global citizenship education, are being used in a multitude of ways in international discourse, the implied conceptual proximity of the two categories ‘nation’ and ‘intercultural,’ in Pashby’s words, suggests a potentially problematic view on GCE in the context of environmental learning (and, arguably, beyond)—particularly from a perspective of the German educational discourse, where ‘intercultural’ generally signifies Byram’s ICC. The cultural concepts based on the ‘own’ and the ‘foreign’ can too easily contribute to a simplification of North-South dynamics, on the grounds of assuming ‘cultures with

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borders.’ Too easily, then, can a process of “worlding of the West as world,” in Spivak’s (Spivak, 1990) terms, be accepted without acknowledging the complex, transversal, and transcendental dynamics within societies. Following Andreotti’s (2006, p. 6) framework, this in turn leads to the assumption of responsibility for others—“or to teach the other”— rather than the assumption of responsibility towards others—“or to learn with the other”: “accountability.” Thus, a nuanced view on cultures and societies is impeded, even though such a perspective is crucial for reflexivity, dialogue, contingency, and an ethical relation to difference, which Andreotti identifies as basic principles for change in a critical GCE framework. In addition, a hybrid understanding of cultures as everyday discursive practice—independent from nations—acknowledges the possibility of an individual co-constructing and influencing multiple cultures, cultivating multiple identities, and nurturing a feeling of belonging to multiple spheres of citizenship at the same time, rather than ‘having’ one culture, one identity, and one citizenship. This is particularly significant with regard to cultures, identities, and citizenships that are formed in social and digital spaces but which are not bound to physical geographical spaces or entities, such as states. A unilateral, myopic prioritisation of national concepts of culture, identity, and citizenship, which is promoted by conceptual proximity or even the equalisation of nation and culture, can be regarded as counterproductive to the goals of both ecopedagogies and GCE.  Clearly, philosophical approaches to (the cultural basis of) GCE bear far-reaching implications for concepts of citizenship(s) as well and will therefore be discussed in more detail in the course of this chapter.  onceptual Orientations of GCE Pertinent to Environmental Learning C To allow for a more purposive and focused discussion of citizenships in the context of ecopedagogies embedded in GCE, a few more steps are needed: first, identifying exactly those conceptual orientations within the GCE discourse which offer a suitable theoretical framework, and second, examining these orientations in more detail. Based on the deliberations offered thus far, that is the acknowledgement of the climate crisis as a human rights crisis and subsequently the postulation that human rights education principles are a pedagogical and moral pillar in language education for sustainable development, as well as the focus on socio-environmental injustices inherent to transformative ecopedagogies, the following orientations of GCE seem to be the most immediately relevant:

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• Liberal Cosmopolitan GCE (e.g., Schattle, 2008; Gaudelli, 2009; Oxley & Morris, 2013) Within their heuristic, Pashby et al. (2020) identify several shared key aspects of (moral) cosmopolitanism in the liberal domain. They surmise that “mutual respect (Stein, 2015) and concern (Schattle, 2008) are key principles in a liberal orientation as well as cultural equality (Oxley & Morris, 2013)” (Pashby et  al., 2020, p.  151). These aspects are reflected in Gaudelli’s (2009) description of cosmopolitan GCE as a combination of “concern for all of humanity with a focus on civic processes that involve dialogue” (as summarised by Pashby et  al., 2020, p.  151). Further, Gaudelli (2016, p.  39) explains that, within cosmopolitan perspectives, some (political, moral, economic, and cultural) presume “the plurality of differences within a fundamental sameness,” whereas others (social, critical, environmental, and spiritual) “abide [by] a less universalistic ethic and are more communitarian in organization while also showing some overlap with the previous cosmopolitan varieties.” Generally, moral cosmopolitan GCE follows the traditions of the Stoics, Kant, and Nussbaum and is often connected to a “focus on the ethical positioning of individuals and groups to each other,” as well as to ideas of human rights (Oxley & Morris, 2013, p. 306). • (Global Social/World) Justice (e.g., Gaudelli, 2009; Marshall, 2011; Oxley & Morris, 2013) Closely connected to cosmopolitan orientations of GCE are approaches that highlight the role of international organisations and governance in providing and supporting legal frameworks as well as building consensus through national representation, such as the UN. Pashby et al. (2020, p. 151) note that this type of GCE attracts criticism, often informed by a critical GCE perspective—“for failing to engage substantively with structural inequalities and focusing on global relations from an individualistic or Westphalian nation-states position.” If regarded through a critical GCE lens and thus reframed as global socio-environmental justice and governance, the aspect of governance may, however, yield great potential for further research at the interface of various GCE orientations, such as political and moral cosmopolitanism and environmental GCE. • Environmental GCE (e.g., Dobson, 2000, 2003; Valencia Sáiz, 2005; Schattle, 2008; Oxley & Morris, 2013)

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Environmental GCE is part of Oxley and Morris’ (2013, p. 306) classification of advocacy types of GCE, which also include social, critical, and spiritual GCE.  Environmental GCE is a concept not often found in GCE typologies. Pashby et al. (2020, pp. 160–161) note that the identification of these approaches “is an interesting finding and points to the need for further work across GCE and environmental and sustainability education […] – particularly around recent discussions of the Anthropocene and posthumanism.” In a sense, environmental GCE traverses other GCE orientations. Unlike most other types, it is derived, to some extent, from scientific fields occupied with nonhuman elements, contrasting the humanistic foci reflected in concepts of politics, economics, and culture which traditionally inform GCE perspectives. This eco- or Earth-centric approach has major implications for the conceptualisation of citizenship, with Jelin (2000, p.  60) asking: “Does nature have rights?” Reflecting the insights gained in previous sections, Oxley and Morris (2013, p.  313) conclude that questions such as Jelin’s lead to the reversal of the rights-responsibility framework: “from a focus on human rights to a focus on human responsibilities”—or duties. These duties and responsibilities, however, need to be tied to other living beings, human and nonhuman, in order for this notion of environmental GCE to work as a framework for ecopedagogies in the sense of Misiaszek. This is not to say that other orientations of GCE are irrelevant. For instance, transformationalist approaches to GCE highlight that globalisation is a “complex and dynamic set of relationships  – international, national, and local – which create new patterns of inclusion and exclusion” (Pashby et al., 2020, p. 156). Shultz (2007, p. 255) argues that this necessitates the establishment of “new ways of negotiating between local and global actions and agendas, resolving conflict, and acting in solidarity,” which emphasises the importance of the ability to participate in global discourse. In the context of language education and communication, Oxley and Morris’ (2013, p.  306) identification of advocacy for social global citizenship, in the tradition of Habermas’ communicative rationality, also deserves consideration, as it focuses on “the interconnections between individuals and groups and their advocacy of the ‘people’s’ voice” (Oxley & Morris, 2013, p. 306).

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Recognisably, none of the orientations mentioned above or elsewhere is fully independent from the other. Rather, areas of overlap and interdependence—or even mutual contradiction—exist, which is why Pashby et al. (2020) also consider the interfaces between neo-liberal, liberal, and critical orientations. With that being said, it is also necessary to acknowledge that, from a theoretical/conceptual point of view, the inclusion of both liberal cosmopolitan GCE—with its focus on universal values—and critical GCE—with its ambition of changing the status quo in the face of social/socio-environmental injustices—might attract criticism, as it could be considered academic cherry-picking. The question is how to reconcile critical, autonomous thinking with the postulation of a moral metanarrative, such as human rights. The same question was asked in the context of (critical) discourse ability, and the answer is identical: All educational efforts are necessarily embedded in context and framed by educational norms to the effect that education is inherently a moral effort and can never be neutral. The ‘critical’ is all the more important, then, to be able to reflect on one’s own moral assumptions. Yet, the critical also needs some point of moral or ethical reference—as is indicated in Andreotti’s (2006, pp.  6, 7) insistence on an “ethical relationship to difference” as part of critical GCE. In this way, the critical and the moral can be in balance. The tight fit of critical and liberal/cosmopolitan orientations is reflected on the critical-liberal interface, which tends to “question the roots of current mainstream Eurocentric notions of GC and cosmopolitanism (Stein, 2015)” (Pashby et al., 2020, p. 153). According to Pashby et al. (2020, p. 153), these orientations include Gaudelli’s (2009) critique of current power structures and modernisation, critiques of Western exploitation and violence (Shultz, 2007; Oxley & Morris, 2013; Stein, 2015), as well as approaches to GCE “that acknowledge complicity in that violence, as well as alternative concepts of progress” (Pashby et al., 2020, p.  153). Collectively, the positions on this interface prove to be highly compatible with the general trends observed in the current ecocritical and ecopedagogical discourses—the conceptualisation of socio-environmental injustices as instances of slow violence; the call for a reconsideration and re-evaluation of what development and progress mean (outside of Western/Northern perspectives).

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A Closer Look: Cosmopolitan Readings of Global Citizenship Education Given the strong connections between critical, cosmopolitan, and environmentally oriented notions of GCE, it seems logical to suggest a sort of eco-cosmopolitan GCE as a framework for language education for sustainable development. Since this framework needs to be based on an understanding of cultures as everyday discursive practice, with a corresponding notion of cultures being hybrid and dynamic, the cosmopolitan aspect of this framework deserves more detailed attention, not least because, as Gaudelli (2016, p. 21) remarks, “a number of controversies surround a cosmopolitan subjectivity, […] particularly as the concept has increasingly been deployed to illustrate renovations with respect to the meanings of citizenship.” Cosmopolitan ideas look back on a long genealogy, starting as early as the Greek Cynics3 and Stoics, and including Enlightenment philosophers such as Immanuel Kant. Most recently, contemporary scholars in the fields of philosophy (e.g., Appiah and Nussbaum), anthropology (e.g., Appadurai, Clifford, and Ong), sociology (e.g., Beck, Giddens, Hannerz, and Tomlinson), political science (e.g., Hayden, Held, and McGrew), as well as literary criticism (e.g., Bhabha, Cheah, Mignolo, and Robbins) have recuperated the concept. Rizvi (2009, p. 253) observes that “new interest in cosmopolitanism is based upon a recognition that our world is increasingly interconnected and interdependent globally, and that most of our problems are global in nature requiring global solutions.” It is not surprising that an idea as old as cosmopolitanism has diversified over the course of its evolution, now serving as an umbrella term for different trajectories of thought or nuanced notions of cosmopolitanism. However, elementary to all conceptualisations is what Gaudelli (2016, p. 21) refers to as “the golden rule of cosmopolitanism,” quoting Appiah (2006, p. 111; the phrase was originally coined by ancient Roman poet Terenz in

3  Famously, Diogenes the Cynic described himself as “a citizen of the world” (see Nussbaum, 1996). Note that postcolonial scholars like Mignolo (2011), Robbins (2017), and others put forth another genealogy of cosmopolitan ideas, which started in the sixteenth century with “the emergence of the Atlantic commercial circuit, the genocide of Indians, the massive appropriation and expropriation of land by European monarchies and the massive slave trade and exploitation of labour” (Mignolo, 2011, pp.  330–331; see also Delanoy, 2022, pp. 128–129).

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his comedy Heauton Timorouneos): “I am human: nothing human is alien to me.” Appiah elaborates, [We] cosmopolitans believe in universal truth […] though we are less certain that we have it all already […]. One truth we hold to […] is that every human being has obligations to every other. Everybody matters: that is our central idea. And it sharply limits the scope of tolerance. (2006, p. 144)

One issue that tests the limits of cosmopolitan tolerance is the handling of and relationship to nation stateism, (democratic) citizenship, and identity. Cosmopolitan ideas seem to revolve around transcendence of national boundaries, both politically and in terms of identity, as a result of what Beck and Sznaider (2006, p. 6) refer to as cosmopolitanisation, as Weenink (2008, p.  1091) explains, “a relatively autonomous social force, which emerges from global interdependencies in which millions of people are linked by worldwide risks of production and consumption.” Further, Weenink (2008, p.  1091) elaborates that this process may lead to the “globalizing of minds: the awareness  – whether one likes it, fears it or hates it – of being part of the world and at the same time being part of a particular, locally and historically grounded place or situation.” This idea was expressed as “glocalised cosmopolitanism” by Tomlinson (1999, p. 198), a continuous interdependence between the local and the global. As such, it is akin to what Gaudelli (2016) refers to with his notion of everyday transcendence, which is a central part of his understanding of GCE—that the global is part of everyone’s everyday life. The idea of localglobal interdependence or transcendence is also central to Delanty’s (2006) perspective on cosmopolitanism. According to him, world openness leads to (self-)transformation of cultural forms and discourses (Delanty, 2006, pp. 26, 44). Crucially, as Weenink (2008, p. 1091) summarises, “such openness results in competing translations of the global into the local and vice versa, both at the level of societies and within the minds of individuals.” This, in turn, leads to the creation of cultures that are “carried by a transnational network rather than by a territory” (Hannerz, 2000, p. 104). With their shared focus on the interdependence between the global and the local, these conceptions of cosmopolitanism are related to Appadurai’s (e.g., 1997; 2001) approach to globalisation, which revolves around the notion of global flows, with “globalisation taking place as interactive movements or waves of interlinked practices, people, resources, and ideologies: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes,

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finanscapes, and ideoscapes” (Jackson, 2016, p.  5). Three interrelated observations serve Appadurai as points of entry: First, “globalisation [produces] new geographies of governmentality,” which emerge “within the ‘skin’ or ‘casing’ of existing nation states” (Appadurai, 2001, p. 25); second, “the nation state system is undergoing a profound and transformative crisis” (Appadurai, 2001, p.  25); and third, there is a profound transformation of global governance underway, which sees the emergence and increasing significance of non-governmental organisations (Appadurai, 2001, p.  26). Pondering the relationship between globalisation and democracy, Appadurai identifies a major paradox of democracy in that, while it is organised to function within national boundaries, its values make sense only when conceived globally and universally (2001, p. 42). He notes that there have mainly been two forms of efforts to revive democratic principles globally since the 1970s: The first is “to take advantage of the speed of communications and the sweep of global markets to force national governments to recognize universal democratic principles within their own jurisdictions” (Appadurai, 2001, p. 42). Although the politics of human rights is notably a prime example for this form, it might still be regarded as somewhat unsatisfactory from a cosmopolitan standpoint, due to an overemphasis of nation states over the global, with individual states ultimately retaining the power. The second form identified by Appadurai, however, aims at constituting a “democracy without borders” (Appadurai, 2001, p. 42). The case can be argued that such global phenomena like the bottom-up democratic Fridays for Future movement can be considered an instance of democracy without borders. It is this form which Appadurai (2001, p. 42) describes as “deep democracy,” suggesting “roots, anchors, intimacy, proximity and locality,” while also acknowledging that “the lateral reach of such movements  – their efforts to build international networks or coalitions of some durability with their counterparts across national boundaries – is also part of their ‘depth’.” Appadurai’s theory of deep democracy demonstrates that democratic values and democratic citizenship can work independently from nation states, transcending national borders, which makes it an essentially cosmopolitan idea that works towards reconciling cosmopolitan identity and democracy. The idea of a glocalised cosmopolitanism and its emphasis on the interdependence between the local and the global, between societies and the individual, opens another angle from which the relationship between cosmopolitanism, nation stateism, citizenship, and identity can be approached.

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While Appadurai’s (1997, 2001) deliberations focus more on political aspects such as globalisation and societies, governance, and democracy, Hall’s (e.g., Hall, 2002) and Appiah’s (e.g., 2006) perspectives on cosmopolitanism offer insights geared more towards the cultural aspects. Much like Appadurai, Hall (2002) refers to the lateral connections shared by communities and social groups across the globe. Rizvi (2009, p.  262) notes that “Hall suggests that the globally ‘open’ spaces in which we now live require a kind of ‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’.” This vernacular cosmopolitanism highlights the importance of local and national attachments, albeit in new, dynamic ways which acknowledge that problems and their solutions are interconnected and transcend national borders because it is aware of the limitations of any one culture or any one identity and […] is radically aware of its insufficiency in governing a wider society, but [is] nevertheless […] prepared to rescind its claims to the traces of difference, which make its life important. (Hall, 2002, p. 30)

Appiah (2006) argues in the same vein, suggesting that cosmopolitan identity does not contradict patriotism or national identity, and stresses the significance and value of difference: “A tenable cosmopolitanism tempers a respect for difference with a respect for actual human beings” (Appiah, 2006, p.  113). This understanding of cosmopolitanism forms the basis for what is called “rooted cosmopolitanism” (e.g., Kymlicka & Walker, 2012). Gaudelli (2016, p.  21; emphasis in original) notes that “[rootedness] points up the limitations of earlier versions of cosmopolitanism that equated it with Western knowledge, language and disposition, perhaps a post hoc justification for European colonialism.” Rooted cosmopolitanism recognises that individuals are what Gaudelli (2009, p. 80) calls “placed beings,” that different forms of local or even national identity remain powerful realities for many and that national and global subjectivities can be negotiated, even mutually reinforced: This is the promise of rooted cosmopolitanism; that the very same national identities that bind people deeply to their own particular national communities and territory can also mobilize moral commitment to distant others, and that inculcating and affirming a sense of Swedishness or Canadianness among co-nationals can simultaneously inculcate and affirm a sense of global citizenship. (Kymlicka & Walker, 2012, p. 6)

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However, it seems as though the discourse reflects a strong association of rootedness with nationality, which, again, could be interpreted as an overemphasis of the national category over other equally important categories for identity formation, such as the individual self or the interpersonal sphere. As such, it is perhaps more adequate to use the terms ‘embedded’ or ‘grounded,’ or at least to agree on a reflected notion of rootedness, which does not exclusively work on a national (one might say: territorial) scale but also on other (social) ones. What has become apparent throughout this discussion of cosmopolitan perspectives is the importance of interconnectedness and the idea that there are different levels in this “cosmopolitanism of connections,” as Calhoun (2017, p. 196) labels it. It not only hinges on concepts of cultural diversity, hybridity, and plurality, but, more crucially, whether one is aware of one’s own place within the net of global connections makes all the difference. Only if individuals—that is, in this context, learners—are aware of their global interconnectedness can they address the inherent and inevitable contradiction that exists between the different scales of identity and citizenship (including the self, the interpersonal, the national, the global). As Valencia Sáiz (2005, p. 169) points out, while discussing the relationship between cosmopolitanism and ecological citizenship, it is important to understand the cosmopolitan approach to citizenship “as a ‘mediator concept’ in the dialogue of a political community made up of different cultural traditions and political discourses in the establishment of a framework that aims at overcoming the dichotomy between citizens and aliens.” Rizvi transfers these insights to education, arguing that [in] the context of educational practice, this focus on cosmopolitan learning should involve efforts to develop in students a set of epistemic virtues. This does not mean ignoring local issues, but to understand them within the broader context of the global shifts that are reshaping the ways in which localities, and even social identities, are now becoming re-constituted. Such a cosmopolitan understanding, I want to argue, is necessary, if we are [to] develop ways of ethically steering the direction of global–local relations, instead of allowing them to be shaped simply by the dictates of global corporate capitalism. (Rizvi, 2009, p. 254)

This is particularly important in the context of developing a conceptual framework for environmental learning and English language education for sustainable development.

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In summary, the idea of (reflected) rootedness (or embeddedness/ groundedness) is important to a cosmopolitan vision of GCE for a number of interrelated reasons. First, while arguments against the prioritisation of the national category over others have been presented in the English language educational context in Germany (e.g., Römhild & Gaudelli, 2022), these arguments potentially attract scrutiny by critics who highlight the fact that the nation state is still very much a powerful part of learners’ realities and lifeworlds. The idea of embeddedness takes this into account by involving the national category as one level or scale, while, at the same time, stressing the significance of other scales, including those beneath the state, that is, the interpersonal and the individual self. Second, the acknowledgement of groundedness makes possible the discussion of different scales in the first place, which is central in the context of ecological or environmental learning: Identities, senses of belonging, and responsibilities may be rooted, but, more crucially, they can also trace out. This is an important premise for Ursula Heise’s (2008b) notion of eco-cosmopolitanism, “a term,” as Adamson (2014, p. 175) notes, “she coins as a kind of shorthand for ecologically inflected notions of ‘world citizenship’,” which might be helpful in terms of further contouring a GCE framework for the use of eco-documentaries in the English language classroom.

Walks and Journeys: An Eco-cosmopolitan Approach to Citizenship In terms of GCE-informed (language) education for sustainable development, a notion of citizenship—defined as a sense of belonging rather than a political status—must transcend the national. Arguably, a rooted cosmopolitan approach to GCE already includes senses of belonging on ‘local’ scales, such as the self, the interpersonal, or even the national—a “sense of place,” in Heise’s (2008b) words. However, as the title of her seminal Sense of Place and Sense of Planet (2008b) suggests, an environmentally inflected notion of global citizenship must balance both the local and the global. As a literary scholar, the author engages with literature and arts “as a way of understanding prevailing trends in the current environmental imagination of the global” (Heise, 2008b, p. 13). Balancing a more local notion of “sense of place,” with a more globally oriented “sense of planet,” Heise contrives an understanding of eco-cosmopolitanism that deserves

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recognition when it comes to the ascertainment of a GCE-framing for English language education for sustainable development and the use of eco-documentaries in the classroom, in terms of theoretical approaches to what Hayden (2010) calls “world environmental citizenship” as well as in terms of concrete lesson design. In order to discuss Heise’s notion of eco-cosmopolitanism, this section first traces the development from traditional concepts of citizenship to more recent notions of citizenships in the plural form. It then focuses on environmental citizenship as one of these new kinds, before moving towards eco-cosmopolitan global citizenship as a specific conceptual framework for English language education for sustainable development. Turning to implications for concrete teaching and learning practice in the English language classroom, the following paragraphs conclude with a discussion of Gaudelli’s (2017) concepts of the walk within and the journey outside, from a language pedagogical perspective, thereby highlighting the significance of the ability to scale for the development of responseability (Delanoy, 2017) and critical discourse literacies (Marxl & Römhild, 2023), as described in Chap. 2. From Citizenship to Citizenships: A Short Conceptual Overview It has already been established that all three components that constitute GCE (global, citizenship, education) are contested. Out of these three, however, the concept of citizenship in particular perhaps entertains the most complicated relationship with cosmopolitan views on GCE. Yet, cosmopolitan understandings of citizenships are not impossible and may even yield important insights for environmental learning in the language classroom. A definition serves as a segue into the discussion of citizenship(s) in the context of environmentally inflected notions of GCE. According to Sant et al. (2018, p. 5), citizenship describes one’s legal and political status as well as a sense of belonging. A similar definition is offered by Hans Schattle (2012, p. 4), who identifies three definitional frames of citizenship: A civic understanding highlights the diverse set of rights and obligations defining the relationship between individuals and their multiple community affiliations. An identity understanding focuses on a sense of allegiance, belonging, loyalty, and identity to communities based on a shared set of meanings. Citizenship as (democratic) empowerment and participation emphasises

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an understanding of citizenship as performance and highlights the processual nature of citizenship as performative enactment. The idea that citizenship refers to a political category and an individual’s legal status looks back at a long history. From a Western/Eurocentric perspective, the roots of citizenship are often identified in the ancient Greek poleis, where citizenship meant being a member of or belonging to a city (see, e.g., Castles & Davidson, 2000, p.  28), and ancient Rome, where “citizenship meant membership in a political community, based on legally defined rights and duties” (Castles & Davidson, 2000, p.  32). Today’s understanding of citizenship as a political status is predominantly shaped by the nation state and, correspondingly, territoriality—reaching its pinnacle in the fatalism of what Huntingdon (1993, 1996) labels the “clash of civilizations.” Less confrontational influences of nation stateism are central to numerous current approaches to citizenship (education), oftentimes in connection with or as an expression of neo-liberal tendencies in the corresponding concepts. For instance, in their book-length introduction to GCE, Aboagye and Dlamini (2021, p. 24) point out that “a number of authors (Dower & Williams, 2002; Banks, 2008; Falk, 2002) have discussed citizenship in terms of the nation-state and government and society’s interest in developing people to be effective members of their countries.” However, what it means to be an “effective member” of a country can, of course, vary, and it would not be too far-fetched to assume an economic inflection in many countries, given the strong market-orientation of capitalist societies. Traditional notions of citizenship within local or domestic political communities (city-states and nation states) are exclusionary, in the sense that an individual either is or is not a citizen of a certain political entity— based on place of birth or by obtaining a legal document, for example. In educational contexts and cultural learning, this idea is paralleled and amplified by prevailing notions of cultures being static, fixed, or essentialist national cultures. For instance, by approximating culture to territory (e.g., nation states), Michael Byram’s (1997; 2021) ICC promotes an exclusive understanding of citizenship and offers myopic views on identity and belonging to a culture as a foundation and expression of citizenship. Arguably, however, the realities of the twenty-first century necessitate a more intricate way of thinking about citizenship or citizenships, as Misiaszek (2016, p. 592) notes: “Intensifying globalization has made an individual’s citizenship increasingly complex in terms of how they define, beyond their own nation-state (i.e., traditional citizenship) what they are

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a citizen of and whom they consider to be their fellow citizens.” Aboagye and Dlamini add that [sovereignty] has the power to confer national identity through birth certificates, passports, and so on, which are signs of identity as well as status, loyalty, rights, and responsibilities. In the present world of transnational communication, cross-border travel, and migration, the Westphalian model of citizenship as imagined sovereignty (Anderson, 1983) can no longer account for the cross-national movement of ideas, people, goods, and services, and for the formation of large political bodies such as the European Union. (2021, p. 9)

What is therefore necessary is a broader understanding of citizenship, one that perhaps even transcends traditional definitional frames mentioned by Schattle. Schattle (2012, p. 9) offers a radically different idea of citizenship, juxtaposing a “fixed or static concept, signifying passive legal relationships between individuals and their respective states” and an understanding of citizenship “as a verb signaling activity in politics and society,” which is expressed “as a series of habits, dispositions, and practices in which individuals situate themselves in all kinds of communities and immerse themselves into public initiatives, as well as public debate and often public controversy and struggle.” With a global perspective on citizenship, the concept necessarily becomes more open and inclusive: Citizenship, in this context, does not automatically refer to a place, but it also refers to a way of thinking and a way of being. Concepts of citizenship have increasingly become independent from the nation state, with individuals—and learners—building communities in social spaces, independent of territory: “Citizenship is now articulated with culture, technology, identity (particularly gender), science, transnationalization and cosmopolitanism” (Smith & Pangsapa, 2008, p. 10), as well as the environment. These forms of social citizenships can coexist within an individual’s life, and they necessarily expand the spatial and social scales of citizenships, not only from the local, national, and regional to the global but also to the interpersonal and the self. Environmental Citizenships On the basis of these developments in the conceptualisation of citizenships, it is now possible to examine the close relationship between

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ecopedagogies and citizenship education in more detail. The argument pursued here is that an environmental perspective on citizenship education substantiates the necessity of a wider citizenship notion. Concepts of environmental citizenship hinge on the premise that “environmental issues cannot be separated from questions of social justice— that there is no contradiction between addressing environmental issues and social inequalities” (Smith & Pangsapa, 2008, p. 1). The inseparability of the social and the environmental, once more, relates to and affirms the idea that the climate crisis is a cultural as well as a political crisis, which thus forms one of the fundamental principles of ecopedagogies. Unsurprisingly, then, Misiaszek highlights the inherent connections between ecopedagogies and citizenship education, arguing that ecopedagogies are an essential element of citizenship education, and vice versa: “Critical teaching within and between different spheres of citizenship is essential for pedagogy” (Misiaszek, 2016, p. 587). He notes that “intensifying globalisation has made an individual’s citizenship increasingly complex in terms of how they define, beyond their own nation-state (i.e., traditional citizenship) what they are a citizen of and whom they consider to be their fellow citizens” (Misiaszek, 2016, p. 592; emphasis in original). Misiaszek’s notion of ecopedagogies is based on the observation that individuals can and do have multiple citizenships, ranging from local forms of citizenships to global and to planetary ones. He explains that one of the central objectives of citizenship education, connectivity, “aligns with environmental pedagogies, in that determining one’s actions is largely influenced by their perceived social and environmental effects on their self-determined society of fellow citizens” (Misiaszek, 2018, p. 53). To this end, environmental learning needs critical GCE perspectives. From a Freirean perspective, Misiaszek (2018, p.  60) warns that “by ignoring global connectivity of the borderless nature of environmental issues by falsely distancing them, the oppressions of environmental violence will be all-inclusively oppressive globally, fatalistically de-distancing them,” predicting that “socio-environmental oppressions will reach everyone eventually.” This argumentation for a critical GCE perspective in ecopedagogies is built on Andreotti and Pashby’s work (2013), who, in turn, employ Marshall (2011) to highlight the shortcomings and, arguably, the dangers of ‘soft’ GCE perspectives: Marshall pointed out that a unifying feature among different types of GCE is the assumption of global interconnectivity, which is very much a part of

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the social imagination of global citizenship, saying: […] global citizenship education discourse rarely recognises that this presumed "empirical reality" is entrenched within a liberal-democratic framework that assumes all citizens have the same rights, opportunities and responsibilities, when some marginalised communities and individuals in the world experience a very different lived-reality. (415) The soft versus critical GCE framework helps to distinguish between approaches that are (a) reinforcing existing and historical processes of global interconnections based on individual humanism (be it a neoliberal or social justice approach), and (b) interrogating assumptions around global interconnectedness toward significantly revising those relations. (Andreotti & Pashby, 2013, p. 429)

As such, critical and environmental GCE focuses on “ending violence rather than conflict, through increased socio-environmental solidarity and connectivity by deepening and widening understandings of differences and valuing diversity” (Misiaszek, 2018, p. 61). Beckford (2021, p. 102) adds that this type of education should “empower people to make informed decisions for environmental integrity, sustainable economic viability, and a just society for the present and future generations, while respecting cultural diversity.” Misiaszek (2016, p. 600) introduces the concept of planetary citizenship, which represents a shift from a purely anthropocentric perspective to a biocentric one. In addition to the individual and societal spheres that form the foundation of traditional approaches to citizenship, he distinguishes between the Earth or nature as a third sphere of citizenship (the Earth as a citizen in its own right) and future citizens as a fourth. The global and planetary citizenships are neither characterised by legal authority usually attributed to traditional citizenship framings, such as the nation state, nor by currency or authority such as migration documents. Rather, these forms of “borderless” citizenships “develop connections to one another for better understanding each other, Earth, and work together towards a socio-environmentally peaceful world” (Misiaszek, 2018, p. 64). Arguably, there is a connection to be made here between cosmopolitan perspectives and human rights education as a way of circumventing too nationalist a reading of what Misiaszek refers to as traditional citizenships. To move beyond too strong a focus on the national sphere in (democratic) citizenship education, Audrey Osler and Hugh Starkey have worked extensively towards what they call “cosmopolitan citizenship” (see, e.g., Osler & Starkey, 2018), which is based on human rights. Including this

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concept in a notion of environmental GCE would be in line with the argumentation presented herein thus far and could therefore be applied to the definition of a GCE framework for the use of eco-documentaries in language education, which is independent from or at the very least does not overemphasise the national scale over other scales or spheres. The deliberations provided in the contexts of critical discourse literacies (Chap. 2) and climate change as a question of dignity follow the same logic. However, what is particularly interesting about Osler and Starkey’s work, in the context of moving beyond traditional understandings of citizenship beneath the global and planetary scales, is the criticism it has attracted. For instance, Bowring (2011) joins Kiwan (2005) in questioning the very foundation of Osler and Starkey’s approach to citizenship education within a human rights framework: [Kiwan] asks boldly whether human rights, located within a universalist frame of reference, are not conceptually distinct from citizenship, which are [sic!] located within a more particularist frame. She poses the question whether conflating human rights with citizenship may actually obstruct the empowerment and active participation of individual citizens. That is a valid and politically challenging criticism. (Bowring, 2011, p. 56)

It is a valid critique, indeed, because human rights as a normative value system should work independently of democracies, as in nation states. Correspondingly, human rights education should work independently of civics or democratic education, while the reverse is not possible: democratic learning necessitates human rights education. Yet, against the background of an understanding of bottom-up, transnational democracy—detached from nation stateism in the sense of Appadurai’s deep democracy—Osler and Starkey’s push for cosmopolitan citizenship can be regarded as a movement away from particularist frames of citizenship and towards the acknowledgement of a plurality of social, de-territorialised citizenships. As such, a cosmopolitan approach to citizenships not only takes into account rights and duties or responsibilities of citizens, but it also includes ethical and value-oriented aspects, particularly if seen through an environmental (justice) lens. Smith and Pangsapa note, [In] the Aristotelian tradition, being a good and virtuous citizen has often been tied to active involvement in the community. It is not insignificant that

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the broadening of meaning of citizenship should also be marked by a move to go beyond the concerns of self-governance and legal status to the way citizens act in and through associations and to the way citizens follow particular norms on the appropriate conduct of those associations. This has also included a widening of the net of responsibilities. (2008, p. 48)

What is appropriate, of course, varies over space, time, and society. Nevertheless, human rights as a universal value system, which is central to environmental learning, may help establish a baseline of appropriateness. In the context of environmental GCE, then, Barr’s (2003, pp. 229–230) three continua of values help further identify the contours of environmentally inflected, cosmopolitan views on (global) citizenship: 1. from egoistic to altruistic values and from being conservative to being open to change (with the latter, in both cases, prompting environmental responsibility); 2. from anthropocentrism to biocentrism (including instrumental and intrinsic valuation, respectively); 3. from technocentrism to ecocentrism, as ‘belief driven values’ in response to environmental problems. (as cited in Smith & Pangsapa, 2008, p. 64) In this sense, being a good citizen might mean being a good neighbour, a good relative to the world, the planet, to the human and nonhuman. This evidently strong relation between cosmopolitanism and ecological learning has prompted Dobson (e.g., 2000, 2003) to discuss environmental citizenship as being post-cosmopolitan. Dobson suggests that traditional citizenship is built on three ideas, as Valencia Sáiz (2005, p. 174) notes: “Citizenship as rights-claiming and responsibility-exercising; the public sphere as the traditional site of citizenship activity; and the nationstate as the political ‘container’ of citizenship.” While these three elements still relate to environmental citizenship, Dobson argues that the points of reference change: There is no reciprocal relation between the ecological citizen’s rights and responsibilities; both the public and the private spheres are sites of citizenship activity; and citizenship becomes far less dependent on territory. In addition, environmental justice takes a key position in this notion of environmental citizenship. To use the term ‘post-cosmopolitanism’ to denote this concept is perhaps debatable. Although in this context, “post” might refer to a new way of thinking, a broader, more open, and

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extended version of cosmopolitanism, it might conceivably not be necessary because Dobson’s suggestions feature all the key characteristics of a genuine eco-cosmopolitanism. The Environment, Cosmopolitanism, and Risk: Towards Ecocosmopolitan Global Citizenship Having established that cosmopolitan views on citizenships are not only conceivable but also necessary, it is now possible to turn to one of the most robust conceptions of eco-cosmopolitanism, which revolves around the idea of developing in learners a “sense of planet,” which in turn would contribute to the contouring of a GCE framework for the use of ecodocumentaries in the English language classroom. Heise’s (2008b) approach is based on the assumption of a cultural constructedness of place. According to cultural constructionists, “local citizenship, far from coming naturally, is painstakingly established and safeguarded through a multiplicity of political, social, and cultural practices and procedures” (Heise, 2008b, p.  46). With the assumption that local citizenships are culturally constructed comes the idea of them also being dynamic and subject to change. One of the potentially most profound changes to local forms of citizenships (i.e., a locally informed sense of belonging) is what is known as “deterritorialisation,” which Heise (2008b, p. 51) employs in the sense of “the detachment of social and cultural practices from their ties to place,” that is the way “experiences of place change under the influence of modernization and globalization processes.” According to Heise, de-territorialisation—or “disembedding,” as Giddens (1991, p. 17) calls it—of local citizenships occurs when modernization processes shift structures of governance and authority away from villages and counties to more distant locations and give rise to networks of exchange via symbolic tokens (such as money), of expertise […], and of social trust in the legitimation and enforcement procedures of large-scale social communities. (2008b, p. 51)

As such, processes and phenomena, as described by Appadurai (2001), notion of deep democracy could also be considered driving forces of deterritorialisation, with environmental movements being prime examples of global, bottom-up governance. This is why, in the context of environmental learning, it would be shortsighted to prioritise concepts of local

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citizenships over more large-scale concepts of citizenships or senses of belonging, and it is also why GCE typologies, such as the one presented by Pashby et al. (2020), approximate environmental notions of GCE and liberal, that is, cosmopolitan perspectives on GCE. Heise explains that [this] deterritorialization of local knowledge does not necessarily have to be detrimental for an environmentalist perspective, but on the contrary opens up new avenues into ecological consciousness. In a context of rapidly increasing connections around the globe, what is crucial for ecological awareness and environmental ethics is arguably not so much a sense of place as a sense of planet  – a sense of how political, economic, technological, social, cultural, and ecological networks shape daily routines. If the concept of deterritorialization foregrounds how cultural practices become detached from place, it also points to how these practices are now imbricated in such larger networks. (Heise, 2008b, p. 61)

There is much transformative potential in this central idea to Heise’s notion of eco-cosmopolitanism, which she describes as “an attempt to envision individuals and groups as part of planetary ‘imagined communities’ of both human and nonhuman kinds” (Heise, 2008b, p. 61). As such, the notion of global interconnectedness sits at the core of ecocriticism with a cosmopolitan perspective and more general GCE approaches. However, Thomashow (2001, p. 194) warns that “the issue isn’t so much that all places are connected (one of the great clichés of modern environmental studies), as it is understanding which connections are most important.” One of the most influential trajectories of thought on global interconnectedness has been the idea that human societies are bound by risk (see, e.g., Giddens, 1991, 1999; Beck, 1986). Heise’s (2008b) eco-cosmopolitanism links these theories of risk, most notably Beck’s concept of a world risk society, to transnationalist notions carried by a sense of planet. Turning her attention to narratives and discourse, Heise (2008b, p. 137) argues that “narrative genres […] provide important cultural tools for organizing information about risks into intelligible and meaningful stories,” but warns that “they can also shape, filter, and rearrange such information in ways that are not always politically or ecologically benign.” A case in point is what Buell (2003, p.  31) calls “toxic discourse,” which he defines as “expressed anxiety arising from perceived threat of environmental hazard due to chemical modification by human agency.” Specifically focusing on

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chemical contamination, Buell demonstrates how environmentalist discourse itself can be a form of risk communication. Similar discourses and narratives can frequently be found in eco-documentaries. For instance, in A Life on Our Planet reference is made to nuclear devastation, or, in the first sequence of Before the Flood, lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio talks about Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (Stevens, 2016, 0:00:34) and the degradation of what was once Paradise, thus evoking a “rhetoric of disrupted pastoral” (Heise, 2008b, p. 139), a “mythography of betrayed Edens” (Buell, 2003, p. 37), and apocalypse. At this point, a connection must be made to the concept of critical discourse literacies (Chap. 2) because, in light of these thoughts on narratives of risk, identifying and reflecting on these discourses, as they are led in and through ecodocumentaries, evidently need to be part of this ability. With regard to cosmopolitanism and culture, Heise (2008b, pp. 155–156) notes that Beck’s theory of a world risk society entails the rise of a new type of cosmopolitanism, one which is detached from official institutions of cosmopolitan democracy and instead hinges on risk-sharing: Risk-sharing or "socialization of risk" […] can […] become a powerful basis for community, one which has both territorial and non-territorial aspects […]. Post-national communities could thus be constructed and reconstructed as communities of risk. Cultural definitions of appropriate types or degrees of risk define the community, in effect, as those who share the relevant assumptions. "Risk-sharing" further involves the taking of responsibility, which again implies conventions and boundaries around a "risk community" that shares the burden. And in our high-tech world, many risk communities are potentially political communities in a new sense – because they have to live with the risks that others take. (Beck, 1999, p. 16; emphasis in original)

While these types of communities move far beyond nation stateism, Heise (2008b, p.  158) identifies in Beck’s assumption that “shared risk automatically implies enough cultural commonality to serve as the basis for new kinds of communities,” a lack of significance attributed to cultural literacy which “allows members of one community to grasp what sociocultural significance the risk scenario has for the members of another.” She argues that

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an environmentally inflected cosmopolitanism needs to combine sustained familiarity and fluency in more than one culture with a systemic understanding of global ecology that goes beyond environmentalist clichés regarding universal connectedness and the pastoral understanding of ecology that informed earlier kinds of modern environmentalist thinking. The merit of environmental justice activism along with Beck's more sweeping vision of new forms of solidarity emerging out of global risk scenarios is their analysis of how such an eco-cosmopolitanism might link experiences of local endangerment to a sense of planet that encompasses both human and nonhuman worlds. (Heise, 2008b, p. 159)

From Heise’s words, it becomes clear that cultural literacy is an integral part of an eco-cosmopolitan perspective on GCE. In light of the discussion led on the underlying conceptualisation of culture, cultural literacy must be based on the understanding that cultures are hybrid and fluid, rather than static, fixed, and essentialist. Only then can a sense of place be teemed with a sense of planet, moving beyond national cultures and citizenships and towards a sense of global citizenship. To paraphrase Rizvi (2009, p.  266), eco-cosmopolitan learning thus demands a new way of learning about cultures and cultural exchange. It requires the development of literacies to examine the ways in which we create knowledge about others—human and nonhuman—and how we use it to engage with them. In this way, it highlights both the cognitive and ethical dimensions of cultural learning, suggesting that learning about others requires learning about ourselves. It implies a dialectical mode of thinking, which conceives cultural differences as neither absolute nor necessarily antagonistic, but deeply interconnected and relationally defined. Eco-cosmopolitan global citizenship is an extremely complex theoretical framework—perhaps, critics might say, too complex to serve as a feasible framework in actual lesson designing and classroom praxis. The cognitive and attitudinal demands of such a concept, placed upon both educators and learners, are a case in point: Multiple senses of allegiance and belonging need to be negotiated over various social and spatial scales. However, such are the challenges of the twenty-first century. In fact, this conclusion motivated Bender (2017) to describe a cosmopolitan person as someone who always experiences at least a slight sense of unease, who is constantly questioning themselves, even when at home. From this observation emerges a host of pressing questions still in need of answers. With the different spatial and social scales of citizenship being permeable—often

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described as concentric circles4—Jackson (2019, pp. 4–5) asks for the relationship between these spheres and how one is to “prioritise their rights and responsibilities, and develop a sense of who they are, amid the competing contexts of these circles - as part of local, national, and global life?” In the context of ELE, which is aimed at enabling learners to participate in global discourses, these deliberations accumulate in the task to help learners develop an ability to adjust communicatively, in order to be able to negotiate citizenships on various levels. Perhaps this conceptual complexity partly plays into the fact that “one in four teachers do not feel ready to teach themes related to sustainable development or global citizenship and peace,” and that “fewer than 40% of teachers surveyed are confident in teaching about the severity of climate change even though 95% of teachers believe that it is important or very important to teach,” as a recent UNESCO report5 has found (2021, p. iii). This seems to be particularly true with regard to attitudinal, behavioural, or socio-emotional learning objectives (UNESCO, 2021, p. 28). In this context, the two concepts “walk within” and “journey outside” put forward by Gaudelli (2017; see also Römhild & Gaudelli 2021) seem promising both for teachers, as metaphors for concrete classroom practices for GCE, and for learners, as a “dual movement” (Becker, 2022, p. 452) towards environmental action.  he Walk Within: Introspection, Situatedness, and Response-Ability T Discussing eco-cosmopolitanism, the significance of introspection and the self has already surfaced. Based on Said (1983), Rizvi notes, [If] learning about global connectivity is to become cosmopolitan then it must have the potential to help students come to terms with their situatedness in the world  – situatedness of their knowledge and of their cultural practices, as well as their positionality in relation to the social networks, political institutions and social relations that are no longer confined to particular communities and nations, but potentially connect up with the rest of the world. (2009, p. 264; emphasis in original) 4  Associated with Martha Nussbaum’s (e.g., 1997) political theories, the idea of living in, through, and across concentric circles has been central to cosmopolitan thought. Jackson (2019, p. 3) defines the following circles, though other levels are perceivable: self, interpersonal, local, national, regional, global. 5  In this study, researchers asked 58,000 participants worldwide on their motivation, skills, and opportunities to teach ESD and GCE.

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This is exactly what is described by Gaudelli’s (2017) notion of the walk within. Engaging with the individual self, both in body and mind, learners are meant to develop an awareness and understanding of their own subjectivity and positionality, of how they are situated in this world. This idea touches on several concepts already mentioned: With the environment being understood as a cultural construct, learners need to become aware of how they are part of the cultural constitution and representation of the environment and how they “pass these concepts on to next generations via their socio-cultural identities, their language and their textbooks” (Küchler, 2011b, p. 445). Closely linked to this are the introspective aspects of the concept of discourse abilities, as outlined by Marxl and Römhild (2023), and Delanoy’s (2017) notion of response-ability. Not only do learners need to become aware of their own position within the discourse, but understanding and reflecting on one’s own subjectivity in the world includes an acknowledgement of one’s own relation to the climate crisis as a human rights crisis—which involves questions of attitudes, values, and ethics as part of one’s own position in the discourse. With a focus on communicative aspects, Becker (2022, p. 454) argues that “[if], then, the walk within is to be understood as becoming aware of one’s position as both a subject and an agent in the world, in the EFL context this can be translated as becoming aware of one’s position as a coconstructor of cultural meaning.” This underscores the argument that, in a language educational setting, communicative agency, “based on personal communicative resources for participating in cultural meaning-making processes” (Becker, 2022, p.  454), that is discourse, can be considered action in the sense of ESD frameworks. Delanoy’s concept of responseability highlights the necessity of an ability to continuously communicate and negotiate interests and perspectives (2017, p. 169). Becker identifies this ability as a prerequisite for the assumption of responsibility, also in the context of environmental learning: [Since] knowledge about and attitudes towards the environment are culturally constructed through communication and constantly change in communication over time, the ability to communicatively and continuously negotiate and shape more sustainable perspectives on the environment is of utmost importance. […] The search for one's personal resources for action, thus, becomes a search for one's communicative competences as a co-constructor of meaning, and, as Delanoy states, “the link between responsibility

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and 'response-ability' makes communicative competence a major objective for all education.” (Delanoy, 2017, p. 169). (Becker, 2022, pp. 454–455)

The walk within, as a concept for introspection and (self-)reflection, is an important factor in cultivating GCE in the language classroom.  he Journey Outside: Concentric Circles, Scaling, T and Discourse Literacies The second part of the dual movement is one that traces one’s own experiences, subjectivity, and positionality outwards, in concentric circles— Gaudelli’s (2017) notion of the journey outside. Roemhild and Gaudelli (2021, p. 113) explain that it “refers to the surroundings, in the shape of family, fellow citizens, and eventually the whole world. […] Recognizing these different scales provides us with a deeper understanding of who we are in this world; it gives us a sense of belonging and shared responsibility in the global age.” Applying the concept to ELE, Becker (2022, p. 455) notes that “the journey outside can be more specifically captured as learners using their own response-ability (i.e., their communicative competences in the broadest sense) to participate in various local, regional, national or even global discourses about the environment.” This, of course, relates back to the concept of discourse literacies, which forms the basis of the discussion led herein (see Chap. 2). As has been established, it is not an easy task to trace one’s own experiences, to learn which scales matter, and how, and to be able to negotiate (contrasting) positions on different scales. Therefore, in the context of environmental learning in the language classroom, it is worthwhile to take a closer look at scales and the ability to scale or think across scales as an important learning objective. As Clark (2012, p. 149) observes, “[policies] and concepts relating to climate change invariably seem undermined or even derided by considerations of scale.” Bartosch (2018, p. 3) defines scale as “a relational concept whose appropriateness depends on context, aim, and user.” What becomes apparent through this definition is the existence of scale effects— as Clark (2015, p. 73) puts it, “what is self-evident or rational at one scale may well be destructive or unjust at another.” This can be related back to Bender’s (2017) suggestion that cosmopolitan citizens are always troubled by contradictions and an at least slight sense of unease because of different, sometimes even contradicting senses of belonging or citizenships on different scales. The same, however, is true not only for identities

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but also for literature, as both Clark (2015) and Bartosch (2018) point out. Clark (2015, p.  74) notes that a strategy called “scale framing” is helpful “in discussions of environmental and other politics […] for representing complex issues in ways that make them more amenable to thought or overview, while at the same time running grave risk of being a simplification and even evasion.” To counter this risk, the importance of understanding “a heuristic value to each scale” (Bartosch, 2018, p.  8) and systemic thinking are necessary, in order to negotiate readings, interpretations, and meanings on different scales and to be able to conceptualise different effects over different scales: “Plots, characters, setting and trivia that seemed normal and harmless on the personal or national scale reappear as destructive doubles of themselves on the third scale” (Clark, 2015, p. 161), with the third scale being the planetary one, as Bartosch (2018, p. 8) explains. When it comes to implications of these deliberations for teaching and learning practice, Bartosch’s suggestion to consider scaling as both a textual and receptive practice seem beneficial. Bartosch (2018, p. 7) explains that “literary fiction often makes productive use of scaling in a way that helps understand these very scales in the first place.” The same can be said for eco-documentaries, although they are not categorised as works of fiction. Eco-documentaries employ various frames of perception, oftentimes scaling between personal frames—for instance, DiCaprio’s very own experiences as UN messenger of peace in Before the Flood; or reminders of every viewer’s own responsibility in bringing about change on smaller and larger scales as a common trope—and global frames. However, Bartosch (2018, p. 12) stresses that scaling can also be considered a “choice of the reader and [their] critical interest whether to foreground a certain scale for political or ethical reasons.” Particularly the author’s suggestion to view climate-related literature, “in terms of a transcultural ecology,” is what supports an eco-cosmopolitan perspective on environmental learning in language education—“an ecology, that is, which simultaneously locates cultural-ecological potentiality across different scales as well as in their interplay” (Bartosch, 2018, p. 16). Bartosch cogently identifies the great pedagogical potential, stating that it “does not lie in privileging one scale over another but in the cultivation of the ability to scale, and to orchestrate scales” (2018, p. 16; emphasis in original). Moving towards a design of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom, a number of conclusions can already be drawn. In terms of concrete teaching and learning practice, it

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Fig. 3.2  The walk within and the journey outside (based on Gaudelli, 2016; Jackson, 2019; Roemhild & Gaudelli, 2021)

has been established that critical thinking and collaborative decisionmaking are ways of empowering learners to take transformative action. In light of the discussion of scaling, exemplary learning and problemposing may enrich the repertoire of teaching and learning strategies. In the context of scaling, particularly exemplary learning could be of great help with regard to designing curricula and lesson sequences. In combination with the walk within discussed earlier, it is also important to promote introspection and reflection of one’s own subjectivity and positionality in the world as often as possible. This idea is indicated by the double arrow in Fig. 3.2, which illustrates the two components of the dual motion, the walk within and the journey outside—the self, of course, being one of and contextualised within the scales. The arrow expresses both upward and downward scaling as well as the act of relating different scales to one another. It cannot be ignored that this visual representation might attract criticism regarding the oversimplification of complex circumstances. To be more precise, the concentric circle levels included in Fig. 3.2 almost exclusively remain on a territorial level, whereas the existence of de-territorialised, social citizenships, and forms of belonging remain a matter of interpretation. To do more justice to the complexity of the dynamics at hand, a more intricate, ramified design would perhaps be better suited. However, the concentric circles illustrated above may certainly serve as a

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helpful first step towards imagining the journey outside and thus as planning guidance, when it comes to application in educational contexts. To conclude, this section has taken the previously discussed framework of GCE as a basis to move beyond traditional understandings of citizenship and towards an eco-cosmopolitan perspective on GCE. Customarily, citizenship is connected to certain rights and duties a person has based on one’s citizenship status. As Smith & Pangsapa (2008, p. 27) have argued, what is needed is an “awareness of the importance of obligations within the terms of citizenship, an understanding that the enjoyment of rights carries corresponding duties to act in a manner that contributes to one’s community or at least to restrain behaviour that could inflict harm on others, including distant strangers”—distant in terms of location (every citizen of the world), time (future citizens of the world), and species (nonhuman citizens of the world). Environmental problems demand transnational and bottom-up responses. As a consequence, Smith and Pangsapa (2008, p. 9) argue that “personal decisions need to be linked to socio-environmental responsibility in ways that are more effective than intergovernmental policies and treaties.” Environmental citizenship is part of ‘new,’ dynamic, and participatory forms of citizenship that are independent of the nation state. Approaching environmental citizenship through the lens of cosmopolitanism stresses the importance of acknowledging the existence of multiple senses of belonging as well as their interdependencies—and the challenges that come with these interdependencies. In short, eco-cosmopolitan, global citizenship may serve as a conceptual frame in which learners become active participants in societies over a variety of scales and spheres. Bound by risk, learners need to develop complex cultural literacies, in order to navigate these different scales. Translated to the language classroom, Gaudelli’s (2017) concepts of the walk within and the journey outside can be thought of as dimensions of communicative action, helping educators and learners to promote and foster responseability (Delanoy, 2017) and critical discourse literacies (e.g., Hallet, 2008a; Plikat, 2017; Marxl & Römhild, 2023).

Summary This chapter has focused on the ecological aspects of dealing with ecodocumentaries. Considering critical discourse literacies as a primary objective of language education and SDG 4.7, which defines quality education in the decade of sustainability, as well as the theoretical insights of

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cinematic ecocriticism, this chapter has sought to contribute to an answer to Küchler’s (2014, p. 23) call for a theoretical and methodological framework, by contouring a language education for sustainable development. On a conceptual level, eco-cosmopolitan global citizenship education was discussed as a suggestion for a comprehensive theoretical framework. On a methodological level, numerous principles have been derived from this eco-cosmopolitan GCE approach. The Theoretical Framework: Eco-cosmopolitan Global Citizenship Education While ESD, HRE, and GCE are listed next to each other in SDG 4.7, they have been conceptualised as being complementary and interdependent here and elsewhere (e.g., Jackson, 2016; Misiaszek, 2018; Sant et  al., 2018, p. 158). With humanity being bound together by risk, GCE may serve as the foundation for an education which enables young people to face these risks, such as climate change. GCE works on the premises (and towards the idea) of human global interconnectedness and shared responsibility. As such, it relates to cultural learning, demanding that cultures be viewed as hybrid, dynamic, and the result of everyday discursive practices. Any other understanding of cultures opens the possibility of cultural essentialism, inviting dichotomies like the self versus the other, which works against the development of a shared sense of connectedness. Such an approach to GCE is highly compatible with the core ideas of cosmopolitan education and human rights education. This framework hinges on a human rights-informed cosmopolitan perspective on global citizenship education. The notions HRE, cosmopolitanism, and GCE cannot be concisely defined or summarised—the concepts are too vast and their relationships to one another too intricate. In the context of eco-documentaries, HRE was used as an entry point for discussion of the cultural dimension of ecoliteracies, which is, in turn, closely intertwined with functional and critical dimensions. The principles of HRE were then embedded in notions of global citizenship, which aims at learners developing a sense of planet, in Heise’s (2008b) words. The notion of eco-cosmopolitanism then expanded these ideas, to accommodate a sense of rootedness and to emphasise the significance of the local in the global—a sense of place. Becoming ecoliterate, therefore, encompasses an ability to negotiate different scales, different citizenships, different cultures, and different

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identities, all at the same time. Language education plays an important role, here, in terms of how students learn to communicate about different socio-/cultural-/economic-/environmental contexts across various concentric circles or scales, thereby cultivating the ability to actively participate in sustainability-related discourses. The inclusion of a human rights perspective also shifts the focus away from learning and practising languages of risk and despair towards learning and practising languages of hope. Following the consensus of Beutelsbach from 1976, learners should not be overwhelmed with bleak prospects but should instead be assisted in developing those literacies necessary to face the challenges of their lifetimes. Learning languages of hope may thus help ameliorate one of the central conundrums of global education efforts: to balance the severity of the situation with the beauty and aesthetics of the world. On a harder-edged note, particularly a critical understanding of GCE (Andreotti, 2006, 2014a, b) is central to helping learners identify the severity of the situation, that is the socio-environmental injustices in the world. Hence, a theoretical framework for the use of eco-documentaries in the English language classroom must include eco-cosmopolitan and critical perspectives on GCE, thus positioning itself on Pashby et  al.’s (2020, p.  150) map rather centrally, between critical and liberal approaches to GCE. Against this background, it is possible to identify a set of desired outcomes of GCE. Based on Aboagye and Dlamini (2021, pp. 34–35), this set includes: 1. Identifying one’s roles and responsibilities as a global citizen in personal and professional lives; 2. Identifying beliefs, values, and behaviours that form individual and community identities and the basis for respectful relationships; 3. Analysing issues of equity at various levels, including the personal, the professional, and the global; 4. Analysing the use of the world’s resources to achieve sustainability and equitable distribution at various levels, including the personal, the professional, and the global; 5. Identifying and challenging unjust practices in  local and global systems; 6. Supporting personal and social responsibility initiatives at various levels, including the local, national, and global.

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Surely, these goals cannot be achieved within a few years of an individual’s time at school. Rather, these are long-term learning objectives, whereby school and ELE lay the foundations for life-long learning. In light of these propositions for a theoretical framework, this book calls for a rather radical transformation of how to approach cultural learning in the context of sustainability-related topics—and beyond. As such, the connection between ESD, GCE, and HRE, to what has been described as a critical eco-cosmopolitan GCE, forms the foundation and the framework for environmental learning with eco-documentaries in ELE. The Methodological Framework: Classroom Principles for Language Education for Sustainable Development From this theoretical foundation, a number of principles for teaching and learning practice can be derived. These principles and strategies largely revolve around the idea of concentric circles or scales—the self, the interpersonal, the local, the national, the regional, the global, the planetary— which allows all forms of belongings and citizenships to matter, without prioritising one over the others. As such, classroom praxis needs to take the learners seriously by facilitating self-reflection and promoting an awareness of one’s own position in the world. The walk within and the journey outside have been introduced as both abstract concepts and concrete opportunities for lesson design, which can be used to foster both a sense of place and a sense of planet. Translated to the classroom, learners need to engage with the environment in collaborative ways that focus on critical thinking, problem-solving, and (communicative) executing. To facilitate identification of various scales or levels of citizenship, exemplary learning must be supplemented by the use of other multimodal texts and materials which offer a variety of perspectives. Agency and communication are key in developing the discourse abilities necessary for learners to be able to participate in global discourses or environmental issues, thereby exercising their global citizenship. As such, this framework is highly compatible with the contents and objectives formulated in relevant education political guidelines, particularly SDG 4.7 and the aims of ESD, as well as the corresponding German documents ([KMK] Sekretariat der ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2016, 2017), but it also helps to further differentiate the critical and cultural aspects of those targets.

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Eco-documentaries can be powerful tools to foster these abilities in the sense of GCE. Chanan (2007, p. 26) points out that documentary “speaks to the viewer as citizen, as a member of a social collective, as a putative participant in the social sphere,” and Nash (2014, p. 384) highlights the fact that while documentary film serves important cultural and social functions, more research still needs to be done in this area. The discussion thus far suggests that eco-documentaries may indeed serve (eco-cosmopolitan, global) citizenship education and therefore fulfil an important social function. However, since the objective to foster an ability to participate in society and discourse with eco-documentaries is also closely related to critical engagement with the films, it is necessary to focus on the documentary form and discuss the second element of the antinomy (see Chap. 1), which has to do with how learners engage with the cinematically constructed world presented in documentaries.

CHAPTER 4

Documentary Film

When in March 2021, Elke Lehrenkrauss handed back the German award for documentary film she had just won, the public spotlight focused once more on documentary film. Lehrenkrauss’ film, Lovemobil (2019), had been labelled a documentary by the filmmaker, but throughout the production process it used paid actors and scripts to portray the ‘real’ life of two prostitutes living and working in a mobile home. What ensued was public outrage and a heated debate about what counts as documentary and what does not. In what has been described as the post-truth age (Tesich, 1992, p. 13), society seems to hold high standards for documentary film, with a journalist of NDR (the broadcast company responsible for the film) writing that fiction and reality need to be clearly separated in documentary film (Knut, 2021, n.p.). Examples such as this are plentiful and they illustrate that reality is a contested notion, particularly when it comes to documentary film. Reality is a discursive construct, constituted by individuals as a result of their everyday practices. However, media can exert great influence over these constructs. According to Aufderheide (2007, p. 7), documentary assumes a special role in this context, as it “is an important reality-shaping communication, because of its claims to truth. Documentaries are always grounded in real life, and make a claim to tell us something worth knowing about it.” Hess (2007, p. 194) ventures that “[perhaps] it’s the word ‘documentary’ that causes people to think that such films should be © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Römhild, Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education, Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44674-0_4

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‘objective.’ Documentation implies a neutral process—unearthing evidence rather than making a story out of it.” Therefore, the development of discourse literacies is essential when it comes to preparing learners to deal with and understand documentaries in their respective socio-cultural contexts. Somewhat curiously, documentaries might also prove to be prime objects of investigation for the development of discourse literacies, precisely because “it is the film genre of documentary that students often […] tend to take at face value” (Volkmann, 2007, p. 375). Complementing the discussion started in Chap. 3, which elaborated on ecoliteracies being one of two main areas subsumed under the umbrella notion of discourse literacies as an educational goal associated with the use of eco-documentaries in language learning contexts, it is time to focus more on the texts and meaning-making with them. In doing so, some of the central questions raised in the beginning that have to do with the pedagogical dilemma outlined in Chap. 1 will be addressed. To that end, the next two sections seek to find conceptual answers to the question of how two seemingly contradicting learning objectives associated with eco-­ documentaries can be brought into congruence: On the one hand, educators might wish their students to become critical, independent thinkers. That is, they are supposed to develop critical film literacies in the sense that they are able to perceive the world presented in documentary films as constructed. On the other hand, when engaging with eco-documentaries, students are also supposed to learn about climate change through the films and develop an awareness for their own role in tackling the crisis. To this end, it is necessary to temporarily leave the educational context at this point and establish important theoretical preconditions of (documentary) film and cinematography, in order to then reconstruct the concept for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries introduced in Chap. 1. As such, this discussion proceeds in two steps. The first is to examine the documentary form from a film studies point of view (this chapter); the second is a further discussion of how contemporary documentary film pedagogy might be conceptualised (Chap. 5), both in light of the relationship between normativity and criticism as well as ongoing digitalisation processes and the associated challenges posed to learners. Providing the fundament for further inquiry by featuring a working definition of documentary film in the digital age, the following section serves as a segue into the examination of documentaries from a film studies perspective. As illustrated in Fig. 4.1, the discussion led in this part informs

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Fig. 4.1  An outlook on the contribution to the framework by the discussion led in this chapter: key principles of teaching and learning with eco-documentary films

the second and third key principles in the framework for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries.

The Challenge of Defining Documentary in the Digital Age Questions posed to the text form quickly reach the very essence of what defines documentaries. With these films being generally associated with non-fiction, facts, and accurate representations of reality, implying that the world presented in documentary films is a constructed one seems contradictory in terms. Scholars have offered a variety of positions, which, in turn, can be located between the two extreme poles established by Trinh Thi Minh-Ha and Bill Nichols. While Minh-Ha (1993, p. 90) maintains that “[there] is no such thing as documentary,” Nichols (2001, p.  1) counters, “every film is a documentary.” At the core of this disagreement lies profound uncertainty about the meaning of ‘reality’ or ‘truth,’ in the context of documentary filmmaking. This uncertainty has only increased in the last decades, as profound changes in the field have demonstrated:

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“Nowadays, footage is being captured by means of digital cameras, edited and montaged on laptops, and made available via streams, websites or as a unique VR [virtual reality; the author] experience” (Römhild fc.). With this in mind, it is helpful to establish a working definition of documentary, as a point of reference, before developing it further by means of a close examination of the documentary filmmaking discourse. The term documentary tends to evoke a certain mental representation of a medium that, generally speaking, conveys or is based on facts. In addition, this mental image, however vague, usually exists as opposed to fictional products. Inquiring what a documentary is, Aufderheide (2007, p. 3) refers to this notion as the easy and traditional answer; a documentary is not a movie as Star Wars is a movie. It seems that this intuitive distinction between fiction and non-fiction is inherent to the medium film, with documentary being an independent subsection of film. McLane (2012, p. 1) specifies1 that “documentary is one of the three basic creative modes in film, the other two being narrative fiction and experimental avant-garde.” Fictional films2 originate in literary tradition, whereas avant-garde films3 are characterised by a mix of the visual arts and aural experimentations. Thus, per process of elimination, documentary is rooted in reality or actuality. As has been previously indicated, however, the process of defining documentary is an intricate one. Upon closer inspection, the concept proves to be rather evasive and complex. McLane (2012) offers a range of 1  As exemplified here by McLane, some film scholars tend to use the term ‘mode’ as a synonym for ‘type’ or ‘approach.’ To obviate confusion, the term ‘mode’ will not be used in this sense throughout this volume—if avoidable. Rather, ‘mode’ is understood in terms of semiotics, that is to denote channels or ways of meaning-making in the sense of multiliteracies pedagogy and such scholars as Gunther Kress, Bill Cope, and Mary Kalantzis. Semiotically speaking, ‘mode,’ as used here by McLane, could probably best be thought of as ‘genre’ or ‘design’, although terminological overlap remains an issue to some extent. 2  Although alternative terms can be found in literature, such as ‘narrative film’ or ‘story film,’ these terms are not being used to refer to the genre of film that is supposed to be distinct from documentary in this book, for reasons that will become apparent throughout this section. Please also note that the term ‘feature film’ is frequently used to describe fictional films, although the attribute feature actually only refers to the length of a film. Technically, documentaries can also be considered feature films if they have a minimum running time of 40 min (British Film Institute). 3  Avant-garde films are largely disregarded here because the focus of the discussion led here is on secondary education contexts, in which the distinction between documentary and fictional film has drawn the most attention.

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documentary-specific aspects that contribute to a preliminary working definition in the opening parts of A New History of Documentary Film, one of the seminal historical overviews of documentary filmmaking. “Traditionally,” she points out, the characteristics most documentaries have in common, but that are distinct from other film types (especially from the fiction film) can be thought in terms of: (1) subjects and ideologies; (2) purposes, viewpoints or approaches; (3) forms; (4) production methods and techniques; and (5) the sort of experiences they offer audiences, including actions that result from the films. (2012, pp. 1–2)

These categories represent a helpful entry point into the discussion. The specifics of each category can be summarised as follows: I. Subjects and ideologies—Documentaries tend to address specific and factual issues, focused more so on matters relevant to the public than private ones. What is shown in documentaries is actual, rather than fictional, and mostly contemporary, except for specific, historical documentaries. II. Purposes, viewpoints, or approaches—This category refers to the filmmakers’ intended messages. Generally, documentaries are produced to inform the audience, “to increase our understanding of, our interest in, our sympathy for their subjects, and perhaps our future actions” (McLane, 2012, p. 2). In this respect, it is worth considering Renov’s (1993, p. 21) four basic functions of documentary: to record, reveal, or preserve moments of history or society for posterity; to persuade or promote; to analyse or interrogate in order to spark (critical) thoughts; and to express the filmmakers’ subjective opinions and their own interpretation of the matter at hand. At the root of these four functions lies the inherent intention to inform. The first two functions, to record, reveal, or preserve and to persuade or promote, seem to have drawn the most attention in educational contexts but also in the academic discourse on documentary. As Henseler et al. (2021, p. 2) note, documentary films are primarily being used to convey information in schools. At the same time, many scholars employ terms like “manipulation” (Bredella & Lenz, 1994b, p. 7), “persuasion” (Nichols, 2017), or “inculcation” (Griffith, 2016), when talking about the filmmakers’

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intentions. In contrast, McLane (2012, p. 7) describes documentary as purposive, “it is intended to achieve something in addition to entertaining audiences and making money.” III. Form—As the result of a formative process, which includes, among other things, the filmmakers’ original conception, as well as the aural and visual material selected for the film, a documentary’s form is mainly determined by subject, purpose, and approach. This category corresponds most with the mental representation conjured up in people’s minds when they think of documentary. It seems to be one of the basic assumptions that “[documentaries], whether scripted in advance or confined to recorded spontaneous action, are derived from and limited to actuality. Hybrids continue to multiply, but documentary is based in reality” (McLane, 2012, p. 3), which leads viewers to draw a clear-cut distinction between non-fictional documentaries and fictional story films. Most controversy among filmmakers and academics has been generated by this category over the last decades because, as McLane (2012, p.  3) admits, “[m]ore and more documentaries […] blur the boundaries between forms.” I V. Production methods and techniques—The fourth set concerns the ways visual and sound material are shot or recorded and, subsequently, edited. Generally speaking, documentaries refrain from casting professional actors who play a role, and they shoot on site rather than in constructed (studio) sets. V. Audience response—The fifth of McLane’s categories refers to the objectives of documentary filmmakers. On the one hand, they generally try to create an aesthetic experience for the audience; on the other hand, they also try to exert an effect on attitudes that possibly leads to action. McLane (2012, p. 8; emphasis in original) explains that “[documentary] filmmaking offers more that would be described as professional skill rather than as personal style; communication rather than expression is what the documentary filmmaker is usually after.” In summary, these findings can be distilled into the working definition of documentary offered by Bill Nichols, one of the most influential scholars in the field:

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Documentary film speaks about situations and events involving real people (social actors) who present themselves within a framework. This frame conveys a plausible perspective on the lives, situations, and events portrayed. The distinct point of view of the filmmaker shapes the film into a way of understanding the historical world directly rather than through a fictional allegory. (2017, p. 10)

As Nichols (2017, p. 10) admits, this definition may represent “a useful first step, but it leaves considerable room for creative interpretation.” Thus, while this definition could serve as a point of reference for the following sections, what is still needed is a specification of certain aspects of it, such as the role of audience reception or the differentiation between different types of documentaries. Surveying the academic field, three promising approaches can be identified in this regard, which reflect Nichols’ (1991, pp. 17–18) suggestion that documentary practice can be understood from three vantage points: (1) Through the Self-understanding of Its Practitioners The historical approach, supplemented by a look at contemporary developments, highlights the considerable influence exerted by socio-political and technological circumstances on film production and the filmmakers’ relation to treating actuality over the years. The focus of this approach is on filmmaking practice. This overview is particularly significant in terms of highlighting the fact that documentary has been a highly artistic genre since its inception and has thus been gaining perspective on long-held and popular misunderstandings of documentary’s place between fiction and non-fiction, which has informed current approaches to documentary film both outside and inside the classroom. (2) The Texts That Are the Products of That Practice The concept of different realities of film as well as Nichols’ notion of non-­ fictional models and cinematic modes4 (2017, p. 104) complements the

4  As one of only two exceptions to the rule, Nichols’ “cinematic modes” will be called ‘modes,’ as this is the term chosen by Nichols and which is widely accepted in the discourse on documentary film.

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findings of the historical approach in terms of a focus on the production process of documentary films and their classification. (3) A Constituency of Viewers Finally, the role of reception and viewer response needs to be addressed. Closely connected to the role of the audience are questions of genre and the issue of relativist and objectivist approaches to documentary reception, which carry major implications for educational contexts as well. Each approach yields its own set of answers that, only in combination, can help understand documentary’s relation to ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ and, subsequently, allow for a definition of documentary in the digital age. As such, the three approaches to understanding (eco-)documentary cannot be regarded separately. Instead, they are closely intertwined and complement each other.

The Treatment of Actuality Over Time: A Short History of Documentary What is nowadays commonly referred to as “documentary films” had been labelled “educationals,” “actualities,” “interest films,” or, with regard to their respective content, “travel films” or “nature films” (Aufderheide, 2007, p. 5; McLane, 2012, pp. 9–10), long before the term “documentary” was coined in 1926, when John Grierson applied it to Robert Flaherty’s work. Grierson later contributed one of the most frequently quoted and discussed definitions of documentary, describing it as “a creative treatment of actuality” (Grierson & Hardy, 1966, p. 147). This definition, Aufderheide suggests, “has proven durable probably because it is so very flexible” (2007, p.  5). Its flexibility, however, has also sparked controversy, and numerous documentary filmmakers have treated actuality in many different ways. The following section traces how filmmakers have approached and shaped documentary’s special place between fiction and non-fiction throughout the genre’s history, in the endeavour to understand the roots of contemporary eco-documentaries. As such, it focuses on singling out prominent turning points rather than providing an all-encompassing, strictly chronological report of events. To that end, the first century of the form’s evolution can be divided into three main eras: the origins of documentary in the pre-war era (referring to WWII),

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war-­time documentary (again referring to WWII), as well as the post-war era and the so-called golden years. Beginning in 1967 and flanked by the ascendency of the Internet and the digital turn, the rise of video so profoundly changed and accelerated the further development of documentary that it is arguably only equalled in effect by the invention of film itself. Video and digital recordings “had almost completely replaced film for most types of documentary-making” (McLane, 2012, p. 271) by the turn of the millennium. Likewise, almost every other aspect of documentary had changed, too, compared to its beginnings in the 1890s and the pioneering works of Flaherty, Grierson, and Vertov: In contemporary documentary filmmaking, production techniques traditionally associated with either documentary or fiction have merged, the form and content have diversified, distribution processes have been revolutionised, and the role of the audience has changed dramatically. In short, documentary has become a ship of Theseus.5 Therefore, the second part of the discussion led here traces the developments of documentary between 1967 and the present to highlight that categorisation of documentary within the frame of a binary between fiction and non-­ fiction has been misguided from the beginning because there has never been such a thing as neutral documentary. Focusing on eco-­documentaries, it also discusses the status quo of filmmaking in the early twenty-first century in terms of both the production context, which has direct implications for film distribution, and the narrative techniques used by current filmmakers to convey their messages. From the Origins of Documentary to Its Golden Years The origins of documentary are as inextricably linked to the three pioneering filmmakers Robert Flaherty, John Grierson, and Dziga Vertov as they are arguably congruent to the origins of filmmaking itself. In 1893, the first films ever made were recordings of actuality in the experiments of technicians at the Edison laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. Back then, these recordings were shown as they were: unchanged and raw. Every sequence of moving pictures was considered a document by the audience, be it the minutely orchestrated everyday situations shot by the 5  ‘Theseus ship’ signifies the paradox which raises the question as to whether or not an object that has had all its components replaced at some point still remains fundamentally the same object. Theseus was a king of Athens and one of the heroes of Greek mythology.

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Lumière brothers (most notably The Arrival of a Train at the Station and Workers Leaving the Factory) or early theatrical ancestors of contemporary fiction films. The captured images had an indexical quality, almost serving as factual evidence and an exact replica of actuality. The ability to modify the footage, however, soon led to the emergence of two major traditions in filmmaking: realism and formalism. While “realism was not an attempt to authentically capture reality but an attempt to use art to mimic it so effectively that the viewer would be pulled in without thinking about it” (Aufderheide, 2007, p. 27), formalism, on the other hand, encompasses approaches that highlight the artist’s and technology’s role in filmmaking. Both traditions have prevailed and can be identified in contemporary films, both fictional and factual. In their forming days, however, formalists criticised realists, arguing on the basis of illusionism and especially lamenting that realists were “tricking viewers into believing that they are watching something real” (Aufderheide, 2007, p. 27). It already becomes apparent that, even with regard to the earliest stages of documentary filmmaking, assumptions of an unambiguous relation between fiction and reality or actuality cannot be upheld. A brief example films serve to prove this point: the Lumière brothers’ Workers Leaving the Factory (1895). Commonly referred to as the first real motion picture ever made (Lattanzio, 2020), Workers Leaving the Factory is a prime example of how the earliest films catered to the illusion of reality. Everything about the short film suggests untampered actuality, including the title. Back then, it was common practice for content to be reflected in the title so the audience would know exactly what to expect, namely, in this case, workers leaving the Lumière factory in Lyon on 22 March 1895. Curiously, however, there are three versions of the occurrence, often referred to as the “one horse,” “two horse,” and “no horse” versions, respectively. Shot with a 35 mm camera at a rate of 16 frames per second and with a duration of 46  seconds, the film is not a recording of nineteenth-century reality, one could argue, but rather the capturing of a well-rehearsed and orchestrated performance. Nonetheless, it is based in actuality—the factory did (and still does) exist, and the people featured were employed there. John Grierson viewed documentary as an educational tool with which to promote social cohesion and insight, arguing that “[the] documentary idea was […] a new idea for public education” (in Aufderheide, 2007, p. 36). Grierson strongly advocated the clear distinction of documentary filmmaking from entertainment cinema, suggesting that the two pursue

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wholly different expectations among viewers. With this conception in mind, his definition of documentary as “a creative treatment of actuality” (Grierson & Hardy, 1966, p. 147) already hints at what Nichols would later refer to as a documentary’s voice: its ideological position or message. In a Griersonian understanding, documentaries are still based in actuality, but they are formed by filmmakers in order to ignite societal change and educate the audience. In this sense, contemporary ecocinema and particularly eco-documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth, Before the Flood, or A Life on Our Planet are “truly social efforts in the Griersonian tradition” (McLane, 2012, p. 341), as they “present powerful examinations about urgent problems” and “demonstrate solutions to those problems” (McLane, 2012, p. 341). Amongst his peers, Grierson faced harsh criticism accusing him of promoting propaganda, yet not taking responsibility for it by virtue of taking refuge in claims to art (creative treatment of actuality) (Aufderheide, 2007, p. 38). However, the term propaganda was not as negatively connotated in all filmmaking contexts, as McLane (2012, p. 41) points out: “Soviets working in the arts and media understood that ideological bias operated in the selection and presentation of content in all information and entertainment, and that it was naive or hypocritical to pretend otherwise.” With this understanding, Dziga Vertov (originally named Denis Arkadievich Kaufman) pioneered documentary filmmaking (or ‘unplayed’ films, as it were) in the Soviet Union. His work is a prime example of how technological innovation and an artist’s radical visions combine to advance a genre considerably. Although he tried to have as little influence on what he filmed as possible, Vertov’s newsreel/reportage pieces were minutely planned in terms of pre-production and camera positioning. Sometimes, visual effects were added in post-production. His work also features early instances of self-reflexivity, with the camera or the camera operator being visible in the film. Vertov’s strive to ignite societal change and expand the boundaries of what was technologically possible helped establish a documentary filmmaking tradition that was meant “to use art to shatter expectations of the status quo” (Aufderheide, 2007, p. 44). Vertov’s work not only inspired Grierson’s notion of documentary being educational and socially useful storytelling, but it also lay the foundation for experimental documentary filmmaking and, to date, continues to influence contemporary documentary filmmakers.

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War-Time Documentary With WWII came radical change. Documentary surged in terms of purpose, recognition, and technological advance. Before the war, documentary had only been firmly established and government-sponsored in Britain, whereas American documentary filmmakers had struggled with individualism, the power of Hollywood, and ideological positioning (most of them tended towards left-wing politics). After the war, financial and personnel investment increased exponentially; more films were made than ever before, reaching larger audiences and covering a wide array of topics; and documentary was recognised as an institutionalised form of cinema. This development was made possible by the emergence of four different types of war-time documentary: (1) indoctrination; (2) the records of battle; (3) nontheatrical films; and (4) social documentary (McLane, 2012, p. 120). The war served as a catalyst for the evolution of documentary in various respects. Technological development (especially the introduction of 16 mm cameras) pushed the boundaries of what was deemed possible in terms of production, distribution, and reception—but also with regard to new topics and subjects that were previously inaccessible. The war itself and questions of how to proceed post bellum led to a reconsideration of documentary’s purpose. Proving to be a powerful and important means of communication, with an enormous potential to sway public opinion, documentary also attracted unprecedented financial investment while reaching larger audiences than ever before. In short, by the end of the conflict, the way was paved for documentary to enter a so-called golden age.  he Post-war Era and the Golden Age of Documentary T After the war, theatrical documentary began to lose financial support and audiences. But this development was outshone (and possibly partly caused) by the success of nontheatrical documentary films, which Grierson and his colleagues largely started during the war. Again, technological improvement facilitated this process. Particularly the rise of television, and later videography, offered new impulses and opportunities for filmmakers in terms of institutional embeddedness, audience reach, subject diversity, and cinematographic form—the field of documentary filmmaking was set in motion. The result was profound transformation, with its consequences still relevant and noticeable today. With regard to the audience, the characteristics of the new medium made private reception possible. Instead of having to go to the cinema,

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individuals or small groups of people were able to watch documentaries at home. The relationship between filmmakers, their texts, and the audience changed considerably, becoming much more intimate than previously possible. In terms of cinematographic form, the spoken word gained significance as a mode of meaning-making. Televised documentary increasingly employed techniques of sound synchronisation, allowing for the inclusion of interviews. In addition, TV documentary relied heavily on the commentator, who also appeared on camera and sometimes even ascended to stardom (e.g., Ed Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and Charles Kuralt [McLane, 2012, p.  198]). Generally, though, the commentator’s own opinion was not stated and remained ambiguous. It usually sufficed to place an audible or legible authority within a documentary to supplement the moving pictures with focus and, occasionally, judgement. With television ultimately becoming a mass medium, with more and more subjects being explored by increasingly daring and adventuresome filmmakers, and with even more technological advance on the horizon, radical and long-lasting change was imminent. Young filmmakers, particularly those associated with British Free Cinema, and those inspired by them did not stop addressing new issues, but they also framed their messages by means of an innovative cinematographic form: “The veracity of documentary detail was warmed and strengthened by the addition of story and character,” which “moved documentary closer to the dividing line between art and life” (McLane, 2012, p. 211). The basic idea of cinéma vérité (CV) was conceived. Yet, unsurprisingly, it was technological revolution that preceded CV’s final breakthrough, with 16 mm cameras, reflex technology (which allowed zooming), ‘fast stock’ (which allowed the capture of colourful footage in low-light environments), and crystal synchronisation (which allowed free movement of the camera within its environment) entering the market. The significance of this development for observational documentary (as well as fiction and experimental filmmaking) cannot be overstated. Filmmakers were able to record reality at any time, almost anywhere. They could finally portray an unvaried version of the actuality found in front of their cameras and microphones, or as many scholars agree, they were able to achieve the best possible representation of reality thus far (Heller, 2011a; Kammerer & Kepser, 2014, p. 36). As a result, different approaches crystallised, resulting in the constitution of two different forms: cinéma vérité and direct cinema. In contemporary discourse, CV serves as an umbrella term for non-­ directed filmmaking and is often used synonymously with direct cinema,

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observational cinema, or—especially in Canada—candid eye. There are significant differences between CV and direct cinema, though. Derived from Vertov’s kino pravda (i.e., the Russian language equivalent), CV (film truth) originally only referred to the French approach, decisively shaped by Jean Rouch, as opposed to American direct cinema pioneered by Robert Drew and his associates. CV is characterised by the principle of “observation observation,” as suggested by Lipp (2012, p.  102; Beobachtungsbeobachtung in the German original), that is transparency and self-reflexivity about production and editing processes which were frequently shown or discussed in the film. Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p.  37) emphasise that this “cinema truth” is a curious conglomerate of authentic representation and the revocation of a promise of authenticity. Contrarily, the illusion of unvaried authenticity is key in American direct cinema. As exemplified in Primary (Drew, 1960), the idea is that actuality can be represented in an unmediated, neutral, and direct way (hence direct cinema). Direct cinematographers want to “convince the audience that they are present, watching something unconstructed and uncontrovertibly real” (Aufderheide, 2007, p. 55). Documentary’s evolution in the first 100 years of its existence cannot be described as teleological. Rather, “there is a devolving and skewed road leading from the founders of cv/direct to the frenzy of TV reality shows, with many stops of self-reflexivity on the way” (McLane, 2012, p. 378). Technological revolution has paved and shaped that road as much as the efforts of visionary individuals such as Flaherty, Grierson, Vertov, Rouch, or Drew have, through their constant experimentation with reality and reflexivity, never ceased to push the boundaries of the possible. Yet, while the pioneers and those inspired by them have certainly travelled this road, powered by an array of different motivations, be it the strive to capture and show actuality or the ideals of social revolution by turning the spotlight on inequality and injustice, another—sometimes disregarded—aspect has fuelled documentary’s evolution as well. Documentary as a category of film is always “primarily an industry” (Benyahia & Mortimer, 2013, p. 4). Part of documentary filmmaking has therefore always been the struggle for exposure and the greatest possible audience reach. In addition, changing socio-cultural and technological circumstances, paired with different ideas of how to portray actuality, led to the diversification of the genre. “[The] dialectic between the ‘real’ and the ‘staged’, which is continuously included in the discussion of documentary,” McLane (2012, p. 301) accentuates, “was already in play” when the

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Lumiére brothers screened their first films in 1895. Long considered ‘actualities,’ pictures like Workers Leaving the Factory already transcended the blurry boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. Yet, over the following 100 years, fiction and documentary filmmakers parted ways, with the former openly inventing and creating realities to entertain, while the latter rooted their films in some sort of actuality in the pursuit of educational, social, and/or preservational objectives. Documentary in the Twenty-First Century: The Ship of Theseus The invention of video and the implementation of video recorders had monumental effects on documentary, especially in terms of further diversification and privatisation of filmmaking. Video and digital editing constituted “fast, relatively simple, and cost-effective” (McLane, 2012, p. 273) alternatives to film stock and manual montage, almost completely replacing traditional film (i.e., the material) in the process. Although video experienced its setbacks in the beginning, it facilitated the exploration of new subjects and jumpstarted highly individualised filmmaking. Parallelly, the introduction of cable and later satellite TV as well as the Internet offered radically new distribution opportunities. However, these developments have also exerted influence on the films proper. With digital media being easily accessible and applicable, documentarians have quickly found innovative ways to convey their messages, which has led to an overlapping of cinematographic techniques traditionally associated with either fiction or non-fiction. In contrast to what had previously been obtainable, video cameras and tools for digital editing eventually became affordable for many people, especially once the personal computer became widely available. As a result, many individuals turned to creating their own personal documentaries, also called first-person films or personal essay films (McLane, 2012, p. 277). Almost per definition and due to technological facilitation (for instance, there was no financial reason to turn the camera off), these films were often rooted in the tradition of CV/direct cinema. Personal essay films were expressions of “a flood of self-reflexivity,” as McLane (2012, p.  278) describes it. One could argue that the new popularity of self-­ reflexivity in documentary is—at least partly—made necessary or even caused by a development towards individualisation, which has led to a shift from director-driven production to author-driven production (Wessely, 2013, p.  25). Filmmakers are no longer as detached from the reality in

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front of their cameras, as had been the case in CV/direct cinema. Rather, they create and tell deeply personal and therefore highly subjective stories. Self-reflectivity makes the process of storytelling transparent and thus shields filmmakers from the otherwise rather common accusation of claiming to objectively represent reality, which is often paired with formulations such as “exposing manipulative ideology” (see, e.g., Kammerer & Kepser, 2014, p. 13) or “seeing through documentary’s character of constructedness and manipulation” (see, e.g., Bredella & Lenz, 1994b, p. 7). Criticism along these lines has been part of the discourse ever since the emergence of CV/direct cinema, and it continues to be. Perhaps, however, it expresses the understanding that documentary films are a result of a director-driven rather than an author-driven production process, which then leads to the insinuation of a claim of validity that has not necessarily been asserted by the filmmakers themselves. With more and more individuals taking part in documentary filmmaking, attention has been particularly paid to an increasing number of subjects relevant to them. In what could be described as a bottom-up socio-cinematic movement, always envisioned by Griersonians and the founders of British Free Cinema, documentarians have turned their lenses onto critical issues of their respective societies, such as, among other things, the Civil Rights movement. S atellite TV and the Internet: Revolution in Distribution The introduction of cable TV, and later satellite TV, in the 1970s and 1980s ran parallel to the rise of video and proved to be just as significant to documentary’s ascent to mainstream popularity. Technological progress in television offered ample opportunity in terms of distribution, including the creation of a great number of channels dedicated to special interests, such as history, sports, or wildlife. Three key dynamics in distribution can be identified, which have emerged as a consequence of the introduction of TV channels and the Internet and which have continued to shape documentary to date. These central aspects are concerned with marketing, the further blurring of the term documentary, and new viewing experiences. With regard to marketing, it is important to keep in mind that broadcast corporations are primarily companies that seek to maximise profit. Thus, creating dedicated channels must be understood as a business strategy—Discovery or National Geographic would eventually become household brands for documentary films. However, this development proved to

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be a double-edged sword, with “[the] majority of cable documentaries [becoming] works done for hire, in which the filmmakers retain little control and hold no rights to their films” (McLane, 2012, p. 304). This circumstance led to a demise of what could be considered ‘serious,’ that is artistic, subject-oriented, documentary filmmaking—at least for television. Its successor—and possibly one of the reasons why serious documentaries largely vanished from TV—dominates broadcast channels to date: Reality shows and docusoaps have conquered the screens and are a fixed component of many programmes. Wessely (2013, p. 17) considers these formats symptomatic for a long-running process of blurring the term documentary. He argues that the labels docusoap and docudrama are indicative of the fact that the boundaries between fiction and documentary are being erased. Consequently, scholars like Wolf (2006), McLane (2012, p. 370), and Wessely (2013, p. 17) insist that both docusoap and docudrama do not qualify as documentary but are instead instances of fictionalisation in terms of both narration and aesthetics. Largely expelled from TV, documentaries have not only re-conquered the big cinema screens, but, crucially, they have tapped the expansive market that has opened up, thanks to the Internet. Nowadays, documentaries are being uploaded to social media platforms and broadcasting channels like National Geographic have expanded their networks online. This shows that digitalisation and the Internet have already had fundamental impacts on distribution and audience reach. They have, of course, also jumpstarted major developments in terms of production and reception.  he Hollywoodisation of Documentary T Contradicting the mental image of shaky frames and a reliance on raw, unprocessed footage, contemporary documentaries tend to rival Hollywood blockbusters in terms of impressive cinematography, thrilling score, and powerful imagery. That is no coincidence, as Hollywood has been an influencing factor on documentary since WWII, if not earlier. During the war, Hollywood directors were employed as documentary filmmakers as a strategy to achieve maximum emotional effect with audiences. They were familiar with the techniques that promised success and managed to transform miles of incoherent footage into immersive war-­ time stories. In the twenty-first century, this idea has been taken to the extreme, due to the opportunity to save footage in digital form, paired with ubiquitous and instant availability by virtue of the Internet. Wessely (2013, p. 14) observes that, since the nineteenth century, the notion of a

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visual representation of reality had been bound to tangible media such as paper or glass plates, celluloid negatives, or daguerreotype. The actual manifest image was perceived as the nexus between the observer and the observed (Wessely, 2013, p.  14). Nowadays, images are recorded as a binary code, which can be processed, copied, and multiplied in any way imaginable. There seem to be no limits on what can be done in post-­ production, and filmmakers take full advantage of their creative possibilities to produce documentary cinema that can be best described as Hollywood-esque. Fittingly, Wessely notes, “[as] soon as the copy is identical with the original, the concept of the original ceases to exist, and with it, the very principle of representation plunges into crisis” (2013, p. 14; author’s translation). Hence, the attribute Hollywood-esque hints at two qualities of recent documentaries, adding to the resemblance of (eco-) documentaries to movies produced by Hollywood studios: one regarding aesthetics, that is cinematographic form and production methods, and the second regarding the blurring of boundaries between fiction and non-­ fiction in documentary storytelling. As to form and production methods, the revolutionary BBC wildlife documentary series Planet Earth II (Berlowitz et  al., 2016), although technically a nature documentary, serves to illustrate key developments that have enhanced documentary production in the twenty-first century for groundbreaking aesthetic effects. Producer Elizabeth White hints at the inherent link of aesthetic form and narrative function in documentary when she discusses the main goal of the series: I think we’ve gone for a much more emotional narrative in these [episodes; the author] […] trying to sort of put you in their [the animals’; the author] world and what would that animal be feeling - and trying not to be anthropomorphic about it but just sort of taking the viewer on a journey where they can start to relate to how that animal might work in that world. It’s a warmer, closer take on Planet Earth. (in Fong & Lee, 2017a, 0:05:42)

To that end, the BBC makes extensive use of dynamic tracking shots. Mirroring the cinematic effect of fiction films, where the camera is always on the move, the producers elicit in the audience a sense of immersion (Fong & Lee, 2017a), making use of the latest camera stabilisers and experimenting with slow motion and time-lapsing as well as CGI

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(computer-­generated imagery). Cameras with higher frame rates and night-­ vision capacity produce footage that can be isolated digitally in post-­ production to make processes that are otherwise too fast or too slow for the human eye visible. Gunton, one of the producers, indicates, “[the] imagery, of course, is that first thing that catches the eye, catches the attention. But without the revelations the storytelling brings, in the end, it palls quite quickly” (in Fong & Lee, 2017a, 0:07:50). For maximum narrative effect, contemporary (eco-) documentary making has incorporated numerous other elements traditionally associated with fictional films, including re-enactments, casting, and further complex audio-visual techniques such as CGI or film score, many of which can be identified in films such as Before the Flood or A Life on Our Planet. Likewise, fictional film has integrated aspects otherwise considered to be defining characteristics of documentary, such as the hand-held camera (frequently used in horror movies to create suspense) or original audio footage (often used in biographical and historical films), to increase an emotionalising effect. In light of the evident convergence of fictional films and documentary in terms of cinematographic form and production techniques, the conventional definitions of documentary, based on these categories—as, for instance, summarised by McLane (2012, p. 3; see the introduction to this chapter)—need to be reconsidered.  he Status Quo: Recent Approaches to Defining Documentary T in Academic Discourse Unsurprisingly, the evolution of approaches to conceptualising and defining documentary mirrors the history of technological and formal developments roughly traced in the paragraphs above. The current academic discourse is the result of two main paradigm shifts. The first important shift has already been mentioned—from an understanding of documentary filmmaking as a director-driven process to an author-driven process, which champions an understanding of film as practice and highlights the importance of agency in filmmaking (Watson, 2012b, p. 155). Thus, the notion of storytelling in documentary has gained more attention as of late. The second shift is from an essentialist understanding of documentary to one informed by semio-pragmatic approaches. In the past, various authors built their definitions of documentary around terms on which there has been little consensus, as Hornung (2013,

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pp. 328–329; emphasis in original; author’s translation6) points out: “real people, the found-on-site, the recording of external reality, and  – foremost – non-fiction – these terms make apparent how fragile the essence of documentary is in these definitions.” In her observation, she refers to definitions by Roth (1982, p. 185), who thinks of documentary as portraying events that would have taken place anyway, without a camera present; Monaco (1992, p. 389), for whom documentary denotes all non-fictional film that is dedicated to the capturing of reality; and Schadt (2002, p. 21), who juxtaposes it to the fictional film. Common to all these notions is the idea that documentary is clearly identifiable by virtue of a certain aesthetic (“das Wesen des Dokumentarfilms”; Hornung, 2013, p.  329), which is taken as an indicator for immediacy, indexicality, and, thus, authentic representation of reality. Weber (2019, p. 81) specifies that especially an aesthetic of distortion, absence, and defects has become the essence of documentary. Corresponding techniques were extensively used in CV/ direct cinema and have, in fact, defined the sub-genre. However, as has been noted above, the very same techniques have been employed in fictional contexts as well, resulting in the development of a completely new meaning. Consequently, current approaches to defining documentary refrain from assuming the existence of invariable, essential characteristics that clearly identify documentary films. Rather, scholars now refer to dynamic cultural and medial notions of what qualifies as a documentary (Weber, 2019, p.  81). This paradigm shift was facilitated by semio-­ pragmatic approaches that acknowledge the dynamic nature of aesthetic structures which focus on the reception process. Semio-pragmatics is anchored in the idea that the recipients are incited to not only enter a certain reception stance by paratextual components but that they also form an opinion on whether they are confronted with a documentary film based on these paratexts (Weber, 2019, p.  81). Paratexts—as coined by Gérard Genette (1989, 1993)—or “metatextual labels” (Eitzen, 1998, pp. 30, 36; metatextuelle verbale Etikettierungen in the German original) are texts of an “undefined zone” (Genette, 1989, p. 10) that have no clear internal (to the film) or external (to the discourse on the film) boundaries. Genette differentiates between peritexts, which are spatially and physically connected to a text (for instance, the title, 6  German original: “Reale Personen, das Gefundene, die Aufzeichnung von Außenrealität und, allen voran, Nonfiktion—diese Begriffe machen deutlich, auf welch dünnem Eis das Wesen des Dokumentarfilms in diesen Definitionen steht.”

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names of producers, credits), and epitexts, which are spatially and physically detached from a text (for instance, merchandise, interviews, posters, websites—indeed the entire broader context can be considered epitextual). Hornung (2013, pp. 340–342) describes paratextuality as the textual framework of films, which helps viewers build up expectations and subsequently determine the genre of a given film. Weber (2019, p. 81) argues that semio-pragmatic approaches work well for cinema and TV because of the long-established and relatively stable conventions, but they start to fall short whenever these conventions are broken—for instance, in mockumentaries or pseudo- or fake-documentaries. Throughout the genre’s history, of course, documentary’s conventions have been broken and re-invented continually—the only constant, one could say, has been change. Precisely because the documentary form has diversified intensely, generating more dissimilar formats with every technological innovation, Weber proposes an alternative perspective on documentary: looking at it from the angle of its practices. Highlighting the processual nature of film, Weber (2019, p. 82) suggests that the meaning of documentary films only arises from the knowledge of their respective genesis within a specific media milieu (mediales Milieu in the German original), which constitutes individual frameworks of reference. For him, media milieus encompass all practices of production, distribution, and reception. This notion is in line with Nichols, who suggests that these four factors - institutions, filmmakers, films, and audiences - create an evolving definition of what counts as a documentary. These factors both uphold a sense of what a documentary is at a given time and place and promote the continual transformation of what a documentary is over time and in different places. We can get a better handle on how to understand documentary film by considering these four factors in greater detail. (2017, pp. 11–12)

These media milieus are not static or arbitrary. They are part of a media-­ ecological system and stem from the self-stabilising interaction of individual agents (Weber, 2019, p. 83). These agents, Weber (2019, p. 83) explicates, can be technologies, programmes, conventions, institutions, or concrete human individuals. Crucially, the concept of media milieus facilitates an understanding of documentary not only as a result of a dynamic, contingent process but also as a joint product of interaction between various agents.

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 History of Change A Following a historical approach, the paragraphs above have offered answers to what constitutes documentary in the twenty-first century, based on changes over time. In its more than 100 years of existence, documentary has truly become a ship of Theseus: Almost every aspect of it has changed— from production methods and techniques to subjects and form, to its perceived relationship to fiction and non-fiction. This section began with a focus on filmmaking practice and the production process over time. In this regard, technological innovation and digitalisation strongly influenced the genre. With innovation such as 16 mm portable cameras and, later, video came diversification and individualisation in terms of subjects and forms. Dedicated (satellite) TV channels helped reach larger audiences than ever before but also ultimately led to the demise of what some scholars call ‘serious’ documentaries on home screens. Today, documentary formats like reality shows dominate the programmes, and a debate has ensued as to what extent these formats can actually be described as documentary. ‘Serious’ documentaries (as opposed to the formats mentioned above), while marginalised in television, have re-conquered the big screens and, crucially, the Internet. Simultaneously, these achievements facilitated the exploration of new filmmaking techniques, ranging from methods suggesting immediacy and authenticity through imperfection in CV/direct cinema to stabilised cinematic imagery, rivalling Hollywood productions in appearance. However, with the films evolving ever so quickly and diversely, two other developments have taken place in the process: one regarding a new acknowledgement of the recipients’ role in defining documentary, the other concerning the inherently complicated relationship between fiction and non-fiction. The most recent developments that followed CV/direct cinema have rendered a clear distinction between fiction and non-fiction obsolete, thus questioning one of the basic pillars of documentary itself. With these lines being blurred, the long-assumed contract of credibility between text and recipient has been rescinded. While some scholars (for instance, Wessely, 2013, p. 16) ask whether and how this contract can be reinstalled, the latest trends in academic discourse suggest that another question be asked instead, namely if this contract of credibility has ever existed or should have ever existed in the first place. The latter position is supported by two paradigm shifts that have occurred in the discourse: one, from the understanding that documentary is the result of a director-driven process to the idea that documentary is a product of an author-driven process and,

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accordingly, emphasises storytelling; and the other being a shift from an essentialist to a semio-pragmatic approach defining the form. Notably, Weber’s notion of media milieu puts forth a dynamic understanding of documentary. According to him and an increasing number of scholars, any given documentary is the result of a process involving production, distribution, and reception. As such, documentaries are embedded in inter- and paratextual webs of significance that facilitate understanding and meaning-making. The “skewed road,” an image evoked by McLane (2012, p. 378), does not end at this point. Rather, there is a long way ahead of the genre. New technologies will forever change documentary, and the debate on its place between fiction and non-fiction will probably not abate. Nonetheless, even if virtually everything about documentary has changed at some point throughout its history, what powers the vehicle travelling that skewed road—Theseus’ ship, to mix metaphors—has not changed, as McLane asserts: Grierson or Flaherty might not recognize the technology or the politics at work, but they would certainly identify with filmmakers’ motivations in the twenty-first century. They knew that as individuals who belong to an increasingly global society, we can best affect what we best understand, and we bear an increasing responsibility for the ways our personal actions affect the entire world. In terms of promoting social change, documentary film remains one of the most effective ways to enhance understanding on a mass level. Nothing else can so fully reveal one part of the world to another. (2012, pp. 363–364)

A Question of Treating Which Actuality: What Constitutes Realities of Film The previous section has elucidated that contemporary discourse still grapples with documentary’s place between fiction and non-fiction. It has also shown that this discussion has become increasingly difficult in recent years because of the overlapping production techniques traditionally associated with either fiction or non-fiction. As a result, the very concept of reality in film finds itself being scrutinised. Filmmakers have approached and treated reality in various ways, rendering a uniform definition of terms like reality and fiction impossible. This insight is, of course, highly relevant for approaching documentaries in educational contexts within the poles of

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normativity (e.g., as neutral information vehicles) and criticism (e.g., as cinematic manipulation attempts). A first way out of this terminological dilemma, as Hornung (2013, p. 329) phrases it, is presented by the differentiation of various realities of film put forth by Hohenberger (1988) and later, albeit slightly differently, by Paech (1994) as well as Kessler (1998). The authors distinguish between non-filmic reality, pre-filmic reality, filmic reality, and post-filmic reality, as well as a Reality Film (nichtfilmisch, vorfilmisch, filmisch, nachfilmisch, Realität Film in the German originals; Hohenberger, 1988 and Paech, 1994).7 In this text, pre-filmic reality refers to a reality found by the filmmakers, which is bound to become an object of the camera (Paech, 1994, p. 24).8 Paech emphasises that it does not matter whether the events in question are arranged, staged, or purely coincidental: “The camera is definitely not there by chance” (Paech, 1994, p. 24; author’s translation).9 As the manifest outcome of the filmmaking process, the film itself constitutes its own reality, that is filmic reality. Post-filmic reality denotes the act and moment of reception. These first three different realities are relatively easily determined. However, the other two pose greater challenges. Non-filmic reality is the reality from which filmmakers choose what to include in their films and into which filmic reality (i.e., the film) is added upon release. Yet, as Paech (1994, p. 24) and Hornung (2013, p. 329) point out, the very existence of a non-filmic reality is debatable. Scholars challenging the idea of a non-filmic reality base their criticism on the assumption that capturing reality, as it would have happened had a camera not been present, is not possible because the very presence of a camera decisively and irrevocably affects the way people behave. Hence, reality is altered as soon as it is captured. Thus, in front of a camera, no real people are going about their daily business—the people are merely acting in front of a camera in some type of altered reality (Hornung, 2013, p. 329) (ergo, Nichols’ hint at “social actors” in the working definition presented in the introduction to this chapter). Most controversy in contemporary discourse concerns Reality Film, which refers to everything that lies between shooting the footage and 7  Kessler (1998, pp. 70–75) uses the terms afilmisch, profilmisch, and filmisch. For the sake of clarity, this text primarily draws on Paech’s terminology. 8  Hohenberger’s vorfilmische Realität refers to the occurrences happening in front of the camera while shooting, using vor as a local preposition rather than as a temporal one. In this sense, pro-filmic reality would be a more suitable translation. 9  German original: “Die Kamera steht auf keinen Fall zufällig dort.”

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projecting it onto the screen, that is everything associated with production, distribution, and reception of film. As has been established in the previous section, there has been a shift amongst scholars and filmmakers towards the understanding that documentary film is the product of an author-driven process, which advocates the idea that documentarians are authors of their own stories that are manifested in the texts they produce. However, this development begs the question of how the idea of narrative storytelling in documentary concurs with the notion that documentary is a representation of reality, which has dominated the discourse for the past decades (most notably Nichols, 1991; see also, e.g., Williams, 2016 [1993]; Bredella & Lenz, 1994a; Kammerer & Kepser, 2014; Nichols, 2017). To answer this question, the following sections take a closer look at Reality Film and documentary’s claim to truth and, in doing so, discuss the central concepts of fiction and non-fiction. They also introduce and elaborate on two approaches used in filmmaking (self-reflexivity and faction), which may enrich the debate considerably. Reality Film and the Claim to Truth The historical approach has shed light on increasingly overlapping production techniques between fictional and documentary films, thus leading to the blurring of the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction in documentary. In addition to these insights, the discussion about what constitutes Reality Film and, in this context, how filmmakers approach reality offers another entry point to identifying documentary’s place between fiction (storytelling) and non-fiction (representing reality). This entry point is a claim to truth, mentioned abundantly in literature as one of the—if not the—defining aspects of documentary (see in particular Platinga, 1989). Arguing in terms of semiotics, Paech (1994, p. 27) notes that documentary films refer to something real. Understood as a sign, the film proper only signifies (or represents) something that exists in absentia. This means that a film is not a documentary because reality was captured but because it refers to something pre-filmically absent (“fiction of reality” [“die Fiktion des Wirklichen” in the German original]; Paech, 1994, p. 26). As such, Paech (1994, p.  31) argues that documentary only forms in opposition to and chronologically after the fictional film, under the signs of probability and credibility. Luserke-Jaqui (2002, p.  27) supports this view, stressing that documentary is based on the authenticity of its

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statements—documentary claims to refer to or represent truth and reality. Fictional films, on the other hand, refer to the presence of a reality portrayed in the film itself (“reality of the fictitious” [“die Wirklichkeit des Fiktiven” in the German original]; Paech, 1994, p. 26), which is immanent to the film and, crucially, imaginary. The term fictional, however, is not without its difficulty. For instance, Geertz (1983, p. 23) advocates a rather broad understanding of it, referring to its etymological origin fictio—creation. In this sense, any given documentary would be a work of fiction since it has clearly been created by somebody. This issue, paired with the emergence of hybrid forms, which increasingly question terminological dichotomies and the “negative definition” non-fictional (Hornung, 2013, p. 335), renders a definition of documentary based primarily or even exclusively on the binary between fiction and non-fiction highly problematic. Consider Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris, a 2018 Hollywood production that defies unambiguous categorisation and serves as an example for numerous movies that are ‘based on a true story.’10 Applying a definition of documentary based on the binary between fiction and non-fiction, one could argue that The 15:17 to Paris is more qualified to be considered a documentary than Workers Leaving the Factory or Flaherty’s Nanook of the North. However, audiences seem to have agreed that neither is, although considerably more controversial films such as Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine (2002) or Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) pass for documentaries. It appears, then, that filmic authenticity and the claim to truth have indeed no value in terms of what is presented on screen. In fact, the realisation that a film’s authenticity is, as a rule, not indicative of the “realness” of what is displayed (Hoffmann, 2013, p. 307) has found its way into the discourse, with many scholars calling to revoke the distinction between fiction and documentary altogether (see, e.g., Heller, 2011b; Allary, 2013, p.  43; Hoffmann, 2013; Hornung, 2013; Kammerer & Kepser, 2014, p. 24). The basic argument is that fiction (as creation) starts as soon as the 10  In it, three American soldiers travel Europe and happen to be on board a Thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris when a terrorist attacks the passengers. The three friends are able to overwhelm the perpetrator and save the lives of their fellow travellers—the perfect, all-­ too-­familiar recipe for a Hollywood blockbuster. Except, however, this terrorist attack really occurred on 21 August 2015, and the three American tourists foiling the attack that day ended up playing themselves in Eastwood’s movie. Moreover, the film utilises footage from the actual award ceremony at Élysée Palace in 2015, in the scope of which the three real-life heroes received the Légion d’honneur, the highest French order of civil merit (Pager, 2015).

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idea for a documentary is conceived and continues throughout the production process in terms of re-shooting scenes, editing and montage. Authenticity, Hoffmann (2013, p. 307) suggests, is an effect of reception. It is the credibility of a film’s contents that decides whether recipients accept it as a documentary or not. Filmmakers have developed various approaches to dealing with their own films’ credibility, two of which are particularly promising in terms of answering the question as to how the idea of storytelling in documentary concurs with the notion that documentary is a representation of reality: self-reflexivity and faction. Self-reflexivity As has already been briefly discussed, representatives of cinéma vérité have resorted to the strategy of providing a certain extent of transparency through self-reflexivity to highlight the constructedness of their films. While particularly prevalent in CV, self-reflective elements have always been part of documentary filmmaking to some degree. Early instances can be found in the discussion of Vertov’s contribution to documentary as well as in Records of Battle. To understand the relevance of self-reflexivity regarding a film’s credibility, it is helpful to consider examples that seem to lay claims to truth without revealing their own constructedness. In Nanook of the North, the protagonist uses spears to hunt, although Allakariallak, who played Nanook, had actually hunted with rifles for a long time. This film would probably be labelled a work of fiction if compared to today’s standards. Arguably, this is largely because of a lack of self-reflexivity: Flaherty did not reference, at any point in the film, the fact that Allakariallak would have swapped the spear for the rifle as soon as film shooting was over (Hohenberger, 1988, p. 37). Thus, as Hornung (2013, p. 331) clarifies, there is no transparency about the relationship between non-filmic and filmic reality. Self-reflexivity is often reduced to a formalistic device used in some films to reveal their own constructedness or, in other words, to unravel the illusion of reality. Amongst the public and scholars alike, this seems to be the predominant understanding of it, which expresses itself in phrases such as “film about film” or the existence and popularity of “behind-the-scenes” or “making-of” productions (Minh-Ha, 1993, p. 103). In this sense, self-­ reflexivity has a strongly scientific connotation, one of transparency and the exposure of the production context. Thus, it can also serve as a

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strategy to gain credibility with the audience, especially in the context of persuasive or strongly ideologically motivated documentaries. In Before the Flood, for instance, self-reflexivity is exhibited by critically addressing the role of Leonardo DiCaprio, a Hollywood actor many in the United States would associate with a leftist agenda, and his impact on the credibility of the film’s message (Stevens, 2016, 00:05:30–00:06:15), while others are very open about the context of conception and motivation as, for example, in Cowspiracy and A Life on Our Planet. Still, there is a second aspect to self-reflexivity which goes far beyond merely providing transparency and constituting the filmmakers’ subjectivity, as Minh-ha (1993, p.  105; emphasis in original) underscores: “The bringing of the self into play necessarily exceeds the concern for human errors, for it cannot but involve as well the problem inherent in representation and communication. Radically plural in its scope, reflexivity is, thus, not a mere question of rectifying and justifying (subjectivizing).” Rather, as Meyer (2016, pp. 1–2) points out, self-reflective elements also refer to the ineffable and invisible, with Minh-ha (1993, p. 104) specifying that these elements “[prevent] meaning from ending with what is said and what is shown [and] thereby [challenge] representation itself while emphasizing the lives of the spectators.” Self-reflective films call upon the viewers to engage with and reconsider what is portrayed and not portrayed. Faction In his film Paradies: Liebe (2012), Ulrich Seidl openly toys with the idea that films cannot be categorised unambiguously as either fictional or documentary, but that there might be a spectrum between the poles. According to Hornung (2013, p.  341), this particular film is clearly classified as a fictional movie by its paratexts (film reviews, interviews, press material). This first part of Seidl’s trilogy tells the story of a European woman who goes on a trip to Kenya, where she engages in sex tourism and ultimately learns that money can only buy physical acts, not love and affection. While the female lead is a professional actress, the male Kenyan actors are actual Beach Boys, that is sex workers. Most of the dialogue is improvised and, as such, one could argue, ‘authentic’ or ‘real.’ Moreover, Seidl frequently uses a technique known as ‘breaking the fourth wall,’ that is he has his actors look directly into the camera. Seidl’s film defies the laws of definition if based on the binary between fiction and documentary: Paradies:

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Liebe evidently uses characteristics of both. The same holds true for contemporary documentaries—especially eco-documentaries. Seidl does not refer to his film as a fictional movie or as a documentary; instead, he uses the notion of faction. This concept has been known for a while, most notably in literary studies (see, e.g., Lenz, 1987 or Faulstich, 1991, who apply it to novels such as Capote’s In Cold Blood (1965)), but also in film studies. It has been used as a label for autobiographical films (also known as biopics or movies ‘based on a true story’). Put differently, factional films refer to events and people that exist in a non-filmic reality— which would fit Paech’s (1994) definition of documentary. This supports the point that essentialist definitions of documentary, such as Paech’s, which rely on the binary of fiction and non-fiction, fall short in acknowledging that there is indeed an area of overlap or a continuum between the two poles. In contrast, the concept of faction acknowledges the fact that the boundaries are blurry—if they have ever even existed as clear delineations. For the purposes of the discussion led in this book, faction is understood as storytelling with facts. Admittedly, this definition seems just as general as Grierson’s definition of documentary being a creative treatment of actuality. Therein—in this second strategic ambiguity used in this book—however, lies its potential: Labelling a film as factional does not imply that it is exclusively based on facts, and, crucially, it does not imply a claim to represent reality as objective truth. As has been indicated, that is impossible. The term factional, Hornung (2013, p.  343) emphasises, expresses that documentary films are not per sé more or less based in reality than feature films—documentary does not show the reality; rather, it refers to a reality and shapes or re-designs it. In this light, statements often found in the discourse, such as “by means of very detailed analysis of all filmic levels, Wember exposes the claim to represent truth objectively as manipulative ideology” (Kammerer & Kepser, 2014, p. 13; author’s translation11), cannot be upheld: They are indicative of an essentialist understanding of documentary, which firstly assumes a claim to truth by means of objective representation of reality in all documentary films, and, secondly, senses devious manipulation as soon as static conventions are broken. Transcending conventions, shaping reality, and telling stories, however, have not only always been part of filmmaking in general, but 11  German original: “Wember enttarnt durch sehr genaue Analysen aller filmischen Ebenen den Anspruch, Wirklichkeit objektiv darzustellen, als manipulative Ideologie.”

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they may indeed also be the reifying characteristics of documentary. As Ward (2012, pp. 215–216) points out, it is “the decisive creative shaping that distinguishes documentary from other forms of non-fictional filmmaking,” as “it is in the dramatic narrative structures imposed on real material by a filmmaker such as Robert Flaherty (1884–1951) that we first see the move to a more immediately recognisable type of documentary form.” The idea that documentary films present their own version of reality is in line with Rushton, who observes: It seems to me that film scholars and students are invariably drawn towards trying to determine what a film represents, that is, to looking at films as at best a secondary mode of being, so that any claim for the reality of films is most often met with either the blank stare of bafflement or outright repudiation. (2010, pp. 2–3)

Precisely because the notion of faction inherently acknowledges the storytelling and reality-shaping nature of documentary does it work well with Lipp’s (2012) notion of an “author’s handwriting” (Autorenhandschrift in the German original) and Nichols’ (1991, 2017) concept of voice. Similarly to Lipp (2012, p. 30), who employs the metaphor of handwriting in reference to a filmmaker’s unique style, Nichols (2017) argues that every documentary has a voice, which, according to MacDonald (2016, p. 970), is “a clear or at least identifiable ideological position.” A documentary’s voice “makes claims, proposes perspectives, and evokes feelings” (2017, p. 50). It “is each film’s specific way of expressing its way of seeing the world” (Nichols, 2017, p. 50). Nichols (2017, p. 53) specifies that “each voice is unique” and can be identified by qualities that are established by “generic conventions, noncinematic models, and cinematic modes.” In a documentary, voice manifests in all means of communication and (semiotic) modes of meaning-making, both verbally and non-verbally (Nichols, 2017, pp. 52, 55), that is in the spoken words and shown images on screen as well as in editing, frame composition, arrangement of shots, and the like. Based on the latest developments, as outlined earlier, one could add digital and analogue modes here as well. Nichols distinguishes three types of voice: the poetic, the narrative, and the rhetorical voice. While “the rhetorical voice is most distinct to and characteristic of documentary” (Nichols, 2017, p.  56), since it is commonly used to address issues with no single solution, it is the narrative voice that best illustrates

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why contemporary eco-documentaries should be considered works of faction. “When a narrative voice dominates,” Nichols (2017, p. 57) explains, “the film is often said to be character driven. A central character faces a challenge or problem he or she must resolve. This individual pursues a goal that takes place over time.” This is certainly true for many contemporary eco-documentaries, as illustrated here by Before the Flood. In it, Leonardo DiCaprio guides the viewers through his personal story. In many ways, the film is reminiscent of personal essay films. This is no coincidence, as similar strategies have been employed in eco-documentaries ever since Al Gore told his story in An Inconvenient Truth, and they seem to be very powerful in this type of film. As such, the choice of featuring the famous Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio in Before the Flood was not an arbitrary one either. While his stardom certainly helps the audience recognise and subsequently identify with him to some extent, it betrays the fact that DiCaprio serves as a UN messenger of peace, with a special focus on climate change (UN 2014), and is thus a suitable choice as a credible protagonist in an eco-documentary. One could further argue that it is also the merit of An Inconvenient Truth that Before the Flood and other eco-documentaries are structured according to the basics of dramaturgy, exhibiting a beginning, a middle, and an ending—key elements of narrative voice. Starting with DiCaprio’s earliest visual memory, a copy of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (Stevens, 2016, 0:00:34), the film’s narrative arch covers his journey from being inspired and sensitised for environmental issues by Al Gore, via the actual journey he took around the globe searching for answers (which includes a variety of setbacks, challenges, and a silver lining), to his pivotal speech in front of the UN climate summit in Paris in 2015. Right from the start, the film sets the scene, as it were, for the story to come. Describing the panels in Bosch’s triptych, DiCaprio literally foreshadows the documentary’s plot: “[I]f you look at these panels long enough, they start to tell a story” (Stevens, 2016, 0:01:30), starting in the first panel with the Garden of Eden. The second panel—referred to in the film as “humankind before the flood” (Stevens, 2016, 01:25:36)—depicts humanity’s downfall due to the deadly sins. Finally, the third panel portrays the world as a “twisted, decayed, burnt landscape  – a paradise that has been degraded and destroyed” (Stevens, 2016, 0:02:16). What follows is a dissolve (a type of fading transition; as opposed to a cut) from Bosch’s third panel to a sequence of frames showing CO2 emissions, wildfires, flooding, and the

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diminution of arctic ice shields. The introductory sequence leaves no doubts about the film’s dire message, but it also indicates a ray of hope, cutting straight to DiCaprio meeting Ban Ki-moon in Paris. Before the Flood is clearly classified as a documentary by its paratexts (film reviews, interviews, press material). Yet, it tells a story in exactly the same fashion a feature film would, following Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio in three classic dramaturgical steps. Cinematic imagery and sound design as well as signature Hollywood cinematography complete the impression of another DiCaprio blockbuster. Therefore, Before the Flood and other contemporary eco-documentaries that work in similar fashion should be considered works of faction rather than non-fiction, since they tell stories with the help of facts. Documentary as an Argument About Reality The shift from an understanding of documentary being defined on the basis of the binary between fiction and non-fiction towards an understanding of documentary as faction sparks another rather radical thought. This thought helps answer the question posed in the introductory remarks to this chapter, namely how the two ideas of storytelling in documentary, on the one hand, and documentary as representation of reality, on the other, concur. Summing up her deliberations in Die Fiktion des nicht-fiktionalen Films, Hornung (2013, p. 343) states that the truth of documentary can only lie in addressing the impossibility of representing non-filmic reality and, thus, in breaking with the fiction of documentary. This approach, she concludes, yields the potential to open constructive discourse on the medial constructedness of reality. However, this idea is in stark contrast to one of the most widely acknowledged and dominant notions in the academic discourse, that is defining documentary as a representation of reality. Either explicitly or implicitly reflected in almost every piece written on documentary, the concept of representation already constitutes a step forward from reproduction, which is what radical, essentialist understandings would suggest. Nichols clarifies that [were] documentary a reproduction of reality, […] we would […] simply have a replica or copy of something that already existed. But documentary is not a reproduction; it is a representation. […] We judge a document by its authenticity and a reproduction by its fidelity to the original - its capacity to

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reproduce important features of the original and to serve purposes that require precise reproduction […]. We judge a representation more by the nature of the pleasure it offers, the value of the insight it provides, and the quality of the perspective it conveys. We ask different things of reproductions and representations, documents and documentaries. (Nichols, 2017, pp. 9–10; emphasis in original)

Yet, in light of the insights gained by the discussion of different realities in filmmaking, film can never be a representation of reality because the very presence of a camera already alters reality. In addition, the filmmaking process arguably shapes reality as soon as filmmakers conceive an idea, make choices of what to capture, start editing and montage, and how they distribute the film, which, by then, is embedded in an inter- and paratextual web of significance that, in itself, constitutes an addition and alteration of reality. All this happens, of course, prior to the moment of reception, with its own dynamics of meaning-making. Eitzen (1998, p. 15) argues that every attempt at capturing reality is necessarily an artificial construct because it always stems from a selective and biased point of view on the world, inevitably reflecting a subjective standpoint. Aufderheide (2007, p.  7) endorses this perspective, noting that “[r]eality is not what is out there but what we know, understand, and share with each other of what is out there.” Film shapes reality. Therefore, documentarians cannot represent non-filmic reality; but they can tell stories about (a version of) reality. Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p. 28) ascribe documentaries the intention to somehow take a stand on the world to which they refer, which ties in well with Nichols’ notion of voice—this intrinsic ideological position of documentaries. In other words, equipped with this inherent voice, documentaries are arguments about reality rather than representations of reality. To conclude, the idea that documentaries tell stories, using their own voice, and thus constitute works of faction does not concur with the notion of documentary as a representation of reality. In telling a story, filmmakers create their own versions of reality, which is what they offer the audience. The reality presented in a documentary is considered to be a version of reality in its own right. As such, this text suggests that documentaries be understood as arguments about this version of reality, which add to the entirety of fragments in a given discourse. Referring back to the working definition offered by Nichols (2017, p.  10), who evokes the notion of a “distinct point of view of the filmmaker [that] shapes the film into a way of understanding the historical world directly rather than

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through a fictional allegory,” this distinct point of view is an argument about the world framed in a factual story.

Classifying Documentary: Non-fiction Models and Cinematic Modes The previous sections have established that documentary is an evolving form and that documentarians express themselves in various ways. They experiment with realities in the pursuit of telling stories in factual films. The concept of faction allows for a broader, more dynamic understanding of documentary and opposes essentialist definitions based on the binary between fiction and non-fiction. The boundaries between the factual and the fictitious are permeable and fluid. As such, there is an intermediary area of overlap between the modes. Thus far, the working definition may still be applicable. Documentary film “speaks about situations and events involving real people (social actors) who present themselves within a framework,” with this frame reflecting “[the] distinct point of view of the filmmakers” (Nichols, 2017, p. 10). However, a documentary like Before the Flood is evidently distinct from biopics or historical documentaries and is entirely different from news reports or amateur footage on YouTube, for instance. This is where the working definition quickly reaches its limits: Throughout the years, filmmakers have developed countless unique ways of framing and telling their stories. The result is that each documentary film has its own voice, according to Nichols. The numerous different qualities of these voices as well as the different ways filmmakers have approached reality in their pictures warrant further differentiation within documentary. Even though the working definition leaves much room for interpretation, it lacks recognition of different types of documentaries, which demonstrates that documentary as a genre defies an unambiguous, all-encompassing definition. In this context, a more helpful and internationally widely received scheme for internal differentiation is provided by Nichols, who suggests a classification of documentaries along the lines of non-fiction12 models and cinematic modes. He states, 12  Please note that the word ‘nonfiction’ is used to comply with Nichols’ own terminology. In his writing, ‘nonfiction’ is an umbrella term for a multitude of texts, among them documentary films, as is discussed in the section below. For reasons explicated in previous sections, this text refrains from defining documentary film as non-fiction and prefers the term ‘factual’ instead.

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We can ask of any documentary two questions: What model does it adopt from other media? What mode does it contribute to as cinema? These questions are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are complementary; ­ together they give us a better sense of the structure of any one documentary film. (Nichols, 2017, p. 107)

In what follows, Before the Flood serves as an example to illustrate how documentary can be further differentiated, using Nichols’ notion of non-­ fiction models, and thereby identify the place eco-documentaries occupy within the genre. In a second step, Nichols’ cinematic modes are examined in detail and applied to Before the Flood in order to better understand its internal structure, which in turn helps fathom how meaning is made in this exemplary film. Classification Within Documentary I: Non-fiction Models Within the documentary realm, documentary films occupy a special place and are more or less clearly distinguishable from other fact-based texts. Phillips (2005) identifies four goals of documentary: to inform, to entertain, to criticise, and/or to celebrate. Before the Flood arguably works towards all four goals: It informs the audience about climate change, its consequences, and human climate-affecting activities; it entertains the viewer by virtue of Hollywood-esque cinematography, dramaturgy, and cast; it criticises human behaviour, particularly Western lifestyle, as being harmful to sustainable development; and it celebrates nature as well as human efforts in mitigating the climate crisis, most notably Elon Musk’s Gigafactories and the Paris Climate Accord. In sum, it is a documentary because it “stimulate[s] epistephilia (a desire to know) in [its] audiences” (Nichols, 2010, p.  40). Nichols (2010, p.  40) specifies that “[a]t their best, [documentaries] convey an informing logic, a persuasive rhetoric, and a moving poetics that promises information and knowledge, insight and awareness.” What Nichols describes here is a documentary’s voice. Crucially, this voice is what separates documentary films like Before the Flood from other fact-based filmic material such as CCTV footage, video logs, or home films. Nichols calls the latter type of artefacts “nondocumentary” (Nichols, 2017, p.  105), explaining that these films “such as scientific films, surveillance footage, and informational or how-to films exhibit a minimal sense of voice: they function as documents rather than as documentaries, conveying information in a straightforward, often didactic manner.” Documentary film frequently exceeds the limits of what

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is considered to be documentary. Hence, the term faction is more suitable to describe documentary films, especially in the case of eco-­documentaries, as has been argued in the previously. In his most recent edition of Introduction to Documentary (3rd edition, 2017), Nichols distinguishes between 12 non-fiction models to further differentiate documentary films. These models describe filmic text forms which can also be found in other media contexts. The non-fiction models can be summarised as follows (Nichols, 2017, pp. 106–107): • Investigations/reports are characterised by plausible argumentation based on evidence. They form hypotheses and/or offer different perspectives on the subject matter. Before the Flood extensively employs investigative strategies, for instance, in the sequence which explains the link between carbon dioxide emissions and climate change, known as the greenhouse effect (Stevens, 2016, 00:12:20–00:13:07); when expert Dr. Gidon Eshel elaborates on the role of meat consumption in tropical deforestation (Steven Stevens, 2016, 00:50:56–00:53:59); or when astronaut and director of NASA’s Earth Sciences Division, Dr. Piers Sellers, explains the relation between atmospheric and oceanic circulation and the imminent movement of the globe’s precipitation belts (Stevens, 2016, 01:16:16–01:22:14). All these scenes are supplemented by evidence in the form of statistics, graphs, and visualisations to enhance their investigative appearance. (a) Advocacy/promotion of a cause is probably the most applicable model for all eco-documentaries by definition. It is about convincing the audience of a certain point of view by presenting compelling evidence. In fact, the above-mentioned interview with Dr. Sellers epitomises the characteristics of this model. He says, “The facts are crystal clear: the ice is melting, the earth is warming, the sea level is rising. Those are facts. Rather than repeating, ‘Oh my god, it’s hopeless,’ say, ‘Ok, this is the problem. Let’s be realistic; let’s find a way out of it” (Stevens, 2016, 01:20:40–01:20:54). After this interview, the film strikes a more optimistic note when DiCaprio meets the pope, recurring to the religious part of the film’s frame narrative. This entire sequence encapsulates environmental advocacy in the tradition of An Inconvenient Truth.

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(b) History refers to a recount of past events, while offering interpretations of these events. Eco-documentaries tend to reference historical incidents, such as Senator Inhofe bringing a snowball on the Senate floor to dispute global warming in Before the Flood (Stevens, 2016, 00:26:38), though history is typically not the dominant model in these films. (c) Testimonial, on the other hand, is used much more frequently in eco-documentaries, mostly to achieve more relatability and credibility. This model describes the assemblage of oral history and witnesses to recount personal experiences. In Before the Flood this is not only evident in Leonardo DiCaprio guiding the viewers through his personal story, but the film also features accounts of those affected by climate change in India (Stevens, 2016, 00:38:00–00:39:10) or on Pacific islands like Palau and Kiribati (Stevens, 2016, 00:41:10–00:43:12). (d) Exploration/travel writing is a model often used to convey distinctiveness or to stress exotic qualities. In eco-­documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth or Before the Flood, travel writing is identifiable to a certain extent in that the protagonists travel the world in their endeavour to trace climate change consequences, to show the global interconnectedness of cause and effect, as well as to reveal similarities between the people affected. (e) Sociology focuses on subcultures and typically involves fieldwork and participant observation. The filmic material is not only presented but also interpreted. (f) Visual anthropology/ethnography refers to the study of other cultures and is rather similar to sociology, in most respects. This model of film, however, relies heavily on informants who provide access to the cultures studied. (g) First-person essay is a personal account of some aspect of the filmmaker’s experience. It stresses individual development. Inspired by the archetypical character of Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, who pioneered this model and made it accessible to the sub-genre, many recent eco-documentaries are reminiscent of personal essay films: In Before the Flood, the audience follows Leonardo DiCaprio’s journey; in Cowspiracy (which was co-produced by DiCaprio), Kip Andersen documents his fight against Greenpeace and other environmental organisations in his attempt

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to shed light on the true relationship between meat consumption and climate change. (h) Poetry is organised around formal, aesthetic conventions and calls attention to the film’s form. (i) Diary/journal incorporates sometimes seemingly arbitrary impressions of daily life. Elements of this model can be identified in eco-documentaries as well, for instance in the famous shots of Al Gore in the backseat of a car, working on his slides for An Inconvenient Truth (almost creating a meta level of self-reflexivity), or when Before the Flood cues frames with video log material from the set of The Revenant (Iñárritu Alejandro, 2015; DiCaprio plays the leading role), supplemented by DiCaprio’s voice-over (Stevens, 2016, 00:54:02–00:56:00). (j) Individual or group profile/biography recounts the story of an individual or a group’s maturation and distinctiveness. If a filmmaker draws on the model’s first-person essay and/or diary/journal, some elements of individual profile/biography are bound to be identified as well. DiCaprio, for example, reports about his first meeting with Senator Gore when he was in his early 20s, while footage of this meeting is screened in Before the Flood (Stevens, 2016, 00:12:14–00:12:30), or his speech during Earth Day in Washington, D.C., in the year 2000 (Stevens, 2016, 00:16:30–00:17:10). These sequences help the producers sharpen DiCaprio’s profile as an authentic and thus credible voice, warning against environmental devastation. (k) Autobiography is a personal account of someone’s experience, maturation, or outlook. A Life on Our Planet is a prime example of this model, as it traces Sir David Attenborough’s life and relates it to significant socio-ecological events, phenomena, and processes. As demonstrated by the film, the model’s autobiography, individual profile, and first-person essay are strongly connected to one another. The above-mentioned models provide a first entry point into categorising eco-documentaries within “a long, multifaceted tradition of nonfiction discourse that continues to evolve” (Nichols, 2017, p. 105). However, Nichols also suggests that “[documentaries] select and arrange sounds and images in distinct ways using specifically cinematic techniques and conventions” (2017, p. 105), which have not existed prior to cinema but

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instead have emerged from 1920 onwards. Collectively, they impart a certain quality to a given documentary, which further distinguishes documentaries amongst one another. Nichols refers to these “basic ways of organising texts” (Benyahia, 2007, p. 30) as cinematic modes. Classification Within Documentary II: Cinematic Modes According to Nichols (2017), there are six different modes in documentary: expository, poetic, observational, participatory, reflexive, and performative. Expository mode is described as “an ideal mode for conveying information or mobilizing support within a framework” (Nichols, 2017, p. 124). Documentaries with expository voice are characterised by “classic oration in pursuit of the truth and seeking to inform and move an audience” (Nichols, 2017, p. 108). As such, this is the most prevalent mode in documentary today, particularly in eco-documentary filmmaking. Food, Inc. and Cowspiracy, for instance, use expository voice to shed light on the circumstances of meat production and the climate-affecting behaviour of meat consumers, while An Inconvenient Truth (and its sequel), Before the Flood, Ice on Fire, and A Life on Our Planet issue urgent warnings about the consequences of climate change, thereby summoning the audience to take action. In this context, expository mode is also used extensively to highlight instances of environmental injustice. Expressive sound and imagery underscore the message, while the spoken word is the primary information vehicle—mostly in the form of voice-over. Expository mode is not without controversy, though. For a start, documentaries in expository voice often have an air of—and are therefore limited by—didacticism (Nichols, 2017, p. 108). Additionally, Nichols (2017, p. 108) identifies ethical concerns, which include historical accuracy and verifiability. Eco-­ documentaries seem to be rather vulnerable to criticism in terms of scientific accuracy. As a point in case, Before the Flood has been accused of being “riddled with mistakes” in an opinion piece (Murray, 2017), although the few inaccuracies pointed out there do not warrant a complete revocation of the film’s scientific basis. A much more controversial example is An Inconvenient Truth, with Al Gore having famously been criticised for nine fallacies in the film (Adam, 2007). In presenting some of the erroneous arguments, Gore also ridicules the opposing side, violating another ethical concern listed by Nichols (2017, p. 108): “representing others fairly and avoid making people into helpless victims.” While, in this regard, Before

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the Flood does not provide much ground for criticism during its 90-min screen time, its website, www.beforetheflood.com, does. For instance, to vilify people arguing against aspects mentioned in the film, the website’s The Deniers section works with powerful and dark imagery, strong and suggestive language, as well as digital architecture such as image-text arrangements, links, and embedded videos (see Marxl & Römhild, 2019, 2020). Although controversy in expository mode undoubtedly yields great potential and learning opportunities in educational contexts (e.g., fact-checking activities), it also sets a trap for students and educators alike to revert to describing a film as ‘manipulative’ or ‘persuasive.’ However, by reducing a documentary’s value to an insinuated claim of truth, these terms curtail in-depth discussion about the place of ideology, fictionality, and storytelling in documentary, thus obstructing the promotion of critical awareness and, consequently, critical discourse literacies. Particularly in the context of eco-documentaries, the consequences could be dire, as learners run into the danger of disregarding the inherent “overt eco-­ activist intent of ecocinema” (Willoquet-Maricondi, 2010a, p. xi). McLane’s (2012, p. 7) alternative choice of terminology does an understanding of documentary films as works of faction much more justice, in that she describes these films as purposive. Poetic mode is characterised by an “expressive desire to give new forms and fresh perspectives to the world represented” (Nichols, 2017, p. 108), meaning that the “rhetorical element remains underdeveloped, but the expressive quality is vivid” (Nichols, 2017, p. 116). Poetic voice thrives, for example, when continuity editing is sacrificed, and a sense of temporal and spatial location is lost (Nichols, 2017, p. 116). Before the Flood exhibits some elements of poetic mode in terms of metaphors that render abstract ideas more tangible by foreshadowing the documentary’s plot (The Garden of Earthly Delights) or alluding to the looming threat of humankind’s demise (pile of skulls shown on the set of The Revenant; Stevens, 2016, 00:54:10). Observational mode describes a patient and modest voice, which is “willing to let the audience decide for itself about what it sees and hears” (Nichols, 2017, p.  108). Contrarily, participatory mode equals active engagement of the filmmaker, who shows “strong investment in [the] encounter with others or in presenting historical perspective” (Nichols, 2017, p. 108). The latter mode is most obvious in its dialectic manifestation, that is in the shape of interviews featuring both the filmmaker and the subject. Before the Flood frequently uses interviews to stress pivotal

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insights. In what some commentators have labelled the seven key scenes of the film (Hickman, 2016), DiCaprio meets with Prof. Jason Box, Prof. Michael E.  Mann, Dr. Sunita Narain, Prof. Gidon Eshel, Elon Musk, President Barack Obama, and Dr. Piers Sellers, respectively. The scenes between these interviews are oftentimes deeply personal introspectives, testimonials, or essayistic forms of speech (Nichols, 2017, p. 108; e.g., see the section on non-fiction models above), a quality of performative mode. Finally, reflexive mode is indicated by self-questioning and a voice of doubt (Nichols, 2017, p.  108). This mode questions the documentary form itself. It turns the spotlight on the production circumstances of film and, as Kluge (1975, p. 202) points out, on the fact that documentary is filmed by means of three cameras: the technical gadget, the eyes of the filmmaker, and the expectations of the audience. The strategy of self-­ reflexivity has been discussed previously. Instances of it can be found in Before the Flood as well: DiCaprio openly addresses self-doubt and outside criticism targeted at his role as an environmentalist, UN Messenger of Peace, and with it, his suitability and authority as a documentarian, featuring Sean Hannity’s punditry, “Who better to educate world leaders on made-up climate change and a crisis that doesn’t exist than an actor from Hollywood with zero years of scientific training?” (Stevens, 2016, 00:05:29–00:06:10). Nichols (2017, p.  128) argues that “[a]t its best, reflexive documentary prods the viewer to a heightened form of consciousness about his or her relation to documentary and what it represents.” However, in the case illustrated above, the strategy also facilitates a higher degree of recognition and identification with the documentary’s protagonist. This is a suitable example for how self-reflexivity serves the purpose of a film: Leonardo DiCaprio is not a scientist with immeasurable expertise; on the contrary, he is open about being just another person seeking to understand the intricacies of climate change—which helps him avoid coming across as overtly didactic. As this analysis has shown, films can draw on multiple models and cinematic modes simultaneously. Before the Flood could be classified as a mixture of advocacy, investigation/report, and first-person essay, with elements of history, testimonial, exploration/travel writing, diary, and individual profile. Its voice can be categorised as largely expository, although it includes elements of the poetic, participatory, reflexive, and performative modes. Using this example has proven that Nichols’ classification system serves as a feasible means of approaching questions of documentary films’ production processes. Yet, it has also attracted some

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criticism. For instance, Bruzzi (2000) laments that the notions of models and modes are too prescriptive and rigid. This argument does not recognise that models and modes are described as complementary, that they can be combined by filmmakers in various ways, and that both categories are expandable. In fact, Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p.  47) invalidate Bruzzi’s assessment with their somewhat critical remark that particularly the poetic mode seems to have emerged from necessity, as a reservoir for any kind of recent film that primarily looks at the world through formal-­ aesthetic lenses.

Documentary Is in the Eye of the Beholder: On the Role of Reception in Defining Documentary The previous discussion has applied two of three approaches which, according to Nichols (1991, pp. 17–28), offer potent vantage points for understanding documentary. Thus far, documentary has been defined largely in terms of production and distribution processes, with one of the key insights being that a singular definition based on the binary between fiction and non-fiction cannot do justice to a highly heterogeneous genre which is characterised by constantly re-invented conventions and rapidly changing practices. And yet, the audience seems to have a rather clear idea of what documentary is. This paradox is noted by Weik von Mossner: While most viewers feel that they simply "know" when they are watching a documentary rather than a fiction film, it has been surprisingly difficult for critics and theorists to come up with a rigid definition that would clearly separate the two. Distinctions must nevertheless be made, since there is broad agreement among film scholars that audiences do respond differently to fiction and documentary. (2014d, p. 41; emphasis in original)

In this light, it may seem as though much of what has been established in the previous sections is invalid or, at the very least, irrelevant when taking a closer look at reception. For instance, Eitzen (1995, p. 87) refutes the idea that documentary is an argument about reality, suggesting that “people do not always appear to interpret documentaries as ‘arguments’.” For him, it is evident that “the distinction between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ is a vital and important one to popular movie audiences” (1995, p. 87). The constituency of recipients, as Nichols (1991) calls it, appears to be of considerable significance in establishing what documentary is. In the educational

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context, this would have enormous implications for the role of the learners when it comes to engaging with eco-documentaries. As such, the following deliberations elaborate on the special role of the audience during the reception process, increasingly shifting the focus from a predominantly film studies perspective towards educational contexts with an audience comprised of learners.13 It examines the notion of documentary as a mode14 of reception, which, according to documentary theorist and producer Dirk Eitzen, is largely, if not exclusively, defined through audience expectations. It pays special attention to the emotional effect of documentary films on their audiences and discusses the changing role of recipients in the twenty-first century, against the background of the digitalisation processes outlined earlier. Documentary as a Mode of Reception In his essay “When is a Documentary?” (1995), Eitzen defines documentary as “any motion picture that is susceptible to the question ‘Might it be lying?’” (1995, p. 81). His deliberations are based on the observation that “a neat definition of documentary on the basis of something like textual features or authorial intentions has proved very tricky” (Eitzen, 1995, p. 82)—the previous sections are testimony to this statement: Most of the ‘distinguishing’ features found in scholarly definitions of documentary apply to works of fiction as well. “Documentaries,” Eitzen (2005, p. 193) writes, “are contrived, just like fiction films. They are no different in this regard than any other discourse about reality.” For him, the crucial disparity lies in the fact that fiction films inherently pretend, whereas “a documentary can ‘lie’” (2005, p. 192). The key to this assumption is trust and a claim to truth. Expanding on this thought, Eitzen (1995, p. 83) suggests that “the best way to define documentary, therefore, may be to say simply that it is whatever people commonly mean by the term.” In this sense, what qualifies as a documentary essentially depends on the viewers and nothing else.

13  Since this text examines eco-documentaries in an educational context, the terms ‘recipients,’ ‘viewers,’ and ‘audience’ are used synonymously with ‘learners.’ 14  This is the second exception to the rule in avoiding the term ‘mode’ if it does not clearly denote semiotic modes. Again, the term ‘mode’ is used as intended by scholars such as Eitzen, referring to what could otherwise be described as a ‘stance’ or ‘attitude.’

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 ragmatics Versus Semiotics P Eitzen’s approach is rooted in pragmatics rather than semiotics, which might derive from his deeply personal style, writing about his own experiences when watching movies. A pragmatic approach to understanding the “peculiar workings of documentaries,” as Eitzen (2005, p.  185) put it, rests on the idea that “any utterance is an act and that, as such, its meaning is always inescapably bound up with particular aims and goals” (Eitzen, 2005, p.  185; emphasis in original). In this context, documentary is understood as a mode of experience—much like comedy, melodrama, or other forms of fiction (Eitzen, 2005, pp. 185, 191). What sets documentary apart from other modes is its special way of inviting the viewers “to adopt a particular stance or attitude, a particular mode of response” (Eitzen, 2005, p. 184). The pragmatic approach allows for an examination of this response on the basis of an implication (i.e., the invitation to the viewers mentioned above) that documentary carries about itself—a claim or reference to truth. While Eitzen’s line of argumentation for a pragmatic approach is convincing in the context of a focus on the role of the audience, the discipline of film studies, and therefore the scholarly discourse on documentary, is firmly rooted in semiotics rather than pragmatics. Eitzen explains that [like] the study of grammar, out of which it was born, the initial aim of semiotics was to discover the system of language (langue) independently of particular acts of communication (paroles). In other words, semiotics entertained the goal of separating the meanings of language from situational specifics, such as intentions and referents. Today, most film scholars acknowledge the fallacy in this approach (or at least in pushing it to such an extreme). (2005, p. 185; emphasis in original)

In the field of documentary film studies, this circumstance adds another dimension to the widespread insistence on two central notions of documentary: the representation of reality and the concept of indexicality— “the fact that a photographic image is a chemical record of the light reflected or emitted by a thing and therefore bears a trace of its reality” (Eitzen, 2005, p. 285). Semiotically speaking, the existence of an object does not relate to the significance of this object. Likewise, a fact and the significance of this fact are not related. From a semiotic point of view, it is logical and consequential to speak of documentary as a representation, although the idea is not without its problems. From a pragmatic point of

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view, it is more appropriate to speak of documentary as an argument about reality because it pays more attention to the interrelation between a documentary and the world of its recipients. However, as has been noted in the introductory remarks above, Eitzen even refutes this idea to a certain extent. He disagrees with authors like Platinga (1989) and Nichols (1991, 2017), who argue that documentaries make truth claims and, especially, that audiences acknowledge these claims. He maintains, “[i]n fact, [the viewers] sometimes appear to be indifferent or even completely oblivious to any truth claims the documentaries may be making” (Eitzen, 1995, p. 87). Central to Eitzen’s argument is his conjecture that “[a]n ‘assertive stance’ cannot be put into a text by the producer, once for all time. It is not something that is built into texts at all,” but rather that “a documentary is perceived to make assertions” (1995, p. 86; emphasis in original). If the interpretative power, so to speak, lies with the audience, it is only consequential to suggest that viewers seem to assume that the scene is telling the truth, even though they do not pay attention to its particular truth claims. This assumption is precisely what makes it possible for viewers to ignore the truth claims. [It] also serves to validate their emotional responses to the scene. […] So, I hypothesize that the assumption that documentaries in general ‘tell the truth’ (or are supposed to) precedes and lies beneath the interpretation of particular documentaries, even though people may make sense of a documentary in altogether different terms  – as melodrama, for example. (Eitzen, 1995, p.  88; emphasis in original)

For Eitzen, there cannot be a clear a priori categorisation of a film as either documentary or fiction. In his eyes, this does not conform to the way people experience films (Eitzen, 1995, p. 94). Rather, any given film, for instance Before the Flood, could be considered not as a documentary film first (the introductory minutes in Before the Flood certainly justify viewing the film as fiction) but then become a documentary film, as the reception process proceeds. “[I]t is not the representational or formal aspects of a movie that determine whether viewers ‘frame’ it as a documentary,” Eitzen (1995, p. 92) insists, “but rather a combination of what viewers want and expect from a text and what they suppose or infer about it on the basis of situational cues and textual features.” As such, his distinguishing question, “Might it be lying?” is posed by the viewers, not the texts (Eitzen, 1995,

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p. 92). “Documentary,” he concludes, “must be seen, in the last analysis, not as a kind of text but as a kind of ‘reading’” (Eitzen, 1995, p. 92). Factuality Contract Even though Eitzen essentially argues that the reading of a film as documentary depends completely on the viewers, his writing offers hints at a circular or symbiotic relationship of the production and reception processes. He admits that “the form of the text can prompt viewers to ‘frame’ it in a particular way” but stresses that “there is nothing about the form of such footage that demands that it be framed in a particular fashion” (Eitzen, 1995, p. 91; emphasis in original). With this restriction, Eitzen, to some extent, contradicts such approaches that propagate a more holistic understanding of documentary, like Weber’s (2019) notion of documentary films as part of a media milieu, which comprises the production, distribution, and reception processes. It also disregards the fact that communication acts always involve at least two parties, in this case the producer(s) and the recipient(s). For reasons explicated below, Eitzen’s deliberations are taken into serious consideration herein, but—with regard to the role of the audience—documentary is understood as a mode of reception that is inextricably linked to production and distribution processes. What Eitzen refers to as “the form of a text” (1995, p. 91) or as “situational cues” (1995, p. 92) relates back to the notion of paratexts (Genette, 1989, 1993) introduced in the discussion of semio-pragmatic approaches to defining documentary. It also includes what Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p. 33) call signals of authenticity or factuality (Authentizitätssignale or Faktualitätssignale in the German original). Like cues that mark a literary text as fictional, these signals index films as documentaries. Kammerer and Kepser differentiate between internal authenticity markers, such as voice of god commentary, interviews, ‘living camera’ (i.e., a dynamic camera), and the use of famous landmarks as shooting locations (Kammerer & Kepser, 2014, p.  33), and external signals, which include paratexts. Recipients base their classification of a film as a documentary on these signals—although scholars do not agree on the extent to which this is the case, as has been shown above. In reference to Eco’s fictionality contract (1994, p.  103), Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p.  32) evoke Platinga’s (1997) notion of a factuality contract, which can be defined as a “social contract, an implicit, unspoken agreement between the text’s producer(s) and the discursive community to view a film as nonfiction” (Platinga,

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1997, p. 40; emphasis in original). Platinga (1989, p. 32) specifies that the way a film is indexed publicly as a documentary becomes a “property or element of the text within its socio-cultural milieu.” Thus, even with Eitzen’s understanding of documentary as a kind of reading, it cannot be regarded as being detached from paratexts and other authenticity signals. Therefore, Platinga goes so far as to suggest that viewers are capable of being mistaken by categorising a film as fiction although it is indexed as a documentary (1989, p. 33). Nonetheless, Eitzen offers valuable insights into the significance of the reception process, and his ideas leave space for alternative interpretations of a film, such as Before the Flood, being something else other than a documentary, which, in his eyes, would “not [be] wrong, […] just unusual and unconventional” (Eitzen, 1995, p. 95). A similar argument is brought forth by Allary (2013, p. 46), who suggests that a differentiation of various levels of perception does more justice to the numerous facets of filmic ways of expression than the a priori distinction between fiction and documentary. For him, the contract of factuality describes which form of reality recipients are supposed to assume for the duration of a given film. Yet, it is extremely likely that a film indexed as a documentary will also be perceived as such by the audience.15 As Corner (1996, p. 18) postulates, “[i]t is on the warrant provided by the integrity of their ‘raw materials’ that most documentaries base their discursive status.” Eitzen supports this view, suggesting that indexicality “has everything to do with” the “peculiar appeal” of documentaries, as he calls it (2005, p. 186; emphasis in original). “Evidence,” he continues, “is the bread and butter of documentaries” (Eitzen, 2005, p. 186). In practice, several implications arise from the idea of a factuality contract—some of which are problematic. As pointed out by Weik von Mossner (2014d, p. 44; emphasis in original), “through the use of cinematic components such as plot, character (including actor performance), setting, lighting, editing, sound, and music [which would all qualify as internal authenticity signals; the author], filmmakers are able to guide our emotions during the viewing experience.” Smith (2003, p. 12) observes 15  For a similar line of argumentation, see Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p. 54), who refer to Odin’s (2002, 2012) concept of a ‘double production process.’ According to this hypothesis, there are two different ways in which recipients approach a film, one being a more immersive mode (fiktivisierend), while the other one establishes a distance between recipient and film (dokumentarisierend). Importantly, these modes do not automatically correspond with the text forms of fictitious or factual films. Thus, any film can be treated as a document, including what is traditionally considered fiction.

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that the filmmakers continually “offer [the audience] invitations to feel” a certain way. Three important aspects can be extrapolated here. Firstly, the strategies used by filmmakers are not often understood by commentators as ‘offers to the audience’ but rather as manipulation attempts, as has been addressed on multiple occasions throughout this chapter of this volume. Secondly, and related to this first point, once audiences accept the offer, thus signing the factuality contract, they tend to take what is presented to them at face value, as pointed out by Eitzen—a process similar to what is known in fiction as the willing suspension of disbelief. Thirdly, it seems as though the role of emotional appeal as part of a holistic film experience is well worth considering, particularly when factoring in the latest developments in terms of a Hollywoodisation of eco-documentaries. The Feeling Recipients: Documentary’s Emotional Appeal In the early days of filmmaking, audiences generally did not question the authenticity of the footage displayed, which resulted in a willingness to suspend any disbelief and to take what was shown at face value, unconditionally. Moving images were perceived as exact representations of reality. This kind of reception attitude can still be observed to date, as Willoquet-­ Maricondi (2010b, p.  7) confirms: “For many film viewers, cinema is a deceptively transparent medium, creating the illusion of an immediate, direct, and objective access to reality.” Romanyshyn (1993, p. 349) argues that a “cultural habit of mind” is responsible for this attitude, which is “initiated by the invention of linear perspective, to see images as having an indexical relation to reality, a relation created by the mechanical (now digital) apparatus that appears simply to ‘capture’ events, freezing them in time, without shaping them” (Willoquet-Maricondi, 2010b, p.  7). Becoming aware of one’s own willingness to suspend disbelief when viewing documentaries is particularly important if these films are used in educational contexts because then the viewing of a film typically goes along with more formalised cognitive processes, such as film analysis.  illing Suspension of Disbelief W Originating in literary studies (see Coleridge, 1817), the concept of a willing suspension of disbelief has been discussed in film studies with a focus on fiction for more than two centuries (Wulff, 2012). There, it denotes the suppression of doubt a viewer should have when consuming works of fiction. According to the theory, when watching a movie, viewers tend to

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exhibit a high degree of tolerance towards plot holes, in terms of logic or continuity, which would otherwise interfere with the enjoyment of a given fiction film. As has been implied, the concept can also be adapted for documentary films16: Once viewers have categorised a film as a d ­ ocumentary, they tend to develop a high degree of tolerance for elements that would otherwise diminish a film’s credibility, such as animations, cinematic imagery and sound design, or classic three-step dramaturgy—features that have been described as Hollywood-esque. This also includes errors of logic and continuity and the suppression of doubt regarding the images’ level of indexicality. In the context of eco-documentaries, this can have profound consequences. As Oppermann (2006, p. 112) points out, filmic representations of nature are very powerful in influencing our actions and discourses because “they create a model of reality that fashions our discourses and shapes our cultural attitudes to the natural environment.” They “shape our perceptions of nature,” Willoquet-Maricondi (2010b, p.  7) adds, “perceptions that in turn inform and pattern our actions in relation to nature; our actions, in turn, shape nature by preserving ecosystems or by despoiling them.” In the digital age, this process is fuelled by the ubiquity of media images of nature more than by the viewer’s own experiences of the environment and associated threats. Therefore, Willoquet-Maricondi (2010b, p. 8) deduces, “audiences are more likely to accept these images at face value, having nothing else but other images against which to weigh them.” Experiencing Film The effect of suspending disbelief is amplified by the importance of emotional appeal as part of a holistic film experience. Platinga and Smith (1999, p. 1) identify cinema as being central “in the emotional landscape of the modern world as one of the predominant spaces where societies gather to express and experience feelings.” Film scholars have argued that documentaries engage emotions in different ways than fiction films do (see, e.g., Eitzen, 2005; Weik von Mossner, 2014d). Smaill (2014) 16  This is not to say that viewers generally possess no capacity for critical reflection. As Hoffmann (2013, p. 308) points out, the recipients know about the “manipulative possibilities of media production” (manipulative Möglichkeiten der Medienproduktion, in the German original). However, she also stresses that viewers tend to distrust the filmmakers rather than the properties of the images displayed. The same argument is made by Hornung (2013, p. 339).

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suggests that eco-documentaries, in particular, have a lasting emotional effect on their audiences because the emotions they produce are “not only private matter, but also have important cultural ramifications that need to be addressed” (quoted in Weik von Mossner, 2014c, p. 8). For Eitzen, precisely this aspect of the film experience (in the German discourse, this is referred to as Filmerleben; see Decke-Cornill & Luca, 2007; Blell & Lütge, 2008; Blell et al., 2016b; Blell & Surkamp, 2016; Viebrock, 2016) is what sets documentaries apart from fiction films: Still, the truly significant difference between documentary and fiction does not lie in a [sic!] some abstract system of language or culture. It lies in the difference that I feel; in the very different impact on me that the two kinds of discourse manifest, not just intellectually, but viscerally; in my glands, nerves, and emotional responses; in my whole orientation towards what I see – in a word, in my body. (Eitzen, 2005, p. 186; emphasis in original)

Eitzen (2005, p. 191) argues that fiction is “the peculiar mode of experience, closely allied with pretending.” Therefore, the consequence of play is incomparable to the consequence of something that happens without the security of pretence. In The Day After Tomorrow, a film frequently used in scholarly articles on ecocinema as the fictional counter piece to An Inconvenient Truth (see, e.g., Mayer, 2006, Küchler, 2009 or Weik von Mossner, 2014d), the viewers watch a tsunami hit New York City. As a fictional film, the audience knows that nobody really drowned on fifth Avenue; the viewers “recognized that the event did not belong to the realm of ordinary consequences” (Eitzen, 2005, p. 192). Documentary, however, belongs to the realm of ordinary consequences—which is why, according to Eitzen (2005, p. 192), “they are used to teach or argue or persuade.” Watching footage of the Christmas tsunami, flooding paradise beaches on Ceylon and Sumatra in 2004, or following Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in An Inconvenient Truth, recipients know that real people lost their lives in these instances. When viewing an eco-documentary, the emotions evoked in the recipients are similar to those one would experience if seeing the same thing first-hand, although from a distance that prevents intervention (Eitzen, 2005, p. 191)—as is powerfully illustrated in A Life on Our Planet, whereby the scene featuring walruses tumbling down a cliff into certain death because climate change has left them with too little space for the whole colony is shown to an audience and the film captures the viewers’ emotional reactions (pp. 53:40–54:42). Weik von Mossner

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(2014d, p. 48; emphasis in original) highlights that “one of the central elements in our enjoyment of film—the fact that we can enjoy real emotions while knowing at the same time that there is no way we could possibly influence the occurrences we see on screen—is missing in our reception of documentaries.” However, as the example of A Life on Our Planet makes evident, aspects of fascination and emotions do play a role in documentary reception as well. Eitzen (2005, p. 192; emphasis in original) argues that recipients respond to documentaries in the way of “an extension of our ordinary responses to things that matter to us into the indirect realms of observation (for example, watching monkeys at play) and discourse (for example, talking about monkeys at play).” He concludes that “instead of calling nonfiction a mode, therefore, we might just as well say that, like teaching, arguing, and flirting, it is simply a discourse of consequence” (Eitzen, 2005, p.  192; emphasis in original). This, of course, marginalises the significance of production and distribution processes for filmmakers, and it disregards the fact that fiction films have also been considered to be discourses of consequence, as they, too, are capable of triggering affective and cognitive responses. For instance, Weik von Mossner (2014d, p. 55) shows that The Day After Tomorrow had considerable real-life consequences on its audiences’ perceptions of climate risk. Therefore, it seems more accurate to think of documentary as a mode or stance of reception (among many others), which is, to a large extent, characterised by an “emotionalising power of cinematic techniques that work across film modes and genre,” as Weik von Mossner (2014d, p. 42; emphasis in original) notes. Critically, “viewers’ belief in the consequential nature of what is presented on the screen remains crucial for their emotional and cognitive responses” (Weik von Mossner, 2014d, p.  42; emphasis in original). Unsurprisingly, then, eco-documentaries prove to be uniquely powerful in terms of conveying anticipated catastrophes, as Beck (2009) calls them. Using impressive visual imagery, they create strong emotional effects on the recipients. At the same time, they employ narrative strategies that allow them to show the already existing effects for some as anticipated risks for others. This also sets them apart from purely visual material or written texts; the former restricted by the fact that pictures cannot convey a necessity of “action to prevent climate change before its effects [can] be seen” (Doyle, 2009, p. 280; emphasis in original), the latter restricted by a lack of visualisation (Weik von Mossner, 2014d, p.  42). Eco-­ documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth, Before the Flood, and A Life on

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Our Planet have the capacity to create full immersion (and conviction, many scholars would hasten to add) by virtue of what Bordwell and Thompson (2008, p. 348) have labelled rhetorical form, which is characterised by four attributes: (1) it addresses the viewer openly, trying to move him or her to a new intellectual conviction, to a new emotional attitude, or to action; (2) the subject of the film is a matter of opinion; (3) the filmmaker appeals to viewer emotions; (4) the film attempts to persuade the viewer to make a choice that will have an effect on his or her everyday life. (Bordwell and Thompson 2008, p. 348)

According to Minster (2010), An Inconvenient Truth and Everything’s Cool (Helfand & Gold, 2007) employ all three rhetorical “modes of persuasion” (2010, p.  29): logos, ethos, and pathos, as he calls them. However, he stresses that “while both of these films might seem to be about presenting evidence, appeals to logos are the least of what they do” (Minster, 2010, p. 29). What is much more prevalent in eco-­documentaries, he argues, is authority exerted by characters (ethos; for instance, Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, Leonardo DiCaprio in Before the Flood, or Sir David Attenborough in A Life on Our Planet) and the appeal to emotions and shared values (pathos). This strategy proves powerful because “reliance on affect and emotion is a quicker, easier and more efficient way to navigate in a complex, uncertain and sometimes dangerous world” (Slovic, 2000, p. xxxi). For Rabinowitz (1999, p.  43), the resulting effects on recipients are part and parcel of what she describes as a “sentimental contract,” claiming that “an either-or situation demands that both reporter and reader must choose sides within a dichotomous class structure. In reportage, documenters serve not only to witness but to intervene.” As such, a key goal of eco-documentaries is, according to Hughes (2011, p. 737), “to visualize the environment as a shared physical and imaginary space […] in ways that promote the popularity of activism and environmental justice.” Documentary as a mode of reception, one could therefore argue, works on the basis of two contracts signed by both the filmmakers and the viewers, a factuality contract and a sentimental contract. The fine print, as it were, specifies the (at least believed) immediacy of a documentary’s consequential nature, which leads to a qualitatively different emotional reaction than to fiction films. Hence, experiencing documentary

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film works differently than experiencing fiction films—a critical insight that needs to be considered in film educational contexts. The Acting Recipients: From Viewers to Prosumers There has been profound change with regard to the role of the recipients over the years. Today, mobile smartphones and computers, paired with ubiquitous Internet connection (at least in theory), are available to a large portion of the population and thus determine the trajectories of the digital turn. What was once considered to be documenting or amateur footage can now easily be turned into a genuine documentary in an instance. This phenomenon is referred to as prosumerism, the individuals involved are called prosumers. The notion goes back to Alvin Toffler (1980) and has since evolved in a variety of academic disciplines. At its core, though, it denotes a person who is at the same time consumer and producer of a commodity. In the context of digital culture, it mainly refers to user-­ generated content and is inextricably linked with social media. In terms of documentary production and reception, the concept is well worth considering and still needs further research. Web documentaries and interactive documentaries (i-docs hereafter) serve to illustrate the significance of the prosumer notion for documentary. A number of these types of documentaries are available, particularly on environmental or sustainability-related topics, for instance Al Jazeera’s 360° i-docs Just Food: Coping with the Crisis (Lee, 2019) and Oil in Our Creeks (Rasool, 2019). An i-doc, according to Aston and Gaudenzi (2012, pp. 125–126), is “any project that starts with an intention to document the ‘real’ and that uses digital interactive technology to realize this intention.” Favero (2013, p. 263) notes that “i-docs seem to ask us to rethink the concepts through which we have conventionally approached images, image-work and visual culture.” He argues that we need “to merge the insights gathered from visual culture and film theory with those from digital culture and the study of web-based communication and interactivity” (2013, p. 263). Based on his deliberations, three closely linked implications, which bear significance in an educational context, can be extrapolated. Firstly, the role of the learners as recipients changes dramatically because authorship becomes a collaborative endeavour, and viewers produce meaning as empowered, creative, and emancipated spectators (Favero, 2013, p. 267). The implication is that learning with and about documentaries necessarily includes agency and production. This is true for Before

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the Flood as well because, in the sense of Weber’s media milieus, accompanying (interactive) websites need to be considered as integral parts of the documentary. Therefore, educators secondly need to reconsider the primacy of (audio-)visual literacies and integrate other modes of meaning-­ making into their approaches to documentary, such as digital or audio-­visual-­textual modes. Thirdly, Favero draws attention to a seemingly trivial linguistic problem associated with the new role of learners as prosumers. He (2013, p. 274, note 6) poses the question as to whether the terms ‘watch’ or ‘view’ should be used to describe the action performed by the recipients, as is customary in visual culture and film studies, or whether the term ‘enter,’ which better reflects the digital language, should be used. This represents a host of language-related problems that should be addressed in the classroom. With a paradigm shift towards an understanding of the recipients as active co-creators and co-authors comes the “empowerment of the subject,” as Meyer notes (2016, p. 3). McLane (2012, p. 384) adds “[i]mmediacy, worldwide reach, diverse opinions, on-the-ground reporting, and extreme economy” to the advantages of the evolution of the documentary form. Many scholars argue that this mirrors, in fact, a return to the roots of documentary because i-docs allow “an innovative and thorough exploration of the objects/subjects of our works” (Favero, 2013, p. 273). In this sense, “the use of interactivity pulls viewers closer to the reality that film-makers intend to portray, at the same time respecting their agency and individuality through the modalities of exploration” (Favero, 2013, p. 273). In conclusion, this section has elaborated on the significant role of the recipients for documentary. Some scholars even define documentary purely based on audience expectations and the reception process (most notably Dirk Eitzen, 1998). While this alleged primacy is debatable, this section has also shown that documentary can be considered a mode of reception, albeit as a third aspect, next to production and distribution processes. As such, the experience made when viewing a film (Filmerleben) bears great significance in terms of documentary reception and should be taken into consideration in moving forward. Finally, this text has also started to shed light on the changing role of recipients in the digital age, which mirrors a paradigm shift from an understanding of recipients as viewers to prosumers. Today’s prosumers co-create meaning and actively shape their own experiences as both producers and recipients. These developments are nowhere near to being finished, and future processes in

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terms of digitalisation and interactivity remain unpredictable. With a view to education with and about documentary films, this complicates the discussion, as educational approaches and concepts also need to keep up with the developments observed in documentary filmmaking, distribution, and reception. Of course, this challenge can also be seen as an opportunity and invitation to consider new forms, concepts, and approaches of teaching and learning with documentary films.

A Genre That Defies Definition: Documentary Between Objectivism and Relativism Thus far, this text has introduced several notions of documentary as a mode (i.e., a non-semiotic understanding of ‘mode’). Documentary was identified as “one of the three basic creative modes in film, the other two being narrative fiction and experimental avant-garde” (McLane, 2012, p. 1). This description highlights the role filmmakers play during the production process. Documentary has also been discussed as a mode of reception, taking into account the significance of the audience in determining a given film’s status as documentary or non-documentary. However, scholars tend to use the term genre17 when describing documentary film (see, e.g., Volkmann, 2007; Henseler et  al., 2011, pp.  213–233; 2021; Kammerer & Kepser, 2014), rather than mode. As Kammerer (2016, p.  195) points out, genre knowledge plays an important role in the reception process because only if the audience accepts generic conditions are they truly able to immerse themselves in the film. This implies that genre literacy might be key to harnessing Filmerleben. Kammerer’s statement underlines that a discussion of documentary 17  There is an ongoing discussion in the German discourse on whether documentary should be considered a Genre or a Gattung (see Hickethier, 2012). Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p.  25) clarify that this discussion is not helpful, particularly not in an educational context: Firstly, this distinction is unique to the German discourse and does not find its equivalent in the American discourse, for instance. Secondly, there is no description of what constitutes a film Gattung as opposed to a film Genre. Thirdly, to define documentary film as a Gattung implies the existence of clear, historical characteristics, which would distinguish it from fiction film. Fourthly, there is no concept of film Gattung outside the German academic film studies discourse, which would render the term detached from the lifeworlds of students. Finally, to use Gattung would only confuse learners, since, with film, it would best suit the idea of (non-semiotic) ‘modes’ and would thus contradict the known distinctions in literary studies (lyric, epic, drama). Therefore, the distinction between Genre and Gattung is not part of this section’s discussion.

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reception needs to include the notion of genre, especially with regard to an educational context. Yet, the concept is a much more intricate one than it might seem upon first glance. In his seminal article A semantic/syntactic approach to film genre, Rick Altman asks: What is a genre? Which films are genre films? How do we know to which genre they belong? As fundamental as these questions may seem, they are almost never asked - let alone answered - in the field of cinema studies. […] We all know a genre when we see one. Scratch only where it itches. (1984, p. 6)

With regard to documentaries, and eco-documentaries in particular, ‘it itches.’ In the sense of Decke-Cornill (2016, p. 72), these films conjure up experiences of crisis in at least three respects. Firstly, they are demanding on the students (i.e., the audience) in terms of both content and language. Secondly, their message is meant to churn the students’ feelings. Thirdly, and crucially in the context of genre, these films frequently break (generic) conventions. Thus, to describe (eco-)documentary as a genre requires further explanation. Documentary as a Fluid Genre Genres have been described as classes or species, as families or prototypes, and as blueprints or labels (Frow, 2006, p. 52; see also Watson, 2012a). For Bakhtin (1986, p. 64), genres are “relatively stable thematic, compositional and stylistic types of utterances.” He not only argues that all language use is framed within generic types, but he also views genre as a precondition for communication as well as for the creation and interpretation of texts. In the context of cinema, Keith Grant notes that genre refers simultaneously to a particular mode of film production […] a convenient consumer index, providing audiences with a sense of the kind of pleasures to be expected from a given film; and a critical concept, a tool for mapping out a taxonomy of popular film and for understanding the complex relationship between popular cinema and popular culture. (2007, p. 2)

The concept of genre as taxonomy, however, proves to be highly problematic when it comes to eco-documentaries. Watson (2012c, p. 195) notes

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that there is a “fundamental difficulty of demarcating generic borders in any empirically reliable or conceptually final way.” Some scholars, therefore, revoke the idea of formal features forming the basis of genre identification (see Devitt, 2004, p.  11; Solin, 2011, p.  128). Instead, Frow (2006, p. 2) suggests that “texts – even the most simple and formulaic – do not ‘belong’ to genres but are, rather, uses of them.” As such, Frow (2006, pp. 23–24) considers texts to be “acts or performances which work upon a set of generic raw materials. The relationship is one of productive elaboration rather than of derivation or determination.” Similarly, Solin (2011, p. 119) points out that “genres are increasingly perceived not as normative formulas, but as sets of socially situated and variable conventions and expectations regarding textual form.” The basis for this line of argumentation is the profound doubt that genres are stable constructs. Tracing the evolution of documentary, discussion thus far has revealed has indicated that documentary in general, but eco-documentaries in particular, are characterised by constant change, not just in terms of production techniques and cinematographic form. For example, with regard to style, there has been a shift from recorded slideshow (An Inconvenient Truth, 2006) to elaborated and highly orchestrated biopic or personal story (Before the Flood, 2016; A Life on Our Planet, 2020) in the last decade. One of the key characteristics of the (eco-)documentary genre is its fluidity and dynamism of conventions. This insight bears far-reaching implications for the use of eco-documentaries in educational contexts. As such, the following discussion of genre is conducted with the thought of learners and their development in mind. There are three approaches to genre research which substantiate the observation made above: the Sidney School, New Rhetoric, and research within English for Specific Purposes (Hyon, 1996; Solin, 2011).18 All these approaches share the basic assumption that “genres as forms of semiotic practice are socially based” (Solin, 2011, p. 119). The Sidney School approach is characterised by the assumption that “different genres are different ways of using language to achieve different culturally established tasks” (Eggins & Martin, 1997, p. 236). In other 18  As suggested by the names of these approaches, they originate from language studies rather than literary studies. As such, these approaches add to the discussion of genre a focus on semiotics, perlocutionary acts, and the purposes of genres. This addition turns out to be rather helpful when it comes to the development of discourse literacies and genre literacies, as will become apparent in the context of a multiliteracies-informed approach to teaching and learning with eco-documentaries.

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words, “genres are defined by their function or purpose, in relation to a particular sociocultural context” (Solin, 2011, p.  122).19 Since social action usually takes several steps or stages to accomplish, genres are considered to be “staged goal-oriented social processes” (Martin, 1997, p. 13). Within the research paradigm of the Sidney School, the different stages of accomplishing this goal are not a matter of interpretation but rather a matter of description. “Genre identity,” therefore, “is defined by recourse to text-internal, linguistic criteria” (Solin, 2011, p. 122). One of the central ideas of the Australian model of genre is access and empowerment to participation. Cope and Kalantzis (1993) suggest that the learning of genres helps students from all backgrounds gain access to opportunities, social participation, and citizenship. As such, genre pedagogy can be considered “both a pedagogical and a political project” (Kress, 1993, p. 28). The North American New Rhetoric research approach treats genres not as ubiquitously available cultural resources but rather “as socially situated, often within particular professional or disciplinary communities” (Solin, 2011, p. 124). Scholars associated with this school of thought are interested in the settings and contexts in which genres are used (see, e.g., Freedman & Medway, 1994; Coe et al., 2002). As Miller (1984, p. 151) asserts, “a rhetorically sound definition of genre must be centred not on the substance of the form of discourse but on the action it is used to accomplish.” He links the typification of genres to typification in rhetorical situations. Since rhetorical situations constantly change, “genres are perceived as dynamic forms. […] In an oft-cited formulation, genres are not fully fixed but ‘stabilised-for-now’ (Schryer, 1994, p.  108)” (Solin, 2011, p.  124). This is an important and helpful notion that should be taken into consideration when moving forward. This research paradigm understands genres as diachronically and synchronically related to other genres, forming genre repertoires and genre systems. As such, individual genres are intertextually linked to other genres to form genre repertoires that are used to conduct social interaction. Genre systems comprise different genres, which collectively work towards the fulfilment of a common purpose. Due to the complexity of genre systems, explicit teaching of genres is assumed to be impossible: “[I]f genres are responses to contexts, can they be learned at all out of context?” (Freedman, 1994, p. 194). 19  The strong focus on purpose as a defining criterion of genre may serve as another argument for labelling documentaries as purposive rather than manipulative.

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In direct contrast to this view, the third approach, research in the field of English for Specific Purposes, is characterised by its “pedagogical agenda: to assist non-native English speakers in mastering academic and professional genres” (Solin, 2011, p.  125). Again, form is not the key criterion for genre definition. Rather, Swales identifies communicative purpose as the critical aspect: A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purpose. These purposes are recognised by the expert members of the parent discourse community and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains the choice of content and style. (1990, p. 58)

Learners are regarded as new members, or apprentices, of a given discourse community, who learn about key genres used in that community from its established members. In terms of eco-documentaries as a (sub-)genre in the context of ELE, several noteworthy aspects can be extrapolated from these approaches. For a start, there is the question of teachability. While New Rhetoric research is based on the assumption that genres cannot be learned or taught, due to their complexity and embeddedness in context, one could argue that this is not necessarily a contradiction to language education. Rather, this is an argument for education in the sense of design-based learning (see below), which facilitates the development of literacies over time through immersion and application. This only works, however, if form and function/context are seen as inextricably linked, and if this complexity is understood as an opportunity for learning rather than as an obstacle. Part of this issue is to acknowledge the genre’s fluidity in all its aspects. The idea of eco-documentaries being “stable-for-now,” at any given time, may facilitate this. The notion corresponds with Kress’ (2003) idea of available designs, which are transformed and re-designed during the learning process. As such, genre literacies developed at school should encompass an awareness for the status quo of a given genre, for instance eco-­ documentaries, to enable learners to identify existing conventions. At the same time, though, it should entail an awareness for the fact that these existing conventions only hold true for now. After all, available designs are nothing more than a snapshot of—in this case—a given text. Lastly, with

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documentary being a highly fluid genre, a crucial part of genre change is hybridity, which occurs in different forms: Martin (2002) and Martin and Rose (2008) distinguish between different types of mixing, including "shifting gears" (shifting to a new genre in the middle of a text), contextual metaphor (one genre being used to stand for another, as in parody) and genre embedding (one genre functioning as a stage in another). An additional form of hybridity is multimodality, the way in which texts combine verbal and visual resources (see e.g., Kress, 2003; Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006). (Solin, 2011, p. 130)

In the context of eco-documentaries, this last form of hybridity—multimodality—is of particular interest and requires further investigation (see section Documentary as Multimodal Design below). Before the ideas of multimodality, genre, and design-based learning can be discussed in more detail, however, the next section provides an intermediate summary on the relationship between producers (i.e., filmmakers), genre texts, and recipients. In doing so, it establishes the preconditions for one of the central suggestions of this book.  enre as a Circular Process G Kammerer and Kepser (2014, pp.  53–54) and Kammerer (2016, pp.  199–202) view genre as a result of a circular process between standardised patterns of recognition and culturally influenced innovations and updates. The ideas expressed therein are highly compatible with the notions of a documentary’s embeddedness in its media milieu and its inter- and paratextual web of significance: Films, according to Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p. 53), always refer to other films of the genre (i.e., their aesthetic genre basis) and can always also produce something new, never seen before, or unexpected, which, in turn, helps constantly evolve the genre in the sense of a dynamic poetics. For documentary, this genre basis—the status quo; the “stable-for-now”—is particularly provided by Nichols’ categorisation of non-fiction models and cinematic modes as well as by the strategies of authenticity. As Kammerer (2016, p. 200) points out, this generic basis encompasses characteristics in terms of visuals/style, content/subject, and narration/dramaturgy. Recognising patterns is an important principle for the exchange of expectations, which is why one has to anticipate analogies in content and form from one film to another, at least to some extent, as Kammerer (2016, p.  200) explains. Therefore,

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orientation based on generic features is possible, albeit only to a limited extent. This does not contradict the premise of genre change, though: Firstly, the texts are always produced within a certain framework, that is the concrete circumstances of their creators’ lives. Secondly, innovation constantly necessitates the reconsideration of genre rules, rendering genre itself a dynamic, ongoing process. This idea allows for a second interpretation of genre as a circular process, which can “[help] us explain why genre can only ever be what we collectively believe it to be” (Watson, 2012c, p. 205; emphasis in original). This interpretation is encapsulated what Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p. 53) call “communicative contract.” Based on the previous discussion, this agreement seems to comprise a factuality contract and a sentimental contract. For Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p. 53), it constitutes an “interesting form of symbiosis between production and reception.” In light of the discussion on semio-pragmatic approaches and especially Weber’s (2019) notion of media milieu, one could argue for the addition of film distribution to the formula. According to Casetti (2001, pp. 162–168), this communicative (or genre) contract comes into existence in three stages of reception: pre-receptive commitment, the reception proper, and post-receptive evaluation. Viewers might inform themselves about a new eco-documentary by watching trailers online, reading film reviews, or looking up promotion interviews. This exposes them to the offers made by a film’s inter- and paratexts. They might then agree to the (factuality and sentimental) contract, comparing previously existing or acquired expectations to the actual film. Finally, there is a transfer of the reception experience and the associated personal gains to relevant areas of their lifeworlds (Kammerer, 2009, p.  121). Against this background, Casetti (2001, p. 171) refers to genre as “school of communication,” which can be thought of as a safe space of negotiation and communication. For this reason, Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p. 54), as well as Kammerer (2016, pp. 201–202), suggest taking advantage of this concept in the classroom in the form of “safe schools.” Kammerer’s list of “safe schools” (2016, p. 201) of genre communication includes many aspects discussed thus far, such as film history, form and aesthetics, the author, and a documentary’s function or purpose, thus highlighting the significance of these aspects for the educational context. Moreover, it also recognises the important role of the learners as active agents in the process of documentary film reception, which is a central element of semio-pragmatic approaches to film reception. As Kammerer and Kepser (2014, p. 55) note, this image of an active

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user necessitates authentication of factual communication by the recipient. It is not through arbitrariness that a film’s status is determined but possibly through the receptive (second) creators, who are, in turn, rooted in and therefore influenced by their lifeworlds. The authors conclude that this pragmatic approach is the only theory that avoids attempting to define the documentary film genre by means of clear, highly selective patterns, as is characteristic for essentialist definitions of documentary: “There are no textual or other criteria that render an apriori definition possible. This is why pragmatics at least tries to elucidate those conditions under which a film works as a documentary for the recipient” (Kessler, 1998, p.  66). Nichols sums up the discussion of documentary as a genre and suggests what may qualify as a documentary film, stating that [what] actually counts as a documentary remains fluid and is open to debate across institutions, filmmakers, audiences, and the films themselves. Favored styles come and go. Institutional opportunities and constraints, technological innovations and limits, creative inspiration, and evolving audience expectations constantly change the landscape of what counts as a documentary and what constitutes its horizon of possibility. (2017, p. 104)

Eco-documentaries as Multimodal Designs Thus far, it has been established that, in the current discourse, eco-­ documentary films are considered to be products of a process, in which practices of production, distribution, and reception play equally important roles. This process is framed by respective media milieus for each individual film. In addition, films are embedded in an inter- and paratextual web of significance.20 While that has arguably always been the case,21 it has become especially evident in the digital age. As a consequence, this means considering elements such as the cast and the film’s producers, the corresponding web presence, or the film trailer, when approaching eco-­ documentaries in general, and particularly in the classroom. Such an understanding of documentary films is also central to the development of discourse literacies: All the design’s elements can be considered discourse fragments, which contribute to the micro discourse on a given 20  ‘Web of significance’ is a notion coined by Clifford Geertz in his 1993 publication, The Interpretation of Cultures. 21  Genette, for instance, goes as far as to say that no book has ever been published without paratexts (1989, p. 11) and, by extension, one could argue, neither has any film.

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eco-documentary, thereby also contributing to the larger discourse(s) on climate change, environmental injustice, and sustainable development. As such, all agents involved in the documentary are also agents in the relevant discourse(s). Thus, to truly understand an eco-documentary, learners have to think of it as the sum of all the different aspects—both analogue and digital. Thus far, the text has elaborated on the important role of learners as active agents in the reception (and in some cases the production) process. Finally, the previous sections have discussed documentary as a fluid genre, which is also defined as a circular process, highlighting once more the recipients’ significance. Throughout, this text has implied that the examined notions are highly compatible with design-based learning. At this point, all preconditions have been established for a more detailed discussion of design-based learning and one of the key suggestions for educational contexts in this chapter, that is to think of any given eco-documentary (and by extension, indeed any given documentary and film) as an available multimodal design. Based on Gunther Kress’ notion, Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 221) define ‘design’ in two ways. First, it denotes “the study of form and structure in the meanings that we make. This is ‘design’ used as a noun.” Eco-­ documentaries, in this sense, are designs because of the internal and external structures given to them during the production and distribution processes, which help the recipients to create meaning from them. This also includes the stage of pre-reception introduced above, as it plays a significant part in forming expectations, which lay the foundation for comparison later in the reception process. Second, “design is also a sequence of actions, a process motivated by our purposes. […] Design in this sense refers to a certain kind of agency. It is something you do. This is ‘design’ used as a verb” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 221). Thus, the processuality of documentary and the agency involved in that process, as highlighted by Weber, are not only compatible with the concept of design, but, in fact, the two complement each other. The same is true for the notion of genre as a circular process. Kalantzis et al. (2016, pp. 221–222) explain that designs are ubiquitous and “available to us as meaning-making resources, at once meanings-in-the-world (the ‘sense’ or order in the universe that makes experiences coherent) and meanings-for-the-world (the meanings we make of the world in our ‘sense-making’ or interpretation).” In this sense, it is very similar—if not identical—to the Sidney School’s notion of genre (see above).

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An understanding of eco-documentaries as available designs is particularly appropriate for three reasons. First, the notion of design designates room to the recipients, that is the learners, as active agents. This idea is also reflected in the evolution of theories within the documentary film discourse, starting with an essentialist understanding of documentary that focused on the production process and formal criteria. From that emerged semio-pragmatic approaches to the text form itself, which developed further to Weber’s notion of media milieus, and to the role of the audience in the reception process, which strongly suggests that learners are truly agents in their own rights and not just passive recipients. As such, both the documentary discourse and the notion of learning by design emphasise the processuality of documentary as a form of meaning-making. Secondly, and closely connected to the first aspect, documentary as design includes the possibility (or necessity) of change. Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 211) consciously use the terms design and grammar dissociatively, indicating that the former reflects a much more dynamic and active understanding of how meaning is created, while the latter suggests a fixed framework of rules. Thirdly, it is particularly fitting to speak of eco-documentaries as multimodal designs, as has been previously implied in the context of different forms of generic hybridity. Multimodality refers to a text that uses more than one (semiotic) mode of meaning-making, whereby multimodal denotes “communicative artifacts and processes which combine various sign systems (modes) and whose production and reception calls upon the communicators to semantically and formally interrelate all sign repertoires present” (Stöckl, 2004, p. 9). This definition conceals the fact that a rigorous definition of what ‘mode’ precisely refers to has been a notorious problem of multimodality research, with Hallet (2016b, pp.  185–186) concluding that a definition of ‘mode’ must remain open to account for the intrinsic instability and dynamic nature of modes. Scholars distinguish seven modes of meaning, which can all be identified in film. Importantly, these modes not only coexist in a given eco-documentary, but they also work under the condition of synaesthesia, that is a phenomenon of “surreal blending of sensation, perception and emotion” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 233). This reflects a key assumption in multimodality research, namely that the different modes employed in a text operate together and thus can “achieve ‘more’ than what can be achieved in isolation” (Bateman, 2016, p. 37). In this sense, meaning is created in Before the Flood not just through the traditional visual mode of the moving pictures but through the way the cinematic establishing shots (visual, but also spatial) work together

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with DiCaprio’s voice-over commentary (oral/audio), the underlying musical score (audio), and the occasionally featured text (textual, visual) on screen. While the notion is not new—even the first actualities were multimodal texts in that they combined visuals with written text and, later, music or voice-over commentary—it “is much more insistently significant in the era of the new, digital media” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 230). Documentary Between Objectivism and Relativism To conclude with the words of Kammerer and Kepser (2014, pp. 55–56), documentary film can be conceptualised as a fragment of life generated in three respects: Firstly, authors or filmmakers, borne from their subjective perspective, create an argument or statement about the world by introducing fragments of this reality, in the shape of poetic and referential forms of representation, so as to initiate a discussion on the corresponding topic. Secondly, authors use a variety of existing generic signals in their texts, which all substantiate the text’s authenticity and are meant to tie the recipient to the filmic argument or narration, or—put differently—to facilitate immersion. Thirdly, the recipients themselves enter this discursive offer by—ideally—following the arguments and signals or by actively re-­ designing the very essence of the claim made by the documentary by engaging in analysis of the reality presented by the film. This is in line with Bredella’s (1994, p. 94) observation that it is only possible to truly understand documentary films if the binary between objectivism, on the one hand, and subjectivism, on the other, can be overcome. Objectivism refers to the meaning of a film lying within the text only (i.e., essentialist definitions of documentary), while subjectivism denotes the idea that meaning comes from the interpreting subject or recipient (see Eitzen’s notion of the only defining parameter in documentary being the recipient) and is closely linked to the relativist view that any form of understanding is necessarily bound to failure, due to insurmountable gaps between subject and text. The assumption of either position leads to a dilemma in educational contexts, as Volkmann (2007, p. 375) indicates: “For it is the film genre of documentary that students often […] tend to take at face value.” This observation leads to one of the key dilemmas that scholars and practitioners in the field of language education face when it comes to the inclusion of eco-documentaries in the classroom. They find themselves trapped between Filmerleben, that is letting eco-­ documentaries develop their full emotional, purposive potential for the

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cause of environmental protection, on the one hand, and reflecting on the purposiveness of documentary in order to develop critical discourse competence, on the other. The question is how to succeed in making these two seemingly divergent educational goals congruent, so as to make the constructedness of documentary transparent to the students, yet at the same time raise their awareness of the fact that documentaries also work with narrative strategies and techniques. To solve this dilemma, Bredella opts for a hermeneutical understanding of documentary between objectivism and relativism, which advocates the idea of dialogue between texts and their readers (in the context of documentary film, viewers). As such, it is similar to the Reader Response Criticism approach to literature (e.g., Delanoy, 2004, 2013). Delanoy bases his understanding of the concept on the German notion of ‘reception aesthetics’ (Rezeptionsästhetik).22 According to Delanoy, dialogue between a text, in this case the documentary, and the readers, in this case the viewers, works in two ways: The first way corresponds to Kammerer and Kepser’s deliberations previously mentioned and to the idea that documentary is a circular genre, in the sense that a film pre-structures meaning (for instance, through generic signals), but the film can only really affect the viewers if they establish a relationship to it. In this light, the deliberations made in the context of genre need to be understood within the scope of Reader (or: Viewer) Response Criticism. In exchange for being asked to truly engage with the text, the learners are allowed to bestow their own meaning onto the film, in an attempt to understand the text so that it can fully develop its interactive potential (Delanoy, 2004, p. 150). The second sense of dialogue in reception aesthetics refers to the assumption that understanding only allows limited insights into one’s own and others’ existence because it is historically and socio-culturally embedded (Delanoy, 2004, p. 150). Thus, understanding always requires the subject to acknowledge their own particularities and to engage with perspectives that might challenge one’s own previously existing views and expectations. Matz (2020, p. 54) points out the concept’s efficacy for allowing the “integration of concepts of critical pedagogy,” as it is “influenced by power-critical positions with a dialogic agenda” (Delanoy, 2013, p. 22). As such, this theoretical framework and understanding of documentary helps to answer the key questions posed in the introduction of this book, 22  Reader Response Criticism can be regarded as the equivalent to Rezeptionsästhetik in the Anglophone discourse. Influential authors include Iser (1987) and Rosenblatt (1978, 1981).

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and it does so against the background of, or rather in line with, the superordinate educational goal of enabling learners to develop critical discourse literacies. The central principles of both Bredella’s and Delanoy’s approaches to documentary film and general literature, respectively, are informed by an understanding of documentary as a fluid, circular genre, and, thus, the theories support the findings from film science introduced in the previous sections. As such, they coalesce with the notion that eco-­ documentaries are multimodal designs and that documentary films are works of faction and arguments about reality, rather than representations of reality, thereby turning a rather pessimistic perspective on the potential of eco-documentaries in the classroom into a much more optimistic one: From a film studies perspective, it is not a question of whether the films merely serve as information vehicles, to be taken at face value, or if they should be deconstructed by analysing every last bit of manipulative strategy used in them. Rather, there is a third option, which has been summed up by Kammerer and Kepser: It is also possible to think of this realistic-creative in-between position of documentary film as an asset over the pure document or the so-called documenting film: as an asset of perspective in terms of the diversity of possible worldviews; as an asset of aesthetics because there is creative generation of reality here, which is to be enjoyed and to uncover; and, lastly, as an asset of active participation of recipients in the sense of a media- and text-critical engagement with the facts and forms offered. (2014, p.  56; emphasis in original, author’s translation)

Summary In an effort to establish the conceptual preconditions for a detailed discussion of eco-documentaries in the English language classroom, this chapter has provided an overview of the discourse on documentary films, including perspectives from both practitioners and film study scholars. Following Nichols’ (1991, pp. 17–18) suggestion that documentary practice can be understood from three vantage points, the development of the form has been traced, and the self-understanding of its practitioners has been explored. With the introduction of video recording and later the Internet, the trend towards diversification of subjects and increased accessibility to documentary as a filmmaking form has intensified—nowadays everyone can be a documentary filmmaker, including learners at school. This

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overview stresses the fact that a neutral definition of documentary, on the grounds of the binary between fictional and non-fictional texts, has never been justified in the history of the text form. Subsequently, the texts have been examined more closely, discussing the concept of different realities of film and Nichols’ (2017) proposed classification system based on non-fiction models and cinematic modes. While documentaries are still produced to inform, “to increase our understanding of, our interest in, our sympathy for their subjects, and perhaps our future actions” (McLane, 2012, p. 2), contemporary documentaries are understood as works of faction that tell stories based on facts. As such, they make arguments about reality. A film like Workers Leaving the Factory would not be labelled as a documentary today, precisely because there is no argument made about reality; rather, it would be considered a document or a documenting film. Documentaries follow a purpose, but an understanding of documentary as faction, combined with the idea of documentaries being arguments about reality (rather than representations thereof), invalidates descriptions of it as being ‘manipulative,’ ‘persuasive,’ or ‘inoculating.’ At the very least, documentaries are not more or less manipulative than any Hollywood blockbuster. Lastly, the focus has been shifted to the constituency of viewers, examining the role of reception and the viewers, that is the learners, and the idea that documentary is a genre. A documentary film, such as Before the Flood, can no longer be regarded as an isolated 90-min run of motion pictures. Instead, the actual film is part of an inter- and paratextual web of significance, which relates it to other fragments within the respective discourse, and which also makes an offer to the audience, influencing the viewer’s expectations to the film prior to the actual reception event. The connection between the text and its recipients implied there is indicative of the fact that semio-pragmatic approaches have entered the discussion surrounding audience response, which includes genre and the role of the recipients in defining documentary. Viewers are to be increasingly theorised as prosumers, assuming greater agency in the meaning-making process. The implications of these findings for educational contexts are momentous, pointing to the necessity of enabling learners to assume an active role in the reception process. To that end, the notion of experiencing film (Filmerleben) is just as important as genre literacies that include an awareness about one’s own role as a recipient, an understanding or knowledge of a certain status quo, that is the quality of the “stable-for-now,” but also tolerance of ambiguity with regard to formal hybridity.

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Implications for Eco-documentaries Since eco-documentaries like Before the Flood or A Life on Our Planet are located at the intersection of storytelling and the ‘classic’ presentation of facts, these findings are of paramount significance. It is thus particularly important for recipients (in educational contexts, this includes both educators and learners) to think of the reality presented in eco-documentaries as one version of reality but to also understand the film as an argument about that reality. A second major insight derived from the discussion concerns the influence exerted by digitalisation onto the processes of production, distribution, and reception. Digitalisation and associated technological developments, such as the emergence of the Internet, have profoundly transformed not just our understanding of the relationship between fiction and non-fiction, which has arguably never been quite as clear-cut as is often assumed, but they have also considerably promoted the conceptualisation of documentaries being multimodal designs of meaning-making. Acknowledging digitalisation as an inherent part of life in the twenty-first century—not just as an add-on—Kress’ (2003) notion of design-based learning allows for the recognition and inclusion of all major findings compiled thus far. It leaves space for and, in fact, promotes both ideas that eco-documentaries are a fluid genre and that genre is the result of a circular process, to which the active role of the recipients, that is the learners, is key. It also does justice to the multimodal ways in which contemporary eco-documentaries and their associated paratexts create meaning, offering the learners to create their own meaning. Table 4.1 summarises the most important insights gained from engaging with documentaries from a film studies perspective. Note that the insights and corresponding implications are not to be considered separately and independently, as the table may suggest. Rather, the notions are intertwined and complement one another. This chapter has laid the foundation for an in-depth examination of eco-documentaries in an educational context. Since these findings represent the latest ideas in the discourse on documentary, they serve as key principles for how eco-documentaries can be integrated into the English language classroom. With these principles in mind, the next step is to translate these findings into questions posed to ELE, in an effort to explore the full “horizon of possibilities” (Nichols, 2017, p. 104) associated with eco-documentaries in the language classroom.

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Table 4.1  A film studies perspective: key insights on documentaries Insights

Implications

Documentary as a work of faction

Documentaries tell stories, which are based on facts. They do so by means of strategies traditionally associated with fiction, such as dramaturgy, plot, characters, and narration. Documentaries are not defined by the binary between fiction and non-fiction. In that documentaries tell stories, cinematic form is inextricably linked to function, that is the argument made by the film.

Documentary as an argument about reality

Documentary is purposive. It is not a representation of reality but instead makes an argument about the version of reality presented by it.

Documentary as a mode of reception

Documentary is not only defined by the circumstances of its production and distribution but also by the process of its reception and the unique viewing experience (Filmerleben). The viewers are active recipients, and sometimes even prosumers, in that they actively shape (or re-design) the genre in a circular, dialogical process.

Documentary as multimodal design

In line with the notion of active recipients, this idea highlights the agency of the recipients in the meaning-making process. Any given documentary creates meaning in multimodal ways, also through the mixing of modes (synaesthesia). True understanding and interaction between recipients and the film is the result of a process of immersion and application, which enables the viewers or learners to be active participants in the (global) discourse.

CHAPTER 5

Eco-documentaries in English Language Education

Analysing eco-documentaries from a film studies perspective has led to four key insights (see Table 4.1, p. 212): (1) any given eco-­documentary can be thought of as a work of faction. Before the Flood, for instance, tells a factual story. There is a clearly identifiable narrative arch, which features Leonardo DiCaprio’s journey around the world as the protagonist of his search for climate change-related answers. (2) As such, a documentary makes an argument about the reality presented by it. In A Life on Our Planet, the same strategies of narrative voice are employed to help Sir David Attenborough convey his central message, that is the need for global efforts to restore and preserve biodiversity and natural wildlife habitats, as one way of mitigating the climate crisis. (3) Eco-documentaries cannot be defined by the circumstances of their production and distribution alone but also by the process of their reception as part of a dynamic, dialogical process. Against this background, viewers, that is the learners, are no longer regarded as passive members of a target audience but are considered to be active agents in the meaning-making process. (4) Eco-­ documentaries can be conceptualised as multimodal designs that create meaning in multimodal ways and as a result of a process of immersion and application, thus highlighting the significance of recipient agency. These four insights can be distilled into two principles which serve as a vantage point for further investigation of teaching and learning with eco-­ documentaries. In light of these two principles—to view documentaries as © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Römhild, Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education, Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44674-0_5

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multimodal designs and to think of documentaries as works of faction that present arguments about reality—this part sets out to elucidate which answers current models of (documentary) film didactics provide to the questions posed by the findings presented above. Taking existing concepts of (documentary) film literacies in ELT as a theoretical foundation, the following sections examine various important aspects of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in more detail. Given the importance of experiencing film and the special role of the learners as active recipients, the discussion sheds light on the learners’ role in the learning process, focusing on the concepts of Filmerleben and viewer response in the English language classroom. Expanding on the insights gained from these analyses, the next section offers deliberations on the literacies involved in the learning process with film. This chapter then directs the attention to the learning process itself. In this context, one of the central lines of argumentation of this book is put forth: the value of multiliteracies pedagogy and a pluriliteracies-informed approach to teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. While the conceptualisation of the learning process requires more discussion and will therefore be continued and presented in Chap. 6 in the final iteration of the framework (Fig. 6.1, p. 265), Fig.  5.1 includes an outlook on the second inner circle devoted to the literacies involved in the learning process, as discussed in this part of the book.

Focus on the Learners’ Role: Experiencing Film and Viewer Response One of the key insights gained from the analysis of documentary film, from a film studies perspective, points at the importance of experiencing film and the active role of the viewers in the meaning-making processes during film reception. The emotional appeal of documentary is of particular significance when it comes to eco-documentaries, as these films invest a great amount of screen time in moral authority—ethos—and the evocation of emotions—pathos—rather than presenting conclusive, factual evidence—logos (Minster, 2010, p. 29). For instance, in A Life on Our Planet, images of nature, sound design, and the overall narrative are employed to achieve great emotional effect among the audience in the pinnacle, the (in)famous walrus scene (53:40–54:42), as with the introductory sequence of Before the Flood, where it is implied that human activity has degraded

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Fig. 5.1  An outlook on the contribution to the framework by the discussion led in this chapter: literacies involved in the learning process

the natural paradise. In her introduction to Moving Environments, Weik von Mossner (2014c, p. 1) corroborates this premise, stating that “affect – our automatic visceral response to a given film or sequence – and emotion – our cognitive awareness of such a response—are, in the words of Carl Platinga, ‘fundamental to what makes film artistically successful, rhetorically powerful, and culturally influential’ [2009, p. 5].” From the film studies analysis, only a combination of the factuality contract and the sentimental contract can do justice to the roles played by the viewers and the implications made by the filmmakers and texts. Thus, documentary film can be conceptualised as the result of production, distribution, and reception processes. Accordingly, when dealing with eco-documentaries in educational contexts and beyond, both affective and cognitive components must be considered, thereby opening the discussion for the storytelling aspects of the films, which have at least as emotionalising an impact as the subject matter itself. Hence, even from a film studies perspective alone, it

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would be a mistake to exclude affective elements from the discussion of eco-documentaries. Experiencing Eco-documentaries in English Language Education A number of scholars from the field of (documentary) film didactics support the idea that affective aspects need to be considered when dealing with films in an educational context. For instance, McKenzie et al. (2010, p. 148) explain that lived experiences can “be considered to rub up against the previously thought […] and thus become potential catalysts for, and locations of, personal and cultural formation.” Referring to Ellsworth (2005), the authors stress that pedagogy that views experience and cognition as mutually reinforcing rather than opposites “is itself difficult to conceptualize, but essentially is concerned with how experiences that provoke and support the sensory can translate into, and coexist with, cognitive learning that would otherwise have been impossible” (McKenzie et  al., 2010, p. 148). Likewise, Decke-Cornill and Luca (2007) observed that many approaches to teaching and learning with film had been rather object-oriented, that is the goal of employing film in classrooms had been to rationally analyse and cognitively understand the texts. Building on this observation and inspired by media pedagogy, their discussion of the dualism between filmic object and the viewing subject forms the baseline for those concepts of film literacies that include experiencing film as a category. Decke-Cornill and Luca defined their understanding of experiencing film (Filmerleben) by contrasting it to what it does not denote. They explain that experiencing film is often associated with the term holism. While at first glimpse it might appear appropriate to speak of a holistic perception of film, there are two disadvantages tied to this description. Firstly, a holistic film experience is often misconceptualised as watching a film in its entirety, without sequencing and subsequently discussing individual scenes. This idea disregards the fact that shorter filmic units, such as a scene or a trailer, can also provoke powerful emotional responses, which could be discussed individually in their own right. Secondly, while holism also indicates a counter movement to a one-sided and overly rational approach to engaging with film, the term ‘holistic perception’ obscures what is really central to this counter movement (Decke-Cornill & Luca, 2007, p. 22). The authors therefore define experiencing film as an emotional engagement with a film, taking into account the emotionality of the subject, that is the viewer, without losing sight of its complement,

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rationality (Decke-Cornill & Luca, 2007, p. 22). As such, the pedagogical concept of experiencing film introduces aspects of fascination and phenomenology into a discourse that has generally been dominated by rational, object-oriented analysis. With it comes an appreciation of the effect exerted by films on their audiences, as an interactive process rather than a pre-determined one, which is in line with the ideas gathered from the film studies analysis of documentary film. Experiencing film has become a fixed component of film literacies concepts in recent years. As “the ability to experience film intuitively and associatively, and to process film with an orientation towards communication” (Blell & Lütge, 2008, p. 128; author’s translation), Filmerleben forms the basis for Blell and Lütge’s concept of Filmbildung. As is the case in Blell and Lütge’s concept, experience is closely connected to communication and action in Blell et al.’s (2016b) notion of film literacy as well. Blell et al. tie it to understanding and using film as one central competence area, which pervades all associated competence fields. Keeping in mind the findings from the film studies analysis, especially those concerned with the emotional appeal of eco-documentaries, experiencing film should play a central role in a concept for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries as well. However, when discussing the role of the viewers, it is also worthwhile to examine more closely the approaches usually associated with a more traditional and object-oriented focus on film analysis. Viewer Response and Reception Aesthetics One of the concepts not mentioned above is Viebrock’s (2016) notion of film literacy. She claims that “in view of the specifics of the foreign language classroom, Filmerleben is probably hard to achieve” (2016, p. 15; emphasis in original), arguing that certain linguistic competences need to be developed first to allow for a “naturalistic full-length presentation of feature films comparable to cinema showings” (2016, p. 15). While her length-related point has already been refuted (see above) and the idea that linguistic competences are necessary to experience film ignore other modes of meaning-making besides audible or written text, that is, for instance, musical score, imagery, and the like, Viebrock argues that elements of a more holistic perception could also be incorporated in a viewer response theory, which occupies a central place in her concept. In the German context, viewer response theory has been adapted for film studies by Bredella (2004a), who emphasises the role of the viewers,

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that is the learners, and their parts in the reception of films and the meaning-­making process. It is closely linked to both reception aesthetics (Bredella, 2004b, 2004c; Bredella & Burwitz-Meltzer, 2004) and reader response criticism (Delanoy, 2004, 2013), which highlight the dialogic nature of meaning-making with literary texts. According to Bredella (2004a; see also 2004c), recipients can assume three different roles when engaging with film: (1) viewers can act as fellow players by connecting what is shown on screen to what is not shown to their prior experiences and social backgrounds; (2) they act as observers, judging what is presented on screen; (3) they act as critics, reflecting on the process of reception itself. With eco-documentaries, the notion of the learners as judging observers is particularly interesting. Bredella (2004a, p.  29) and other scholars (e.g., Decke-Cornill & Luca, 2007, p. 17) stress the psychological advantages associated with this role. Since viewers are not responsible for what is shown on screen, they are able to take part in it and judge it without bias. This assumption is based on working with fiction films,1 but it certainly does not extend to eco-documentaries, which refer to realities in which the recipients should accept responsibility for what is presented on screen. In this context, a human rights-informed, GCE-informed approach to teaching and learning with eco-documentaries provides the learners with values against which to weigh the film and, ultimately, on the basis of which to judge the film. This includes reflection on their own perception of the film. According to Bredella, [it] is an important educational goal for the recipient to step out of the reception process in order to reflect on it and to realise how they are involved in meaning-making processes, which bring into play both their cognitive and affective abilities as well as their power of judgement. (2004a, p. 31; author’s translation)

Being able to let the reception experience unfold fully and to later step out of the reception process is paramount in educational contexts (and beyond), as it helps tackle the so-called Adorno reflex (Decke-Cornill & Luca, 2007, p. 15), that is an intuitive distrust against the heteronomy of medially constructed emotions and a trust in the resistant power of 1  With the description of some environmentalist films, such as The Day After Tomorrow, being discourses of consequence (Weik von Mossner, 2014d, p. 55), it could also be argued that the idea of unbiased judgement needs to be treated with caution.

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reflexivity. With this ‘reflex’ comes the fear of not being able to engage in worthwhile discussions after film reception because the recipient is trapped in a state of mind of passive reception. Even though eco-documentaries usually affect their audiences long after the viewing process is over and the emotions conjured up therefore have important cultural ramifications which need to be addressed, the opposite reaction is also possible: a feeling of relief and ‘reverse catharsis’ when stepping out of film reception, leaving behind the devastating effects of human activity on biodiversity and the environment just witnessed on screen. In both cases, the theoretical framework provided by global citizenship education and a human rights-­ based approach to teaching and learning with eco-documentaries acts as an important counterbalance. It is crucial that learners develop an understanding of their own interconnectedness and interdependence with the world and, in the words of Spivak2 (2021, n.p.), to “acknowledge one’s complicity in everything that one does.” Paired with an understanding of eco-documentaries as discourse fragments, that is positions offered to the discursive community for discussion in the greater context of the global discourse on climate change, this might help keep the reception process geared towards communication and action, thereby mitigating the effects associated with both the ‘Adorno reflex’ and a ‘reverse cathartic experience.’ The role of emotions in being able to critically evaluate or judge films has been highlighted by Bredella (2004b) in the context of a reception aesthetic approach to literature. In line with Nussbaum (1995, p. 60), he argues that emotions always have a cognitive dimension as well, providing orientation in the world (Bredella, 2004b, p.  45). “Since emotions embody some of our most deeply rooted views about what has importance, views that could easily be lost from sight during sophisticated intellectual reasoning” (Nussbaum, 1990, p. 42), Bredella points out the close connection between emotions and (ethical) judgement (2004b, p.  46). When it comes to judgement and action, emotions matter, as is substantiated by Eaton: “When we know how others feel – when we realize that they feel as we do  – our treatment of another will be more humane” (1989, p. 157). Bredella concludes that a text can only unfold its effect in a recipient by encouraging—in this case—the viewers to not only contribute their cultural and literary knowledge, in addition to their moral concepts, but also alter or challenge them during the reception process 2  Spivak turns to Derrida’s (1989) Of Spirit to talk about complicity in the sense of responsibility.

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(2004b, p.  80). As such, experiencing eco-documentaries is also closely intertwined with a “repertoire of evaluative beliefs” (Bredella, 2004b, p. 79) and is therefore connected to those dimensions of environmental and discourse literacies, which aim at critical evaluation and moral judgement. On the Importance of Integrating Emotions and Rationality To conclude, Viebrock seems to be correct to assume that analytical approaches like viewer response theory and reception aesthetics already comprise certain elements of what she refers to as “a more holistic perception” (2016, p. 15). However, that does not justify excluding media pedagogical notions of experiencing film, as put forth by Decke-Cornill and Luca (2007), from a concept of film literacies. As Decke-Cornill and Luca explain, learners never engage with films in pedagogical contexts free from prior experience, knowledge, and history. They already are film literate, one does not need to explain film to them. From a cognition psychological perspective, they have acquired at least ‘procedural film knowledge,’ an ability acquired by application. Explaining and describing have probably not played a role there. (2007, p. 18; author’s translation)

The authors suggest that such film analysis approaches, as with viewer response theory and reception aesthetics, tend to offer declarative knowledge, which is detached from the experience of the subject, that is the learner, whereas the fascination-oriented approach of experiencing film (Filmerleben) builds on the procedural knowledge already obtained by students. While viewer response theory and reception aesthetics are generally more object-oriented approaches, experiencing film focuses on the subject and the emotions conjured up during the reception process. As such, it seems logical that a consistent integration of both approaches, as a fixed component of a concept for teaching and learning with eco-­documentaries, should be considered when moving forward. Based on the insights gained from the film studies analysis of documentary film, integrating subjectand object-oriented notions to the concept of film literacies yields several key implications for engaging with eco-documentaries. Firstly, experiencing film is inherently linked to learner-centeredness as a pedagogical

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principle. The learners, that is the viewers, are considered to be active participants in the meaning-making process from the very beginning, thus acknowledging their important role in meaning-making as a dynamic, multilateral process. Secondly, by acknowledging the active role assumed by learners in this process as early as film reception, the entire process of engaging with film in the classroom is geared towards action, application, immersion, and communication, which is in line with the overall objectives of developing ecoliteracies and discourse literacies. Blell and Lütge (2008, p. 131) explain that a central goal of film didactics, both theoretically and in terms of practical implementation, should be to transfer the emotional experience with film into conscious thought and action, in order to overcome the dualism between object (film; text) and subject (recipient). These two aspects, learner centredness and action orientation, already hint at the high compatibility of this approach with notions concerning the practical implementation of literacies-oriented teaching and learning in language education, particularly task-based learning and the concept of complex competence-oriented tasks. Thirdly and perhaps most crucially, in light of the debate surrounding documentary’s place between fiction and non-fiction, the consistent and earnest inclusion of aspects of fascination and Filmerleben impacts the mindset with which learners and educators approach eco-documentary films. By allowing the emotional effect of these films to fully unfold and in taking the experience seriously as part of the (learning) process, the mindset is geared towards acknowledging documentaries as works of faction that tell stories in their own ways, presenting arguments about a version of reality. As such, experiencing film is, in itself, an integral part of the learning process which should be subject to raised awareness, reflection, and discussion. It is safe to assume that by allowing learners to experience and respond to eco-­ documentaries emotionally renders them receptive for an understanding of their own roles in the meaning-making process. Therefore, emotional aspects stay relevant throughout the learning process; from experiencing film while watching it for the first time, via possible analysis and engagement with the text and its effect, all the way to the creation of learning products, discussion, and reflection. However, the notion of experiencing film, which, in this text, comprises the media pedagogic-informed elements identified by Decke-Cornill and Luca (2007) and the principles already considered in more object-oriented approaches (viewer response theory; reception aesthetics), is very complex. To be able to react to a film both verbally and non-verbally as well as to then turn these reactions into

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creative application and communication demand that the learners develop and master a plurality of literacies.

Focus on the Literacies Involved: Multitudes and Pluralities I Eco-documentaries can be thought of as multimodal designs. This insight from the film studies analysis of documentary film is connected to two far-­ reaching implications for educational contexts. The first consequence has to do with the manifold literacies that learners need to master when engaging with eco-documentaries. The second relates to the design of the learning process itself. In what follows, the first implication is examined more closely, while the next section focuses on the second. As has been established, meaning-making is a multilateral process between the texts (e.g., eco-documentaries), their producers, and the recipients (e.g., the learners), and the construction of meaning works via various modes or channels. Monaco explains, [film has] a system of codes. It does not, strictly speaking, have a vocabulary, but it does have a system of signs. It also uses the system of signs and codes of a number of other communicative systems. Any musical code, for instance, can be represented in the music of film […]. Most painterly codes, and most narrative codes, can also be represented in film. (1977, p. 44).

When dealing with eco-documentaries, the viewers are asked to decode a multitude of sign systems to fully understand the text as a whole. Based on the works of Metz (1974), Monaco (1977), and Bateman and Schmidt (2012, pp.  129–164), Hallet (2016b, p.  186) suggests that these sign systems include language and discourse, photography, drama, narration, sound, and music, all of which work towards cinematography as an encompassing, film-specific semiotic system. Correspondingly, Hallet (2016b, p. 188) argues that a variety of literacies can be derived from these modes of meaning-making. The literacies involved in his concept (dramatic, narrative, sound, visual/photographic, musical, communicative-discursive, and contextual literacies) are comparable to those listed by Elsner and Viebrock (2013, p.  28) as being desirable literacies of learners, which include functional, multimodal, visual, and digital literacies but also the ability to critically reflect and evaluate, thereby promoting multilingual and transcultural awareness. With eco-documentaries being such unique

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texts—in terms of their cinematographic and narrative properties, the role of the audience, and the specific subject matter—it is worth looking at those literacies particularly involved in the meaning-making process of these films. All literacies discussed below are thought of as both a target and a tool to eventually develop discourse literacies, which, in this context, comprise film literacies and ecoliteracies when engaging with eco-­ documentaries in the language classroom. Multimodal Literacies In this book, literacies that correspond to the different modes of meaning-­ making are subsumed under the umbrella term multimodal literacies. Traditionally, visual literacies and audio-visual literacies have attracted the most attention among scholars when defining the film literacies related to meaning-making channels. However, with the designation of eco-­ documentaries as multimodal designs comes the realisation that “clearly, all our modes of meaning are deeply and irretrievably interconnected, even though we can identify discrete meaning systems at work—written, visual, spatial, tactile, gestural, audio and spoken” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 395). The significance of clustering such literacy areas as, for instance, sound literacies and visual literacies becomes even more apparent when considering the effect of synaesthesia. Kalantzis et al. explain that instead of dividing modes off from each other we need to bring them closer together, recognising that synaesthesia is a powerful path to learning how to mean. If we can’t quite mean something fully one way, we can perhaps mean it better in another. If something needs to be understood more deeply, we can always find another mode of meaning or combination of modes to add depth. We do that simply by adding the perspective of another mode. For, as much as these modes are parallel to each other in their meaning potentials, as much as they cover the same range of thinkable and communicable things, they do their expressing in very different ways. (2016, p. 398)

While Kalantzis et al. highlight the strong connection between the different modes of meaning-making and, by extension, the corresponding literacies that learners need to develop, they also note that “each meaning mode is capable of the full range of human meaning” (2016, p.  298), indicating that singular modes and corresponding literacies should also receive special attention in educational contexts. For instance, for the

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development of sound-related literacies, it would be beneficial to turn the spotlight at the sound design of a scene or use freeze frames and discuss image composition to foster visual literacies. While German curricula (across the school subjects) accommodate and facilitate the development of mode-related literacies throughout a learner’s course of education, a combination of these literacies is necessary and should be fostered for text forms such as film and contemporary eco-documentaries in particular. Mills (2011, p. 54) confirms this, saying that “multimodal design differs from independent modes because it interconnects the other modes in dynamic relationships.” In this context, she further emphasises the importance of Suhor’s (1984) concept of ‘transmediation.’ Transmediation denotes “the translation of content from one sign system into another” (Suhor, 1984, p. 250). Moreover, Mills (2011, p. 63) explains that it is a “syntactic concept that deals with the structure of sign systems and their conventions. When knowledge is expressed through one or more symbol systems and re-expressed in another, this process can facilitate incremental changes to understanding.” For this reason, it is important to recontextualise meaning-making with, say, images or sound, in the sense of synaesthesia: Learners need to identify and understand the contribution made by singular modes of meaning-making to the whole multimodal design that is (eco-documentary) film, and they potentially need to be able to transmediate between different semiotic modes when it comes to production and application. Regarding individual mode-related literacies, there are equivalent conceptualisations to be found in the film didactical concepts known to the discourse. Blell and Lütge (2008), for instance, include both visual literacies and audio-visual literacies in their concept of Filmbildung. Based on her previous work with Blell (Blell & Lütge, 2004, 2008), Lütge (2012, p.  17) lists perception competences, which include intentional viewing, film knowledge, and the development of a critical attitude towards the manipulation of perception, thought, and action, as part of her concept of film literacy. Hints at multimodal literacies can be identified throughout Blell et al.’s (2016b) concept as well, with the competence field of film-­ related communication incorporating listening, reading, and visual literacies as well as scenic play (spatial, gestural, dramatic) literacies (see also Henseler et al., 2021). Viebrock (2016) includes multimodal literacies as part of perceptive competences (the other part being subject-object interactions), but, as has been noted before, she defines multimodal literacies as consisting of “general world knowledge as well as knowledge about the

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construction and organisation of film” (2016, p.  16), which does not nearly do justice to the intricate composition of multimodal literacies as understood in this volume. Used as an umbrella term, multimodal literacies denote the interplay of manifold literacies necessitated by the unique synergies created by multiple modes of meaning-making when engaging with films and eco-­ documentaries in particular. Hence, in order to develop multiliteracies, learners need to be able to utilise their acquired abilities associated with singular modes of meaning-making, which at times may lead to even more intricate requirements, as exemplified by the area of audio-visual literacy, and which, in turn, is more complex than the sum of its parts suggests. As such, the notion goes far beyond the dimension of knowledge, but also comprises entire literacies, such as visual and audio-visual literacies.3 Aesthetic and Genre Literacies Aesthetic literacies are almost exclusively listed as a separate competence field in existing concepts of film literacy, and they almost always appear to be linked to critical literacies. For instance, Blell and Lütge (2008) pair film analysis and film criticism to form one of the areas of film literacy. Lütge (2012, p. 17) calls the second partial competence “film aesthetic and film critical literacy,” while Viebrock (2016, p. 17) distinguishes aesthetic and critical competences from perceptive competences. One could argue that this strong separation makes sense when teaching and learning with film is geared towards critical analysis. However, based on the discussion regarding film experience and the learners’ role in film reception, and with a general orientation towards discourse participation in mind, this clear distinction becomes much more permeable. If it is a central goal for learners to be able to turn their film experience into follow-up communication and, ultimately, meaningful (communicative) action, it is important 3  With regard to the individual mode-related literacies, one can draw on extensive research conducted in language education. For visual literacy, see, for example, Seidl 2007; Hallet, 2008b, 2010b; Grünewald, 2009; Fisch & Viebrock, 2013). For audio-visual literacy, see, for example, Henseler et al., 2011; Bonas & Wilts, 2016. For audio literacy, see, for example, Blell, 2010; Siegel, 2018; Surkamp & Yearwood, 2018. For approaches to written modes in film, such as subtitles, see, for example, Talaván, 2010; Ávila-Cabrera, 2021. When it comes to modes such as spatial or tactile, a sideways glance at other disciplines, for instance geography, might be needed, although research in drama-based language education might offer valuable insights as well (see, e.g., Lütge & Von Blanckenburg, 2021a, 2021b).

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to acknowledge the strong correlation between aesthetic properties of a text and their effect on the experience shared by the viewers. As such, aesthetic literacies are closely connected to perceptive literacies, or, rather, multimodal literacies. This relationship is expressed by Hallet (2016b, p. 189), who thinks of a cineastic literacy area as a link between all other (multimodal) literacies, which integrates these literacies into a holistic understanding of film. When it comes to eco-documentaries in particular, it might be helpful to consider aesthetic literacies in light of genre literacies. In line with the discussion led in Chap. 4, genre literacies, here, refer to aspects such as genre knowledge, the understanding that generic conventions are ‘stable-­ for-­now,’ and a tolerance of ambiguity with regard to the formal hybridity so characteristic of eco-documentaries. Learners need to be able to recognise aesthetic characteristics, such as stylistic devices, image composition, mise en scène, and editing strategies, so that they can analyse and interpret them accordingly. Furthermore, taking into account a documentary’s paratexts, digital literacies should also be considered in the context of aesthetic/genre and multimodal literacies, since most contemporary eco-­ documentaries (as designs) also feature corresponding websites. Here, in addition to the modes discussed above, learners are confronted with new synergies created by the digital surfaces: They are asked to navigate structures such as interactive text-image-video constellations via hyperlinks. Following the argument that working with documentary films in the classroom comprises action orientation (see, for instance, Blell et  al., 2016b; Henseler et al., 2021), recognition, and interpretation of a film’s aesthetic aspects also serve as a basis for application and the production of the learners’ own projects. Aesthetic literacy should not just be considered relevant in terms of film reception. Conversely, Henseler et  al. (2011) explicate that this literacy area also includes productive elements. Referring to Sting’s (2003) definition of aesthetic literacy, Henseler et  al. (2011, pp.  17–18) state that learners should not only perceive and understand films by means of reading and listening, but they should also be able to use and design film. In recent years, aesthetic literacies have attracted a great deal of academic attention in the context of film in language education (see, e.g., Surkamp, 2004a, 2009, 2010; Henseler et al., 2011; Kammerer, 2016). Moreover, especially the field of documentary film didactics has seen a number of publications concerned with this aspect of film analysis (see, e.g., Grimm, 2009; Henseler et  al., 2011, pp.  223–226; Kammerer &

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Kepser, 2014; Pinkas & Seidler, 2014). This is not surprising, given the high priority traditionally assigned to aesthetic literacies (in conjunction with critical literacies) in identifying and dismantling the ‘manipulative attempts’ emanated by documentaries. However, as has already been established, different modes of meaning-making, aesthetic elements, and generic characteristics (as well as digital website design, in numerous cases) are employed in eco-documentaries to tell stories and to make arguments about versions of reality. Narrative Literacies Various authors have highlighted the role of narration in film and consequently argued for the inclusion of narrative literacy in concepts of film literacies. For instance, Henseler et al. (2011, pp. 16–17), who base their understanding of narrative literacy on Nünning and Nünning’s concept of narrative Kompetenz (2010; see also 2003, 2007, 2017), argue that narrative literacy could best be cultivated if films were taught intertextually and by integrating other media into the learning process. When engaging with film, narrative literacies are important because they allow the employment of film-specific patterns of reaction, as Henseler et al. explain (2011, p. 17). As such, learners are able to fill possible comprehension gaps by making inferences based on the plot and the characters of a given film. The authors acknowledge the significance of developing narrative literacies further, as this promises to support learners not only in terms of film reception but also with regard to the creation of film-related products and follow-up communication (see also Blell et al., 2016b, p. 40; Abraham, 2014, 2016). This is in line with Blell et al. (2016b, p. 26), who include the ability to understand complex (non-linear) plots and the logic behind these plots in their list of receptive skills in the competence field of film-­ related communication. This is closely connected to the ability to identify, describe, and interpret content-related, narrative, and dramaturgic aspects of film (also when in interplay), which Blell et al. (2016b, p. 31) mention as part of the competence field of film analysis. Narrative literacy can also be found in Hallet’s (2016b, p. 190) list of literacies involved in film literacy. He relates it to “storytelling in image sequences.” As such, it is closely related to dramatic literacy, which he defines as “scenes as image sequences” (2016b, p. 190). When it comes to eco-documentaries, storytelling aspects bear profound significance. As Surkamp and Ziethe state in the first sentence of

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their aptly titled essay “Perspektivierte Bilder von Wirklichkeit,”4 “images are interpretations and not objective representations of reality” (2010, p. 362; author’s translation). The idea of ‘perspectivised images’ entails a storytelling momentum. However, as previously mentioned, in the context of the viewers’ willing suspension of disbelief, images shown in documentary films are often (mis)understood as presenting the (one) reality. The inclusion of narrative literacies in the panoply of literacies which constitute film literacies helps address a central desideratum of teaching and learning with documentaries: On the one hand, it works against the insinuation that documentary films try to manipulate the viewers because it allows for the acknowledgement that documentaries are storytelling texts in their own rights. On the other hand, it also permits the viewers to think of documentaries as presenting arguments about a (rather than the) reality coated in a storyline. As such, narrative literacies in the context of documentary films denote the ability to conceptualise a film on both a content level and an aesthetic/cinematographic level, with regard to the central narrative elements and their effect on the viewers (Surkamp & Ziethe, 2010, p. 367). This includes the perspective or point of view from which the documentary argues, and it also includes credibility-enhancing strategies (Surkamp & Ziethe, 2010, p.  367; Henseler et  al., 2021), which, following the line of argumentation pursued thus far, are not viewed as manipulative attempts but rather as purposive narrative means. Narrative literacies are understood to be critical to processes of both film reception and film-related (language) production. In this context, a recent contribution by Becker and Matz (2020) is worth considering, in which the authors suggest an alternative to Nünning and Nünning’s (e.g., 2017) concept of narrative literacy (narrative Kompetenz). Originally applied to digital formats, such as YouTube Storytime videos, their multiliteracies-­informed approach of narrative design is also applicable to working with eco-documentaries, particularly if these take the form of short documentaries or interactive documentaries, since, from a practical point of view, these might be more suitable for creative application by the learners, as suggested by Becker and Matz (2020, p. 116). With a considerably stronger focus on the application of narrative literacies in the sense 4  The full title reads: Perspektivierte Bilder von Wirklichkeit in Bowling for Columbine: Welche Geschichten erzählen Dokumentarfilme und wie gehen wir damit im Unterricht um?, which translates as “Perspectivised Images of Reality in Bowling for Columbine: Which stories are told by documentary films and how do we deal with them in education?”

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of product and action orientation, which comes with a multiliteracies-­ based approach such as narrative design, the primacy of analytical film reception continues to lose ground for the benefit of a more balanced relation between reception and production, or analysis, and—alternatively, for the sake of—application and communication. Communicative Literacies In language education, the development of communicative literacies marks a natural goal. Groeben (2004, p. 178) argues that only via follow­up communication are learners able to explore similarities and differences between their everyday realities and filmic realities, in addition to acquiring strategies for processing and evaluating the offers made by films in terms of information value, credibility, and aesthetic quality. Hence, an adequate command of the English language puts the learners into a position to linguistically comprehend a documentary’s story. In the context of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries, learners ultimately need to increase their language proficiency to be able to actively participate in global discourses on ecological issues. Working with films, particularly with eco-documentaries, it could be argued that besides everyday patterns of speech, ‘language proficiency’ refers to at least two specialist language areas, namely film-specific language and language associated with environmental issues, respectively, reflecting two of the discourses broached by eco-documentaries. As such, existing concepts of film literacy and approaches to working with eco-documentaries in language education can be examined in terms of how they conceptualise the development of communicative literacies. Language has always played a role in notions of film literacies in ELT.  Blell and Lütge (2008, p.  128) consider communicative literacy development in their approach, for instance, by declaring communicative action a central goal. Later, Lütge (2012, p. 17) includes action and communicative literacy in her concept as a fourth competence area. As such, it comprises the ability to react emotionally and to make personal statements as well as the fostering of autonomous language production. However, only the most recent publications of comprehensive film literacy concepts deal with language learning with film in more detail. The competence field of film-related communication is a unique feature of Blell et al.’s (2016b) concept, as it permeates all other competence fields. The authors provide a helpful compilation of related expectations, which touch on the role of

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language proficiency in receptive processes, productive processes, and in terms of plurilingual communication (2016b, pp. 26–27). By also considering reflexive descriptors, their target-oriented deliberations do justice to both an object-oriented (focus on the text) and a subject-oriented (focus on the learner) understanding of film literacies (2016b, p. 24). While Blell et  al. are primarily concerned with associated competence objectives, Viebrock’s concept (2016) offers the possibility for inferences regarding the actual process of language proficiency growth. Viebrock explains that well-developed communicative competences are also needed to talk about the story featured in a film, the characters, and their relationships in the English language classroom. Using the distinction between BICS and CALP by Cummins (2008), the language competence needed for these kinds of conversations would be an expression of basic interpersonal communicative skills, which is characterised by a context-embedded and fairly concrete use of language. The language competence aspired to be the outcome of a film-­ based teaching unit would be in the realm of a cognitive academic language proficiency, which is characterised by a fairly abstract, context-reduced and cognitively demanding use of language including technical terminology. (2016, p. 18; emphasis in original)

From this, it is possible to extrapolate a trajectory of fostering communicative literacies throughout the process of engaging with film, which culminates in the learners’ ability to use abstract language to talk about film. However, Viebrock (2016, p. 18) also notes that a certain level of communicative competence is necessary, in order to follow diegetic, on-­screen dialogues. As such, “communicative competences are a prerequisite and an objective of film literacy at the same time” (Viebrock, 2016, p. 18). However, resorting to Cummins’ (2008; originally introduced in Cummins 1979, 1981) distinction of BICS (basic interpersonal communicative skills) and CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency) is not without its problems. Essentially, there are three closely connected arguments to be raised against the use of the BICS/CALP continuum in the context of teaching and learning with film in general and eco-­documentaries in particular: • A learner’s communicative abilities do not permit inference to their technical (i.e., subject-specific) literacy, and vice versa. • “Language relates to the situation, context and purpose of use” (Meyer et al., 2015a, p. 50).

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• The development of subject and language proficiency is a circular, spiral process. These points are grounded in and partially put forth by the Graz group in the context of their model of pluriliteracies teaching for deeper learning (Meyer et al., 2015a, b, 2018; Meyer & Coyle, 2017; Coyle et al., 2017). Originally, the pluriliteracies approach was developed for content-­language integrated learning scenarios.5 However, as previously mentioned, with eco-documentaries broaching at least two rather subject-specific discourses, (documentary) film and ecology, using them in educational contexts justifies the application—or at the very least the consideration—of the Graz group’s concept. As Hallet (2016b, p.  189) clarifies, working with film can never solely revolve around communicative-discursive literacies. In addition, learners need to develop the ‘languages’ of the different semiotic modes gradually and systematically, so as to eventually be able to apply these languages routinely and autonomously, as well as to critically reflect on their language use. Thus, it could be argued that film-specific language, for instance, diverges into different subsets of technical language, such as music-related, image-related, or aesthetics-related language. From the perspective of ecodidactics, Dines and Dörfel (2006, p.  63) argue for what they refer to as content-based language learning, which, as Mohan and Beckett explain, “is most effective when it combines a focus on form with a focus on meaning, that is, when it provides both intentional language development and meaningful communication about content” (2001, n.p.). This is in line with a pluriliteracies approach and its central understanding of language as a means for learning about the world. It models learning as a process of making meaning, and language learning as building one’s meaning potential to make meaning in particular contexts. Knowledge is viewed as meaning, a resource for understanding and acting on the world. (Mohan et  al., 2010, p. 221)

As Meyer and Coyle (2017, p.  201) state, “such a focus on meaning-­ making potential has far-reaching consequences not only for CLIL, but for learning in general, both on a conceptual as well as a practical level.” 5  Hence the term: “pluriliterate (= acquiring subject literacy in more than one language)” (Meyer et al., 2015b, p. 3).

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Based on this observation, the group focuses on deeper learning, which is defined as “the process through which an individual becomes capable of taking what was learned in one situation and applying it to [a] new situation (i.e., transfer)” (National Research Council, 2012, p. SUM-4). Recurring to the necessary subject-specific literacies, Meyer and Coyle argue that students will only successfully master [these] in an environment that focuses on building learners’ meaning-making potential by enabling them to actively demonstrate their understanding, primarily through the adequate use of appropriate language. (2017, p. 202)

The key to this is language, they add, “or more precisely, ‘languaging’, ‘the process of making meaning and shaping knowledge and experience through language (Swain, 2006)’” (Meyer & Coyle, 2017, pp. 207–208). According to Meyer et al. (2015b, p. 5), language and learning cannot be regarded separately, and, therefore, “learner progress must be expressed through an individual’s ability to communicate knowledge and demonstrate understanding.” The use of ‘appropriate language’ in the above quote betrays the truly significant aspect with regard to teaching and learning with eco-documentaries—or any film—in ELE.  Meyer et  al. (2015b, p. 8) explain that “we language through cognitive discourse functions.” Based on Dalton-Puffer’s (2014, 2015; see also Polias, 2016) categorisation, these cognitive discourse functions (CDFs) contain describing and labelling (e.g., aspects of mise en scène or elements of image composition; components of models of the greenhouse effect), explaining and defining (e.g., a documentaries’ voice and its effects on film reception; the process of global warming), comparing (e.g., different stylistic choices between documentaries, scenes, or even paratextual elements of a documentary; different effects of climate change on different groups of people or animals), and assessing and evaluating (e.g., a documentary’s credibility or the effectiveness of strategies of emotional involvement; opportunities to tackle climate change presented in a documentary). According to Meyer et al. (2015b, p. 8), it is crucial that “learners are enabled to actively use CDFs at increasingly complex levels,” since, as Meyer and Coyle (2017, p.  211) add, “CDFs trigger specific languaging processes and therefore allocate learners an active role in the process of knowledge construction.” These increasingly complex levels span the levels of novice to expert (or, advanced) in the shape of a continuum. It is at this point that the three

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arguments against the BICS/CALP distinction enter the discussion. While one objective for a learner is to be able to achieve the highest possible level of proficiency both in terms of subject literacies and communicative literacies (which would roughly correspond to the idea of acquiring CALP), not having reached an intermediate level of language proficiency, however, does not necessarily mean that this learner has not yet reached higher levels of subject-related proficiencies. Using the BICS/CALP continuum does not allow for this type of nuanced differentiation. Yet, a concept of communicative literacies must allow room for this distinction because “language relates to the situation, context and purpose of use” (Meyer et  al., 2015a, p.  50): CDFs work on different literacy levels (novice to expert), but they may also be applied to different text formats or genres, which vary in complexity themselves. A good example for this type of context-related language use is the YouTube video series 5 Levels by Wired, which features experts in a given field (e.g., a virtual reality engineer or a musician) who explain a subject-specific concept to a child (6–10 years of age), a teenager (high school student), a college student, a grad student, and a fellow expert in the field, respectively. As Meyer et al. (2015b, p. 50) elaborate, “the desired depth of content processing would determine the language level the students would be required to use in order to conceptualise and articulate that explanation.” For instance, if a learner were asked to explain the effect of sea-level rising on the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati, in the scope of a lesson unit on Before the Flood, the learner would have to adapt their language level accordingly, depending on whether the addressee is a younger sibling at home, a fellow classmate, or the geography teacher at school. The same holds true if the required text format changes, for instance, if the task was to provide a brief oral explanation or to create a short presentation supported by visuals (charts or maps). Thus, language, content, and cognition are so closely connected as parts of the same process that the BICS/CALP distinction would quickly reach its limits in explaining this process. Finally, learners acquire these subject and language proficiencies over a long period of time by gradually applying the various CDFs to different levels and contexts. As such, the pluriliteracies approach conceptualises the deeper learning process as a continuous circle of working and creating meaning in subjects (including the steps executing, organising, explaining, arguing) at all ages and age-appropriate levels (Meyer et  al., 2015b, p.  4). Factoring in the duration of the learners’ educational paths and the “increasingly sophisticated text types and genres” (Meyer et  al., 2015b, p.  4) they encounter throughout their

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learning career, this circle takes the shape of an upward spiral—with the linear, two-dimensional process implied in the BICS/CALP concept truly reaching its conceptual limits. Therefore, rather than working with the idea of communicative language proficiency growth within the poles of BICS and CALP, an approach to teaching and learning with (eco-­ documentary) film in language education should instead follow the principles of pluriliteracies teaching for deeper learning. However, if language learning with film is framed by a pluriliteracies-­ informed approach, it might address a blind spot in research identified by Abraham (2014, p. 194), who laments that film analysis (and associated literacies) and film literacy itself are programmatic terms of film education but that the minor detail of languaging (“die Kleinigkeit der Versprachlichung” in the German original) is mostly overlooked. What scholars like Abraham (2014, 2016) and Anders (2016) (both of whom work in the field of German [as a native] language education) have repeatedly called for is both media-reflexive language education and language-­ reflexive film education (Abraham, 2014, p. 194; 2016, p. 136; Anders, 2016). Assuming that an approach which more strongly integrates language and content (subject-related literacies) is beneficial to language proficiency growth of learners, as with regard to documentary film, Anders (2016, p. 154; author’s translation) hypothesises that “the better an audience is informed about the documented contents, the more deliberately they can identify and reflect on the filmic presentation thereof.” As such, she proposes that Nickel-Bacon’s (2003) concept for approaching factual films also be used to analyse documentary film.6 Nickel-Bacon distinguishes three levels (pragmatic, semantic, formal) of analysis, which Anders (2016, p. 155) uses to illustrate how learners can engage with documentary film to develop communicative literacies. The pragmatic level concerns generic features and paratexts, suggesting to learners that this text be treated as a documentary (see factuality contract). In-class communication could revolve around reactions evoked by the filmmakers’ choices, the documentary’s generic features, or its paratexts. On the semantic level, learners are encouraged to assess the credibility of the documentary’s contents in relation to their (i.e., the learners’) own concept of reality, that is based on their prior knowledge and experiences. On a formal level, 6  Anders uses the term “reality-fiction-differentiation” (2016, p.  154; author’s translation), referring to documentaries as non-fictional texts. However, her approach still works with an understanding of documentary as works of faction rather than non-fiction.

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learners resort to their film and aesthetic knowledge to engage in communication about how a documentary film functions. Coupled with a pluriliteracies-informed approach, which stresses the importance of cognitive discourse functions over various levels of proficiency in both the language and the subject (here: documentary film), learners can gradually develop both their communicative literacies and subject-specific literacies as part of the same process. With a special focus on ecocinema, Küchler (2009) illustrates how this process could play out in the English language classroom, referring to the significance of different discursive levels of expression (which roughly correspond to Dalton-Puffer’s CDFs) when discussing films such as The Day After Tomorrow or An Inconvenient Truth. Küchler (2009, p.  367; author’s translation) stresses the importance of communicative literacies when engaging with environmental issues, warning that “if experiences in general, and the environment in particular, cannot be described, then their nuanced perception or critical engagement with them in the scope of their socio-cultural contexts is blocked.” What becomes apparent in Küchler’s words is the considerable potential of school subjects within the humanities, such as the languages, as they not only contribute to the primary focus on communication but also serve as spaces for engaging with socio-cultural aspects of ecological issues. Critical Literacies Critical literacies are an integral part of the development of discourse literacies. In the context of ecoliteracies and in line with Misiaszek (2016, 2018), it has already been established that criticality is always part of ecopedagogies. When it comes to critical elements in film literacies, however, the dominant conceptualisations do not conclusively offer insights into how exactly criticality is understood or incorporated. In Blell and Lütge’s (2008, p. 128) concept, criticality seems to be focused on the semiotics of moving images and their interpretation. In Viebrock’s (2016, p.  18) concept, critical competences are mentioned together with aesthetic competences, suggesting a critical focus on aesthetic/stylistic form rather than function. Other concepts (Blell et al., 2016b; Hallet, 2016b) leave it to the reader to assume critical aspects in areas that have to do with contextualising.

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However, elaborating on their concept of critical media literacy, Kellner and Share pursue the argument that criticality is a crucial element of media (and, by extension, film) literacies. Kellner and Share note, [in] this world  – to not teach an approach to critical literacy, a learned, informed and curious skepticism of a multimediated, multimodel [sic!] information and textual environment  – would be to walk away from any possibility of democratic education: the responsibility to teach each generation the tenets, values and stances that might enable us to live ethically, gainfully, and sustainably with diversity and difference and in shared purpose, fair and equitable exchange, and just community. This will require a rediscovery of quiet and sustained reflection, comparative and triangulated analyses of information, close and detailed reading and viewing, respect for difference, diversity and disagreement of ideas and ways of life, rich foundational and disciplinary knowledge, intergenerational wisdom and informed self-understanding – all easily written off as retrograde, old hat, too conservative, too radical, or, simply, too hard in a system that has put its time and money into standardised testing of basic skills. (2019, p. VIII)

Beach et al. (2017, p. 83) add that “[teaching] students to think critically about the messages they read, hear, see, and create requires an understanding of what it means to be literate in the twenty-first century that is inclusive of all types of information and entertainment.” The approach developed on the basis of these observations is deeply rooted in Freirean critical pedagogy and hinges on two fundamental assumptions: that media is not neutral, and that education is political (Kellner & Share, 2019, p. 100). Thus, critical media literacy is defined as “a pedagogical approach that deepens literacy skills across all subject areas and empowers students to use multiple forms of media and technology to read and write the word and the world” (Kellner & Share, 2019, p. XVIII). What becomes apparent in these words is a strong orientation to critical participation in discourse and societies, that is to active citizenship education. According to the authors, being critically media literate includes “analyzing media culture as products of social production and struggle, and teaching students to be critical of media representations and ideologies, while also stressing the importance of learning to use the media as modes of self-expression and social activism (Kellner, 1995; Share, 2015)” (Kellner & Share, 2019, p. 6). As such, the ‘critical’ in this notion is akin to Andreotti’s (2006; 2014a; b) use of ‘critical,’ in that it is defined as “an aspect of a dialectical, sociocultural, and analytical process” (2019, p. 20).

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It aims at understanding the origins of assumptions and ideas as well as the underlying socio-­cultural processes of meaning-making and power hierarchies. Hence, the ability to critically engage with texts and the world plays an important role in the development of learners’ identities as “responsible and empowered global citizens,” as Kellner and Share (2019, p. 55) explain. This notion is highly significant for teaching and learning with eco-­ documentaries. In this context, it includes, for instance, the ability to assess the extent to which documentaries are credible, the ability to critically reflect on one’s own experience engaging with the film, and the ability to identify aesthetic/cinematographic means and reflect on their effects. However, especially regarding the issue of credibility, Kellner and Share warn that [recent] interest in “fake news” can be an opportunity for students to think critically about media or it can be a dangerous ploy to confuse the public into thinking that there is just “fake news” contrasted to “real news.” This false dichotomy tends to suggest that “fake news” is bad and “real news” is some- thing we don’t need to question because it is factual, objective, and THE whole truth. In between those two extremes lays much complexity and need for critical engagement with all information, communication, and entertainment. (Kellner & Share, 2019, p. 89; emphasis in original)

The German academic discourse on film literacies features a number of ideas which are relatable to Kellner and Share’s notion of critical media literacy, and, in particular, to a critical stance towards a film’s credibility. For example, Surkamp and Ziehte (2010, p. 366) include an awareness of mediality (Medialitätsbewusstsein in the German original) in their concept of film literacies, and Leonhardt and Viebrock (2020) devote a special issue of a teaching practice journal to the identification of and dealing with fake news in the English language classroom. However, these positions seem to be rather influenced by Frankfurt school trajectories of thought in that they strongly emphasise the necessity of the ability to resist the persuasiveness of (documentary) films. In line with Kellner and Share, though, the understanding of criticality pursued herein moves beyond the Frankfurt school approach by focusing less on a learning process that revolves around critical (almost destructive) text analysis. Instead, the focus is on a learning process characterised by constructive, active meaning-making, whereby

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the learners are active participants who are not defenceless or subjugated to a film’s manipulative attempts or fake versions of reality. Agency, reflection, and active participation are key when dealing with eco-documentaries in the sense of (global) citizenship education. These films are not neutral; they are, in Hess’ (2007) words, perspective-laden narratives. Thus, it is important to consider the relationship between critical media literacy and (inherently critical) ecopedagogies, thereby highlighting the danger that lies in an often-perceived neutrality of environmental pedagogies, as Misiaszek (2016, p. 590) warns—the same neutrality and assumed objectivity is at the core of regarding eco-­ documentaries as mere information vehicles. Furthermore, Hung notes, [climate] change is a complex issue and there is a need to educate future generations so that they are able to engage critically with the flood of information and perspectives that they encounter. Not only do we want educated citizens who can act to protect and conserve the quickly diminishing environmental wealth of our planet, but we also want our children to be able to engage in critical and thoughtful inquiry about the information that they receive. (2014, p. 9)

Keeping a critical perspective is particularly important when engaging with documentary films as works of faction because the blurring between fact and fiction must not be interpreted as the dissolution of factuality, thus leading to relativism. In doing so, a necessary sense of responsibility would be lost. Rather, critical film literacies should therefore aim at asking questions that have to do with how facts are employed and by whom, examining the ecological footprints and mindprints of eco-documentaries and reflecting on one’s own position within this discursive network. Such an understanding of criticality allows for the use of eco-­ documentaries within a framework that promotes a broader, active, participatory understanding of citizenship. Kalantzis et al. (2016) highlight the significance of developing critical literacy for active participation in societies and their discourses. They relate Freire and Macedo’s (1987) notion of transformation to literacy pedagogy, arguing that, in this particular context, transformation “is a process of reading and writing about the world in which literate citizens become ‘subjects’ instead of passive ‘objects’ of texts; ‘agents’ of texts instead of the ‘victims’ of texts” (2016, p. 179). This is an important additional take on the strategies involving ecocritical viewings of films: Learners can engage with films in terms of an

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ecocritical viewing but the insights gained from critical analysis may spark discussions, which, in turn, could help learners transform “themselves into authors of their own histories rather than being written off as the passive victims of history” (McLaren, 2015, p. 27). Cultural Literacies The significance of a broader notion of citizenship, both in terms of an ability to participate in societies and discourse (Chap. 2) as well as in the context of cultivating GCE (Chap. 3), necessitates the inclusion of cultural literacies in the notion of film literacies in two regards: Firstly, cultural literacies are relevant in the sense of cultural film studies, with a focus on the text form and its role in citizenship education. Secondly, cultural learning is relevant in relation to climate change as a topic of eco-­documentaries. In both cases, the dominant paradigm of ICC (Byram, 1997, 2021) needs to be overcome in favour of notions of cultural learning based on non-­ binary, hybrid, dynamic, and fluid understandings of cultures as everyday discursive practices, as discussed in the context of eco-cosmopolitan GCE in Chap. 3. In the context of this volume, cultural literacies are understood as neither intercultural nor transcultural competences. Both competences are too prone to criticism to be considered dominant in the notion of cultural literacies: Interculturality (in the sense of Byram’s ICC (1997; 2021)) is considered to have a too narrow and myopic perspective on essentialist, static, territorialised cultures, while transculturality is based on a universalist and relativist concept only applicable to a small number of cosmopolitan elites and which ignores the realities of cultural rootedness and embeddedness. Instead, the concept of cultural literacies follows a dialogical, integrative understanding, as outlined in the context of the cultural dimension of ecoliteracies. Acknowledging rootedness, (g)locality, individuality, and therefore existing differences as well as global interconnectedness and similarities across increasingly broad concentric circles of belonging and citizenship (ranging from the self to the global, or the planetary with Earth as a citizen; see Misiaszek, 2016, 2018), it may be understood as an alternative draft to what would be labelled cultural spheres in more traditional theories of culture and belonging, such as interculturality. In this sense, the notion of cultural studies may even be understood as moving beyond inter- and/or transcultural learning: In line with Delanoy (2022, p. 133), the notion of cultural literacies allows the conceptual pooling of both schools and their

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resources and can thus “broaden, deepen, and question educational concepts and practices.” Based on the discussions led in Chap. 3, cosmopolitan perspectives are a crucial addition to this understanding of cultural literacies. According to Delanoy (2022, p. 133, 135), these cosmopolitan perspectives “can further enrich concepts of language-and-culture learning” because of their “global focus, [their] diversity of concepts, [their] critical dimension, and [their] hope for a more just, ecological, and equitable future of humankind.” Further, based on Weik von Mossner’s (2014a, p. 182) discussion in Cosmopolitan Minds, an emotional dimension can be added to this list of important aspects of cosmopolitan perspectives. With both inter- and transcultural learning having arguably failed as suitable concepts for language education, a notion of cultural literacies informed by cosmopolitan perspectives might serve as a new impetus to the discussion and work towards making “language education a workshop for developing new ideas and bonds between people, thus enabling learners to address complex issues through cooperation in  local and trans-local contexts” (Delanoy, 2022, p. 135). Working with eco-documentaries on the basis of this understanding of culture and cultural literacies, then, might help learners and educators to “move away from proprietary notions of culture that see people (and texts) as determined by ‘their’ respective culture towards more flexible […] concepts that relate to a growing interest in the specific modes in which individuals and groups ‘do culture’ as a social practice” (Doff & Schulze-Engler, 2011, pp. 2–3). As such, cultural literacies (as opposed or compared to inter- and/or transcultural literacies) more strongly emphasise cultural agency, which is in line with a broader notion of citizenship and a critical, eco-cosmopolitan GCE framework for English language education for sustainable development and therefore deserve to be considered a fixed component of literacy development when it comes to teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. Engaging with the role of critical media literacy for the cultivation of GCE, Harshman (2017) adds another perspective that supports the argument that cultural literacies should always be considered an element of film literacies. He employs Appadurai’s (1997) notion of ‘scapes’ to argue that mediascapes “disseminate information digitally and, due to a growing rate of accessibility, erase distance to provide a sense of connectedness for people around the world who may never meet in person” (Harshman, 2017, p. 109). Being able to identify one’s own interconnectedness and one’s own positionality in relation to others around the globe, however, necessitates the prerequisites of global mindedness and openness to global

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perspectives (Harshman, 2017, p. 108). This extends to the films themselves, that is to their positionality within the global discourse as filmic discourse fragments. As such, cultural learning is integral to all stages of engagement with (eco-documentary) films, from experiencing the film, conceptualising, analysing, and contextualising it, to communicating about it and applying. Cultural literacies must therefore be considered an inseparable part of film literacies—particularly in the case of eco-­ documentaries—lest (eco-documentary) films degenerate to what Harshman (2017, p.  111) calls “visual textbooks,” used as information vehicles and for “prompt analysis of the accuracy and reliability of the images and narratives students are bombarded with in and out of a classroom.” Ecoliteracies Ecoliteracies have been discussed extensively in Chap. 3 of this volume. Yet, their inclusion in this section is due to the dual significance of ecoliteracies in the context of developing discourse literacies with eco-­ documentaries. It has been shown that this literacy area comprises a number of associated literacies listed above. The cultivation of systemic thinking, the development of technical knowledge, the acquisition of relevant communicative means, and the inquiry of the social purpose of language and the documentaries are integral parts of the functional dimension of ecoliteracies. Critical viewings and question-posing aimed at a film’s ecological foot- and mindprints as well as critical reflection on the content, for instance, socio-environmental injustices, in addition to one’s own position or role in tackling the issues addressed in the films, comprise the critical dimension of ecoliteracies. Following Misiaszek’s (2016, 2018) argumentation, this is (or should be) inherent to all ecopedagogies. In terms of the cultural dimension of ecoliteracies, it is crucial to develop cultural literacies in order to learn about scales and how to navigate different citizenships or senses of belonging across and between the different scales. As such, comprising a multitude of literacy areas, ecoliteracies can be located on a superordinate level, on par with film literacies as one of two pillars of developing discourse literacies with and through eco-documentaries. Nevertheless, from a meta-perspective of general (documentary) film didactics, ecoliteracies can also be considered as one literacy area among many. The addition of this area is made necessary by the unique text form of eco-documentaries, as ecoliteracies become especially relevant when dealing with ecological and sustainability-related issues. In this sense, they

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are closely intertwined and in constant interaction with the other literacy areas, transcending and cohering them. A Multitude of Literacies Ultimately, the overarching goal of teaching and learning with (eco-)documentaries is the development of film literacies which span all the literacy areas mentioned in the sections above. There are a few challenges tied to this idea, however. Hallet (2016b, p. 189) reminds scholars that teachers are not excluded from the necessity to master these literacies themselves. He attests that a high level of training is necessary among practitioners and argues that film education should be increasingly thought of in terms of trans- or interdisciplinary approaches, to mitigate this challenge. Yet, the high demands placed on the learners by this complexity of literacies is what Hallet identifies as a possible second roadblock. He suggests focusing on the fostering of one specific area at a time, for instance, music and musical literacies or image composition and visual literacies. At other times, it might prove beneficial to turn the spotlight on storytelling or subjective impressions. This way, over time, learners can grow their proficiencies gradually and increasingly autonomously. Surveying the deliberations offered on the individual literacy areas throughout this section, it is possible to detect a strong orientation towards learner action and production. There seems to be a shift underway in film education, away from the dominant paradigm of receptive film analysis and towards immersion, application, and meaningful communication—which still includes film analysis as a basis for contextualisation. This is in line with the ideas of learning by design and has major implications for the learning process as such.

Focus on the Learning Process: Multitudes and Pluralities II Starting from the premise that eco-documentaries can be thought of as multimodal designs, the previous deliberations focused on the implications for the literacies involved. Complementing the discussion, this section sheds light on the implications for the learning process when engaging with eco-documentaries. Arguably, the idea of contemporary eco-­ documentary films as multimodal designs champions education and

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learning processes that subscribe to the principles of action and product orientation, promoting learner agency and empowerment. Based on the findings from the film studies analysis, Meyer’s words corroborate this notion in the context of interactive documentaries, as he states, [with] the revocation of the classic concept of documentary film and its references, new questions need to be asked: From now on, there are new opportunities of constructing reality by the subject at hand. What is examined are the effects of interactive documentary films on the participant, who does no longer acquire a sense of reality only cognitively but who is also involved physically (and be it only by movement of the mouse) and emotionally (as co-author), and who, therefore, can potentially inscribe themselves much more intensively in the process of construction. (2016, p.  6; author’s translation)

These words hold true for ecocinema as well, albeit, in most cases, minus the physical involvement. Thus, educators need to ask how the process of engaging with (eco-)documentaries in a learning environment can be designed to best exploit the potential outlined from Meyer’s analysis. Surveying existing conceptions of and contributions to film literacies in language education, only a few references to the design of a learning process can be identified. One of the most explicit references is made in Viebrock’s (2016) inclusion of BICS and CALP, outlining a starting point and a desired outcome of engaging with film. Another reference to the learning process can be found in Blell and Surkamp’s (2016, p. 20) application of Hallet’s (2012, 2013a; see also Hallet & Krämer, 2012) complex competence-oriented task concept to film education. This scarcity is not surprising given that almost no process models are available at this point.7 Much more prevalent are mentions of product and action orientation when it comes to dealing with film in the language classroom (see, e.g., Surkamp, 2004a; Elsner et al., 2013), thereby reflecting a shift away from pure film analysis. While action and product orientation have become integral elements of literacy descriptions involved in and targets associated with film education in the language classroom, this text seeks to provide a more compelling reasoning for this development, in an attempt to derive implications for a possible design of a learning process with 7  With the possible exception of Blell and Surkamp’s concept, which, according to the authors (2016, p.  21), serves as a competence, process, task, and planning model at the same time.

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eco-­ documentaries. To that end, the following sections discuss pluriliteracies-­informed design principles for learning environments. In addition, four knowledge processes identified by The New London Group (e.g., 1996; 2000) are examined as a way of structuring the learning process. As a third step, this section also addresses task-based language learning in the context of pluriliteracies- and multiliteracies-informed approaches to teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. Principles for Deeper Learning The Graz group’s pluriliteracies approach could serve as the starting point for a discussion of the learning process with eco-documentaries, as it is in itself rather programmatic in terms of gradual literacies development. Furthermore, it is highly suitable with the ideas of Kress (2010; see also Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001, 2006) on multimodality and learning by design: Since we live in an image-based and increasingly digital world where semiotics are multimodal and hybrid in nature, the term pluriliteracies accommodates not only that learners operate in more than one language, it also encompasses the need for education to consider plurimodal semiotics. (Meyer et al., 2018, p. 280)

Motivated by this observation, the approach aims at enabling students to gradually reach increasingly complex and deep levels of learning, as reflected by the six cognitive process dimensions of Bloom’s revised taxonomy (Anderson et  al. 2001)—remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, and create—and the four knowledge dimensions, factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive. Ultimately, students should progress through these processes and be able to evaluate and create in all four knowledge dimensions, which, in the language classroom, includes the ability of languaging, that is producing language or communicating. It may also include the creation of film-related products, as suggested by scholars in the field of film education. In other words, possible outcomes of the learning process are (re-designed) discourse fragments. Based on these deliberations, the ADiBE group8 suggests that the design of learning processes follow six underlying principles. These  https://adibeproject.com/.

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principles were originally conceived in the context of catering to diversity in bilingual education, but evidently, they can be interpreted in such a way that they apply to any learning scenario, including engaging with eco-­ documentaries in the English language classroom. The principles encompass teachers as designers, the dialogic classroom, explicitness and transparency, learner centredness, multimodality and multiliteracy, and scaffolding (Coyle, 2019). Teachers as Designers To think of educators as designers of learning represents a holistic approach to creative, inclusive conception, organisation, and execution of lessons. Framed by a conducive learning environment, the learning process revolves around the idea of students’ personal growth. Teachers function as facilitators and mediators of learning rather than instructors. This includes creating an environment that takes into account the physical, cognitive, as well as social realms of learning. In this sense, this principle complements the idea of learners being designers, with both stakeholders assuming active roles in the learning process, albeit on different pedagogical levels.  he Dialogic Classroom T The principle of the dialogic classroom is probably the most naturally apt for language education. It refers to the idea that knowledge construction, meaning-making, and literacies development are best achieved through communication and languaging. This principle is already reflected in current concepts of film literacies, which highlight the role of follow-up communication or film-related communication in general. Factoring in each learner’s unique viewing experience when engaging with eco-­ documentaries, dealing with these films inherently warrants the inclusion of everyone’s voice in the learning process, thereby adding to the multitude of perspectives and impressions gained by the viewers. Explicitness and Transparency The principle of explicitness and transparency revolves around questions of accessibility and comprehensibility of the learning process to all students. While at first glance this principle may seem to primarily apply to a focus on diversity in classrooms, its implications are highly significant for any education aimed at the development of discourse literacies. Corresponding to the idea that students need to master different levels of expertise in subject-specific discourse and therefore different discursive

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levels or registers, so to say, this principle is closely linked to Bernstein’s (1996; 1999) work on the sociology of education and pedagogic discourse, who distinguishes between vertical and horizontal discourse in the classroom. While it is commonplace for teachers to ‘translate’ complex, vertical concepts using horizontal, everyday language to increase familiarity and relevance to their students’ lives, the opposite process occurs rather rarely. As such, students tend not to be taught how to appropriately navigate the complex, formal discourses that pervade educational contexts. In a sense, educational discourse can be added to the list of very specific languages used in the classroom when engaging with eco-documentaries, alongside film-related language and language specific to ecological issues. For students to be able to reach deeper levels of learning in the latter two, they also need to master the former. Learner Centredness Learner centredness is a principle well known in the language education context. Essentially, the learners are considered to be protagonists of their own learning processes. This idea is closely intertwined with the principles of teachers as designers and the dialogic classroom because the provision of a learning environment conducive to participatory, cooperative, autonomous, and interactive learning is key to allowing students to assume active roles in the learning process. Reflecting on the insights gained from the film studies analysis conducted in Chap. 4, considering this principle is paramount when developing a concept of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. Multimodality and Multiliteracy With the idea that eco-documentaries—or any film, for that matter—are multimodal designs comes the realisation that learning processes should open opportunities for students to engage with multiple modes of meaning-­ making, thereby applying and developing multiple literacies. This includes creating multimodal learning progressions which use different task types and modalities, and which ask the students to work in various interactive settings for various purposes. When it comes to eco-documentaries, this means treating the films as part of their media milieus and taking advantage of the inter- and paratextual elements constituting the design, that is the film, to offer the students an array of access points to the medium, thereby allowing them to develop multiple literacies throughout the learning process.

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Scaffolding When it comes to actual task design, instructional techniques and strategies that facilitate the students’ gradual development of a deeper understanding of the texts in question and greater autonomy are critical. Ideally, the use of these scaffolding means decreases over time, as the learners assume more responsibility over their own learning processes. Offering support goes far beyond providing emergency vocabulary cards. Rather, scaffolding includes the way tasks and task progressions are designed, how learners are encouraged to work together, and in how far their own prior knowledge and experience play a role in the process. While these principles originate from the context of bilingual education and have a hint of general pedagogy, all the literacies discussed earlier can easily be interpreted in light of these principles. Thus, when it comes to literacies development in the classroom, both the literacies and the principles can be tailored to acquire a language educational dimension suitable for engaging with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom. Four Knowledge Processes According to Meyer and Coyle, by taking these principles as a basis, it is possible to [help] learners become literate in content subjects and to empower them to successfully and appropriately communicate that knowledge across ­disciplines and languages in a wide variety of modes in order to become creative and responsible global citizens. (2017, p. 204)

What becomes evident in these words is a clear orientation towards global citizenship and social participation, which is highly compatible with the key objective of multiliteracies pedagogy (Kalantzis et al., 2016). This is not surprising, of course, as multiliteracies pedagogy is one foundation of the pluriliteracies approach. However, this proximity allows for the examination of what Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 73) call the four knowledge processes, when it comes to considering concrete steps in a learning progression: experiencing, conceptualising, analysing, and applying. Derived from four historically prominent orientations to the teaching and learning of literacies, Kalantzis et  al. (2016, p.  74) describe these knowledge processes as “foundational types of thinking-in-action, or four things you can do to know.” Originally, these processes were called

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situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformed practice (The New London Group 1996). In the latest iteration of the concept, these ideas have been reframed and “translated […] into the more immediately recognisable ‘knowledge processes’ tags for planning, documenting and tracking learning (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009)” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 75), rendering the concept ready for use in practice. As Becker and Matz (2020, p. 113) note, the concept focuses on processes of meaning-making rather than the principles of competence-­ orientation. In the context of narrative design, Becker and Matz argue that multiliteracies pedagogy is particularly suited for engaging with digital forms of storytelling in a critical and reflective way, as it works on the premise that meaning and meaning-making processes are constantly changing. Recalling the insights obtained thus far, the same significance can be attested for meaning-making with film and eco-documentaries. In what follows, the four knowledge processes are introduced in more detail and considered in the context of teaching and learning with eco-­ documentary films.  xperiencing the Known, Experiencing the New E Experiential literacies learning moves between the poles of the known and the new. Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 77; emphasis in original) explain that “‘Experiencing the known’ engages learners in reflection upon their own life experiences. It brings into the classroom familiar knowledge and ways of representing the world.” In the case of eco-documentaries, this includes, among other things, prior knowledge and experience about both the environment and the (documentary) film. Experiencing the new, on the other hand, “occurs with immersion in new situations, information and ideas. In the case of literacies, this will mostly involve engaging with new texts or texts of an unfamiliar variety” (Kalantzis et  al., 2016, p.  77). Since meaning-­making is a multilateral process between texts and the recipients, among other components, Becker and Matz (2020, p. 115) point out that experiencing (both the known and the new) always has a constructive element to it and, thus, goes far beyond passive reception. This idea of fostering learner agency as early as experiencing a given text can be thought further. For instance, in the context of learning about filmmaking techniques, Mills (2011, p. 24) suggests that “students learn best about film making through situated experiences in movie production, guided by an expert, rather than, say, writing about movie making.” This already hints

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at the close connection between experience, application, and all the steps in between. When it comes to language education and learning with film in the language classroom, it is important to remember that language production, one of the ultimate goals, is motivated by a need to communicate. Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 77) write that “learning is most effective, according to experiential theories of learning, when it is socially situated, when it connects with learner identities and when it is meaningful to them.” As such, the important role of experiencing film (Filmerleben) becomes evident because films tend to induce in the learners an urge to communicate.  onceptualising by Naming, Conceptualising with Theory C Conceptual literacies learning refers to ways of categorising, classifying, generalising, and theorising things. Learners conceptualise by naming, in terms of “drawing distinctions of similarity and difference, categorising and naming the constituent elements of the thing to which the concept refers” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 77). This includes metalanguage, such as language used in academic contexts (educational language) and language used by expert communities (technical language and terminology). Kalantzis et al. observe that [didactic] pedagogy has a big emphasis on teaching the technical language of a discipline: nouns and verbs; scenes and denouements; and the rules and conventions of literacy in the standard form of the language. Its mode is to tell, then to test students to see whether they have learned what they have been told. However, in a more active literacies pedagogy we could do more than this with conceptualising by naming. Students are asked to look at a text or consider something in the world in order to create their own conceptualisations  – naming and classifying according to general features. (2016, p. 78)

In this sense, being able to ‘label’ different cinematographic strategies, mise en scène and aesthetic characteristics of a film can be related (Kalantzis et al. use the term “weave” or “weaving”; 2016, p. 78) to what learners already know and thus made accessible for continued work rather than remain an ability acquired for its own sake. Reconciling concepts into “interpretative frameworks” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 78) is how learners conceptualise with theory. There are multiple

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possibilities rooted in different pedagogical traditions when it comes to conceptualising with theory. Teaching theories as the “conceptual essence of a discipline” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 79) through explicit or direct instruction could be located firmly within a didactic pedagogy approach. Moving beyond didactic pedagogy, Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 79) suggest asking the students “to help build the theory for themselves.” This way, learners can explore and describe underlying structures of meaning, such as the design of a video or the architecture of a website. Once more, highlighting the importance of combining different pedagogical approaches, in this case overt or direct instruction (conceptualising) and situated practice (experiencing), Mills reports on her study of a classroom project, in which the students were asked to produce short claymation movies: The direct instruction provided in the first lesson had involved learners in viewing completed claymation movies, with little discussion of shot types, to understand the movie-making process. Without physical examples of claymation sets with situated practice using a digital camera, the distance between the prior experiences of students like Daria, and the technology-­ mediated aspects of designing, was vast. The students needed to be transported into a world of designing that was somewhat familiar and not too perplexing. (Mills, 2006, 2011, p. 24)

 nalysing Functionally, Analysing Critically A The third knowledge process, analytical literacies learning, refers to both analysing functionally and analysing critically. First, according to Mills (2011, p. 33), learners “analyse the overarching function of the everyday texts they read or view, making connections between the multimodal elements.” This entails “processes of reasoning, drawing inferential and deductive conclusions, establishing functional relations (such as between cause and effect) and analysing logical connections,” as Kalantzis et  al. (2016, p. 79) explicate. For instance, learners analyse the way in which the different design elements of a documentary coalesce to create meaning. Analysing critically, then, “suggests [evaluating] the perspectives, interests and motives of those involved in the knowledge-making, cultural creation or communication” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 79). Referring to Bransford et al. (2000), Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 79) stress the importance of metacognition, monitoring, and reflection of one’s own thinking processes, “an integral part of which is weaving between the new knowledge one

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encounters in the other knowledge processes and self-reflection about one’s own knowledge background and thinking processes.” Mills (2011, p. 35) describes this process as a cross-examination of “human intentions and vested interests in a design,” thereby considering questions of representation as well as social and economic consequences pertinent to this context. With regard to teaching and learning with film and a concept of film literacies which is inherently action- and product-oriented and which aims at communication, that is participation in discourse, the knowledge process of analysing, as presented in multiliteracies pedagogy, yields important implications for film education. Instead of favouring purely functional film analysis and stopping there, ultimately, aesthetic properties of a film always need to be seen in the context of their effect, for instance on the viewer, on the overall narrative and on the design as a whole. Kalantzis et al. state, [a] pedagogy of Multiliteracies speaks to the question of conventions or design patterns in meaning, not so students might learn their morphology or structures in a formalistic fashion, but in order to connect the conventions with their social purposes. The conventions always have purposes, and the purposes always have a cultural and situational basis. The regularities and patterns are the reason why we can make sense of them. Their unfamiliarity is what we need to deal with when we cross into new situations or social spaces. (2016, p. 226; emphasis added)

Moreover, Kellner and Share add that [students] today need the skills and disposition to engage with messages in multiple ways, especially if they are to play a role in shaping democracy. This sociological understanding of literacy can be linked to a transformative pedagogy and media education that critiques the dominant ideologies of gender, race, and class through a contextual approach. It addresses the ideological frameworks and how they operate in the cultural milieu that collectively shapes and is shaped by media and the people who engage with them. This pedagogy aims to explore complex relationships among audiences, information, entertainment, power, and ideology. (2019, p. 16)

This is in line with recent calls from scholars working in the field of film education in Germany. For instance, Anders (2016, p. 160) argues that an inductive approach to patterns of film reception is typically just as neglected

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as approaches that acknowledge the learners’ world knowledge or their ideas for contextualisation. Corroborating this line of argumentation, Abraham (2014, p. 194) warns that it does not suffice to acquire command of technical terminology but that learners should also be able to express emotions and attitudes concerned with a given film. This points to one of the central implications of a pluriliteracies approach to deeper learning as well, namely that understanding subject-specific texts, contents, and concepts can only be achieved by means of contextualisation and languaging. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that there is a need for a follow-up to analysis, if the main goal of engaging with film in language education is to be active and participation in cultural practices and global discourses autonomous.  pplying Appropriately, Applying Creatively A Applied literacies learning, or transformed practice, as it was called in earlier iterations of the multiliteracies concept, has been described as “the climax of the multiliteracies pedagogy” (Mills, 2011, p. 44). Becker and Matz (2020, p. 116) emphasise the importance of this process, saying that it is in application, “where theory becomes reflective practice (The New London Group, 1996, p. 87),” that learners demonstrate how and in how far they have understood a given genre in all its design elements and how they can now use it for their own meaning-making processes in critical and reflective ways. Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 80) differentiate between applying appropriately and applying creatively. Learners can apply appropriately, that is in predictable or ‘correct’ ways—for instance by creating their own film posters after having discussed film posters in class more or less extensively. In contrast, applying creatively “suggests a more innovative application of knowledge. For instance […] it might involve recombining design elements to create a hybrid text, or the construction of a multimodal text or ironical play upon a canonical text type” (2016, p. 80). Reflecting on the results of her classroom study, whereby the learners ultimately created their own Claymation movies, Mills (2011, p. 51) concludes that the most profound outcome of these lessons had to do with identity transformation. She writes, “sign-makers not only make new meanings, but also remake themselves through their engagement with others” (Mills, 2011, p. 51), thus confirming that meaning-making is a transformative process. Throughout these knowledge processes, learners are conceptualised as active designers of meaning who influence and shape the development of

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social futures. As such, multiliteracies pedagogy is particularly concerned with social change and the learners’ empowerment to active social and discursive participation. Kalantzis et al. (2016, p. 80) think of the four knowledge processes as “a teaching and learning repertoire” or a “repertoire of ‘epistemic moves’.” The authors suggest that pedagogy be considered a “careful process of choosing a suitable mix of ways of knowing and purposeful weaving between these different kinds of knowing” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 80). However, as has been proposed by Becker and Matz (2020) in the context of narrative design, it might prove beneficial to think of these four ‘moves’ as one coherent process, starting with experiencing a text to progressing via conceptualising and analysing and then to applying. It would appear reasonable to follow this logic, especially considering the manifold cross-­ references and interconnections between the individual knowledge processes—Mills’ (2011) study further illustrates the importance of these interconnections. Hence, when it comes to designing a concept for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom, the idea that the four knowledge processes form a coherent learning progression is worth considering. This is in line with the findings concerning the significance of experiencing film as a first step in the learning process, which emerged in this chapter. Task-Based Film Education Finally, when it comes to the practical implementation of film education in the language classroom, task-based learning has attracted much attention in recent years. Particularly Hallet’s (e.g., 2012; 2013a) concept of complex competence-oriented tasks has proven to be a highly suitable approach to developing such complex literacies as film literacies in a school setting (see, e.g., Blell et al., 2016a). The significance of a task-based approach to teaching and learning languages and other subjects at schools has been widely acknowledged in the academic discourse.9 Beckmann et al. (2016, 9  Note that approaches such as problem-posing (as discussed in the context of ecopedagogies by Misiaszek (2016, 2018) and in the context of critical media literacy by Kellner and Share (2019)—in both cases on the basis of Freirean transformative pedagogy) and exemplary learning (discussed as an alternative to target country/target culture teaching in the context of GCE-informed approaches to language education by Römhild and Gaudelli (2022)) have been described in Chap. 3 as being highly compatible with task-based language learning.

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p. 65) note that tasks initiate active application of knowledge (“handelnder Umgang mit Wissen”) and that the general orientation towards discursive10 learning products therefore allows for nuanced, challenging, and learner-centred negotiation of meaning. While especially Hallet’s concept of complex competence-oriented tasks has been described and used extensively by scholars for years and thus does not need to be repeated here in detail, there are three aspects worth mentioning in this context, which particularly apply to film education. Firstly, some authors have consistently promoted the pre-, while-, and post-activity paradigm for engaging with film in the language classroom, most notably Carola Surkamp (2004a, 2004b, 2009). Although, upon first sight, the pre-, while-, post-activity paradigm could be regarded as an alternative to Hallet’s concept, one could argue that, upon closer inspection, pre-, while-, post-activities could also be considered a possible configuration or step arrangement within the scope of a complex competence-oriented task. As such, they would fit the category of “task construction” in Blell and Surkamp’s (2016, p. 20) concept for complex tasks in film education. Secondly, an extended notion of competence, as advocated by Hallet in his concept of complex competence-oriented tasks and which would also approximate the literacies concept favoured in this text, necessitates the reconsideration and possible revision of the relationship between receptive skills and aspects of (communicative) production or learner agency. While it might seem viable to distinguish between receptive and productive processes, as in the case of some of the literacy areas discussed in the previous section from a description and (academic) analysis perspective, it quickly becomes apparent that, in practice, receptive and productive processes constantly feed into each other, creating a continuous loop of learning progression. Walberg (2007, p.  34) warns that exclusively focusing on analysis and understanding might impede educational processes. Consider the example provided by Lütge (2012, p. 101), who suggests a list of ten ideal steps for the development of audio-visual literacy: (1) building motivation, (2) introducing important vocabulary and providing background 10  A learning product can be described as ‘discursive’ if it sparks the need for communication, negotiation, or presentation. For instance, the completion of a gap-filling activity with ‘correct’ solutions would not be considered a discursive learning product, unless the activity (including the text and the solutions) was created by the students themselves and would therefore need to be presented, discussed, and negotiated.

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information, (3) establishing transparency with regard to the first task (viewing for general understanding; viewing for gist), (4) viewing for the first time, (5) discussing and presenting answers related to the task in step 3, (6) establishing transparency with regard to the second task (viewing for specific information; viewing for detailed understanding), (7) viewing for the second time, (8) discussing and presenting answers related to the task in step 6, (9) optional third time viewing, and (10) post-viewing activities. In terms of meaningful production and application by the students, only step 10 would provide the learners with an opportunity to engage with the films actively. Steps 5 and 8 could count as language production, but both are more concerned with reproduction rather than meaningful, autonomous communication. Thus, instead of thinking of film literacies as “either in a receptive or in a productive mode” (Viebrock, 2016, p. 17), the argumentation put forth here subscribes to those notions that represent more integrated approaches to reception and production in film education. Thirdly, the notion of genre-based learning (e.g., Hallet, 2011, 2013a, b, 2016a) should also be considered in the scope of a multiliteracies-­ informed approach to teaching and learning with narrative formats of communication, such as eco-documentaries, if these are conceptualised as multimodal designs and works of faction. Genre-based learning can be located in a functional literacies pedagogy. In this context, genre is defined as “a kind of text that serves a particular social purpose” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 147)—reflecting a Sidney School approach to genre as discussed earlier. Further, genre-based pedagogy explores and highlights the manifold ways in which “different types of text are structured to serve different purposes” (Kalantzis et  al., 2016, p.  147). Hallet (2011, p.  2) explains that the basic premise of this approach works on the assumption that communication is, in essence, a conventionalised, structured, and rule-­abiding form of social interaction. Against the background of ever-­changing sociocultural generic conventions—as exemplified by the history of (eco-)documentary—scholars of the New London Group would suggest that a genre approach be seen as “the opposite of grammar” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 148), as it focuses primarily on the purpose of an entire text rather than the separate parts of a text. With genre-based learning being firmly based in functional literacies pedagogy, there is a large analytical component to it, for instance, when conceptualising and analysing generic patterns of films. Thus, to not overemphasise receptive-­analytical skills in the learning process, it is important to consider this approach within the scope of a

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broader multiliteracies pedagogy, which ultimately aims at social-discursive participation through application and active meaning-making. A text therefore needs to be viewed in context, focusing on meaning and function rather than exclusively on its characteristics. Six Principles and Four Knowledge Processes In summary, while there is comparatively little research available on the actual design of the learning process when engaging with (documentary) film in the language classroom, some approaches enrich the discussion, not only within the discourse on film education but also from broader pedagogical areas. For a start, pluriliteracies-informed design principles help educators assign central, active roles to their learners, who, in turn, are acknowledged as the protagonists of their own learning processes. These principles apply to general pedagogy but are particularly suited for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries if these are conceptualised as multimodal designs. Building on this foundation, this section has introduced the New London Group’s notion of four knowledge processes as a way of structuring or designing the learning process itself. With an inherent focus on the learners as active designers and by highlighting the importance of situated practice or experiencing as well as transformative practice or application, multiliteracies pedagogy offers a variety of possible entry points when designing a concept of teaching and learning with eco-­ documentaries. Within the educational discourse in Germany, notions of task-based and genre-based language learning prove to be highly compatible with both pluriliteracies and multiliteracies pedagogies and promise to do justice to the idea that film literacies comprise a multitude of literacies. Considering these deliberations, it is possible to conceptualise a learning process that is inherently geared towards participation, action, immersion, application, and communication.

Summary Concluding the analysis of the film educational discourse, three main observations can be derived. The first has to do with the general orientation of existing concepts in film education; the second deals with the literacies associated with teaching and learning film; and the third observation focuses on the learning process itself.

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With regard to the general orientation of existing concepts in film education, it has been found that although many concepts have been designed to promote active and productive engagement with films, there is still a rather distinct focus on film reception, film analysis, and an understanding of aesthetics. Comparing concepts of film education over the years, action and product orientation have attracted more and more attention. However, with regard to teaching and learning with documentary film, the prevalence of receptive skills and aesthetic competence development is striking. In light of the still dominant understanding that learners need to be able to unveil the manipulative strategies of a given documentary, this might not be a surprising outcome of the analysis. Nonetheless, it is an outcome in dire need of further discussion when it comes to designing a concept for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. A number of ideas discussed thus far strongly suggest that alternative conceptions regarding documentaries being manipulative texts are worth considering. Among these ideas are, to name but an important few, the notion that these films are works of faction; the appreciation of experiencing documentary film is an integral part of the learning process, which includes its far-reaching repercussions for the role of the learners; and it is a process geared towards the development of discourse literacies, which involves an orientation towards application, immersion, action, and production. In the context of literacies development with films and the literacies associated with this process, an array of literacies has been identified in the concepts discussed in this chapter. However, no singular concept accounts for all the literacies at the same time. It is important to note, though, that conceptualising film literacies is a process that is closely tied to the development of the medium itself. As such, the literacy areas included in a notion of film literacies are multimodal, communicative, narrative, aesthetic, genre, digital, cultural, ecological, and critical. While concrete notions of some of these areas certainly need revision when it comes to designing a concept for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in language education, it can already be noted that these literacies deserve recognition in such a concept. Surveying the state of research on (documentary) film, there are three areas in particular which need to be revisited. Firstly, the role of multimodality and multimodal literacies has not yet been clarified definitively. Overall, the concepts demonstrate a prevalence of audio-visual and visual literacies, which, again, fits the primacy of traditional aesthetic film analysis. Contemporary eco-documentaries, however, do not work exclusively

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via audio-visual channels. Secondly, in terms of communicative literacies development with films, there are only a few insights offered into how this might actually work in practice. One concrete idea is based on the BICS/CALP paradigm which, in light of the suggestions of a pluriliteracies approach and general literacies pedagogy, must be re-evaluated rather critically. Thirdly, the role of cultural learning with films still needs to be clarified. Some scholars highlight the importance of cultural learning with all films, whereas others call into question the suitability of a cultural film studies approach in some contexts—which, in the scope of Viebrock’s (2016) concept, would exclude eco-documentaries. In terms of the design of the actual learning process with eco-­ documentaries, there are almost no direct hints to be extrapolated from current conceptualisations of film education. In those that exist, the learning process is designed with a strong focus on reception and only very little space is allowed for meaningful interaction and production, although calls for a change have become increasingly loud in recent years. However, with a pluriliteracies approach to deeper learning and multiliteracies pedagogy, two notions have been discussed which promise possible starting points, thereby highlighting the important role of experiencing film and learner agency in the learning process.

CHAPTER 6

The Framework

In an attempt to move towards designing a concept for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries, the previous chapters have sought conceptual answers to the central question of how two seemingly contradictory learning objectives associated with eco-documentaries can be made congruent. On the one hand, learners should be encouraged to learn about climate change, to acknowledge their own interdependencies and interconnectedness in the world, and to develop an awareness for their own role in tackling the challenge through the use of eco-documentaries in class. On the other hand, the current discourse on teaching and learning with documentaries revolves around learning objectives which aim at the development of critical media literacies, enabling the learners to detect and reflect on strategies of viewer ‘manipulation’ in these films. A concept which is ready to use in practice needs to address this issue. To that end, the following paragraphs establish a baseline, relating the findings from the discussion of film educational constructs (Chap. 5) to those gained from the discussion of ecoliteracies (Chap. 3) and the film studies analysis of documentary (Chap. 4). The film studies analysis conducted in Chap. 4 has led to four key insights:

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Römhild, Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education, Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44674-0_6

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• Any given eco-documentary can be thought of as a work of faction. • A documentary makes an argument about the reality presented by it. • Eco-documentaries are defined by a dynamic process that includes circumstances of their production, distribution, and reception. • Eco-documentaries can be conceptualised as multimodal designs. In terms of education with and about documentary films, these four findings carry far-reaching implications which can no longer be separated and formulated as individual, independent statements. Rather, these implications translate into intertwined approaches that underlie and pervade various aspects of teaching and learning with documentaries, such as the learners’ role in the learning process, the literacies involved, or the design of the learning process itself. This is indicated in Table 6.1, which is an extension of Table 4.1 (Chap. 4, p. 212). Building on the ideas discussed in Chap. 2, the development of discourse literacies is paramount, since these enable learners to relate documentaries as discourse fragments, that is positions situated in the (global) discourse, to other fragments within the same and adjacent discourses. Crucially, however, the previous chapters have proposed an alternative understanding of both documentary film and documentary film education: Documentaries need to be appreciated as works of faction, and the storytelling aspects of documentary films also need to be taken seriously—and, with it, aspects of fascination and emotions. Becker and Matz (2020, p.  107) remind their readers of the fact that humans are a storytelling species (homo narrans; see Niles, 1999). It is a curious thought that the need to tell stories should not extend to documentary films as well—albeit storytelling with facts. Factoring in the idea that documentaries are multimodal designs and the multilateral way in which meaning is constructed when learners engage with these films, it becomes apparent that product- and action-oriented approaches are needed, in order to do justice to these complex texts. This represents a compelling argument for the consideration of multiliteracies pedagogy when it comes to designing lesson sequences with eco-­documentaries. With multiliteracies pedagogy and related notions, such as the pluriliteracies approach for deeper learning, comes the realisation that learning needs to go beyond traditional film analysis, which largely focuses on receptive abilities. Too strong an emphasis on film reception in the learning process carries not only a great risk of recurring to the antiquated misconception that learners need to dismantle the manipulative attempts exerted by documentaries but also the risk of ignoring the participatory potential associated with the idea that learners are active designers. These insights can, of course, be embedded in

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Table 6.1  A film education perspective: key insights on teaching and learning with (eco-)documentaries Insights

Implications

Implications for Teaching and Learning with (Eco-) Documentaries

Documentary as a work of faction

Documentaries tell stories, which are based on facts. They do so by means of strategies traditionally associated with fiction, such as dramaturgy, plot, characters, and narration. Documentaries are not defined by the binary between fiction and non-fiction. In that documentaries tell stories, cinematic form is inextricably linked to function, that is the argument made by the film.

Learning needs to be action- and product-­oriented.

Documentary as Documentary is purposive. It is not a an argument about representation of reality but instead reality makes an argument about the version of reality presented by it. Documentary as a mode of reception

Documentary is not only defined by the circumstances of its production and distribution but also by the process of its reception and the unique viewing experience (Filmerleben). The viewers are active recipients, and sometimes even prosumers, in that they actively shape (or re-design) the genre in a circular, dialogical process.

Documentary as In line with the notion of active multimodal design recipients, this idea highlights the agency of the recipients in the meaning-making process. Any given documentary creates meaning in multimodal ways, also through the mixing modes (synaesthesia). True understanding and interaction between recipients and the film is the result of a process of immersion and application, which enables the viewers or learners to be active participants in the (global) discourse.

The learners are designers and protagonists of their own learning processes. The learning process is characterised by the integration of subject-­ oriented and object-oriented approaches to experiencing film. Film literacies are a complex construct consist of multiple literacies (multimodal, narrative, communicative, aesthetic, genre, digital, cultural, ecological, critical). Meaningful interaction with documentary film can be achieved through competence-oriented tasks. A balance between (subjectand object-oriented) film reception and productive engagement with films (communication and film-related products).

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what has been discussed in Chap. 3 as a GCE-framing of English language education for sustainable development: Communication and agency are key when it comes to the preparation of learners as global citizens, that is as active participants in global discourses and societies. While the nature of pedagogical antinomies may never be truly resolved, a concept of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in a constructive way, which is rooted in the findings gathered thus far, could help approach the antinomies between environmental awareness and critical media consumption, normativity and criticism, subjectivity and objectivity, and emotion and cognition. Thus, with the preconditions established from both a film studies perspective and a film education perspective, it is now time to design a concept for teaching and learning with eco-­documentaries, which could help educators turn these theoretical deliberations into practice. Based on the deliberations presented in the previous chapter, the following sections set out to take up and interweave all the argumentative threads woven thus far. In an effort to provide educators with guidance for the design of learning scenarios with and about eco-documentary films, the next section presents a design for the use of eco-documentaries in the English language classroom. Subsequently, the components of the design are explained in more detail, with the discussion focusing on the main objectives and key principles as well as elaborating on the learning process and the literacies involved in it. Throughout this chapter, the eco-­ documentary A Life on Our Planet is used for illustrating possible tasks and activities. This includes a discussion of the four knowledge processes: experiencing, conceptualising, analysing, and applying by way of the design of a complex task to demonstrate how the framework may be used to cultivate GCE in the language classroom (and beyond).

Creating the Framework To answer the question how teaching and learning processes with eco-­ documentaries might be envisioned, a variety of related disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, geography, literary studies, film studies, environmental studies, and educational studies were considered. In line with what Kuna (n.d.; see Delanoy et al., 2015, p. 8) refers to as post-theory, this approach was characterised by multi-perspectivity in terms of theoretical concepts and notions. Delanoy, Eisenmann, and Matz describe post-theory as follows: “Whereas in the past different theories vied with each other for superiority over other positions, a post-theoretical stance aims to combine different

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perspectives” (Delanoy et  al., 2015, p.  8). This multi-perspective, almost dialogical approach to engaging with theories allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the complexity of the examined phenomena, concepts, and objects at hand; and it is particularly valuable in the context of (language) educational theory, where theoretical precision oftentimes grapples with the more ambiguous realities of classroom practice. Only through a post-theoretical stance can different, almost opposing notions of criticality be reconciled and made applicable to the classroom, such as the Frankfurt School and Freirean positions. In the same vein, the acknowledgement and postulation of human rights as a meta-discourse for reflection in the context of critical discourse literacies is only possible if one seeks productive dialogue between a normative educational task and Foucault’s theories on discourse, which would strongly caution against the prioritisation of any one discourse over others. Arguably, the antinomy between normativity and criticism, which presents itself when using eco-documentaries in the language classroom, can only be dissolved via a post-theoretical approach. In pedagogical contexts, once again and within reason, dialogue and multiperspectivity are key to overcoming theoretical impasses. Much like is the case with documentaries to face insinuated claims of truth to the text form, in the interest of the greatest level of transparency possible, such an approach necessitates reflections on a researcher’s subjectivity and the effects of the circular approach in the hermeneutic tradition. The arguments presented in this thesis reflect the author’s own perspective and cognitive interests and therefore must be acknowledged as such. In the spirit of GCE and critical discourse literacies, I will therefore reflect on my own positionality within the world and its discourses. As a researcher from Germany, my perspective has inevitably been influenced by my turn-­ of-­the-millennium European experience and socialisation (both personal and academic), one might even say by European or Western ideals, worldviews, and privileges. Thus, my understanding of concepts such as GCE, interculturality, and global interconnectedness has been shaped by my personal and academic ‘upbringing’ and may differ vastly from what others with different biographies may make of the concepts. In light of this evident subjectivity, this book’s narrative patterns of explanation must be laid open: Neo-liberal visions on GCE have been excluded, for the sake of a more focused discussion of liberal, cosmopolitan, and ecological approaches (see Chap. 3), and eco-documentaries produced in mere anglophone contexts have been considered—two choices that had to be made in this book (see the discussion led in the introduction). Furthermore,

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the principles of the hermeneutic circle, that is the notion that the chronology of steps taken inevitably influences one’s understanding and interpretation of subsequent texts, were followed. As such, the sequence of steps described above most certainly have had an impact on the designing process and the product of this book. In this context, another possible confounding variable is what Volkmann (2016, p. 232) describes as the hermeneutic circle turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy with the researcher experiencing confirmation of their own bias when reading and interpreting texts: Suddenly every text on documentary films seems to substantiate arguments for social participation and a broader concept of citizenship within the conceptual boundaries of critical discourse literacies, one of the fundamental concepts of this thesis. To mitigate these effects, I tried to consistently adopt a reflected, dialectical approach that involved the consideration of a variety of perspectives of scholars, practitioners, and other experts (for instance, filmmakers) on a given topic, in order to arrive at theoretically sound, robust proposals and solutions. This was the case, for instance, in the discussion of ICC and the suggestion to assume a dialogical understanding, which is reflected and encapsulated in the use of the term cultural literacies rather than inter- or transcultural competence. The Designing Process and the Outcome Despite these potential limitations, the theoretical deliberations presented in this text have culminated in a design of a framework for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom. Figure 6.1 shows the final product, which integrates the various steps of concept formation illustrated throughout this book in Figs. 3.1, 4.1, and 5.1, and which adds suggestions for the design of the learning process in the form of the infinity-shaped loop of knowledge processes. This design illustrates and provides a lucid yet comprehensible concept for the use of eco-documentaries in English language classrooms, which may serve as a guideline for practitioners planning learning scenarios. The infinity sign-shaped design draws on work in multiliteracies pedagogy and the New London Group’s identification of four knowledge processes (e.g., Kalantzis et  al., 2016, p.  73), as well as the suggestion of thinking about these knowledge processes as a sequence of learning. A possible drawback of this decision, in combination with a two-dimensional form of representation, is, of course, that the multiple interrelations and parallelisms of the knowledge processes cannot be displayed without

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Fig. 6.1  A framework for teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom

further complicating the design. Therefore, this needs to be explicated in written form. On the other hand, however, this framework prevents hierarchisation: cultural literacies are just as important as communicative literacies, and processes of experiencing film are as important as processes of analysing film. Throughout this discussion, it has been stressed that the aspects and processes included in the framework are far too complex to be achieved within one lesson unit. It has also been argued that there is no real sense of completeness within the literacies concept since it aims at empowering learners to actively participate in discourses and society which constantly change. As such, the framework may be understood within the context of a spiralling curriculum: It represents but one possible iteration of engaging with eco-documentaries in the school context over a longer period of time. Over the course of a learner’s career at school, eco-documentaries may be occasionally revisited—or other texts that are part of the web of significance, in the sense of an intertextual approach to teaching and learning. Thus, learners may continue to develop increasingly complex literacies, perhaps focusing more on experiencing films on some occasions, while, at other times, film analysis and contextualisation are more of a priority, without ever reaching the level of perfecting them. As such, it remains a matter of life-long learning.

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Working with the Framework Identifying a set of antinomies connected with the classroom use of eco-­ documentaries served as the starting point for discussion in this book. Based on the juxtaposition of normative environmental and critical film-­ related learning objectives between emotional, subject-oriented and cognitive, object-oriented approaches to working with these films, as well as between construction and deconstruction, the central question asks how these seemingly contradicting notions and learning objectives can be brought into congruence. While the previous parts of this volume have sought answers to this question from a theoretical point of view, this section sets out to illustrate how these conceptual and theoretical deliberations might be translated into teaching and learning practice, in other words, how the framework may be applied. Main Objectives and Key Principles When working with the framework, it might be a good start to recall the conceptual suggestions that inform the inner circles of the design. The ability to participate in global discourses in a critical and self-reflective way has been identified as the superordinate objective of language education. Based on the understanding of critical discourse literacies worked out in Chap. 2, this ability entails an understanding of the origin, perspective, and purpose of knowledge and discourse fragments—such as an eco-­ documentary—as well as the ability to reflect different positions featured in the discourse, on the value basis provided by the human rights framework, including one’s own subjectivity and positionality. In the context of eco-documentaries, this ability incorporates both ecoliteracies and film literacies. The answer to the central question and the dissolution of the antinomies lies in the suggested conceptualisation of critical discourse literacies: It is not an either-or decision between normativity and criticism; rather, it is the combination and confirmation of both, which is not only possible but also necessary when using eco-­documentaries in the classroom to cultivate a sense of global interconnectedness, global citizenship, and shared responsibility. Criticism requires a normative framework from which to launch critical examination and perspectives. At the same time, normativity without criticality runs the risk of leading to indoctrination. This relationship is reflected in the conceptualisation of ecoliteracies and film literacies, both of which contain critical and

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normative elements. Therefore, discourse literacies are thought of as all-­ embracing, containing both ecoliteracies and film literacies. Ecoliteracies have been defined in terms of three dimensions: the functional, the critical, and the cultural dimension. Functional ecoliteracies refer to the cultivation of systemic thinking, which includes the development of knowledge and the acquisition of communicative means to talk about ecological issues. In a slightly different yet related sense, it also refers to the social purpose of eco-documentaries. The distinction of critical ecoliteracies corroborates the idea that criticality is an integral part of ecoliteracies, which could otherwise easily be written off as too normative. The critical dimension entails the idea of engaging in critical viewing and posing questions to the films that have to do with their ecological footand mindprints—much in the sense of conventional critical film analysis. However, it also includes moral and ethical elements having to do with socio-environmental justice, which are aimed at societal transformation in the Freirean sense. Cultural ecoliteracies have been defined in terms of a dialogical approach in the sense of Delanoy (e.g., 2012, 2022). On the basis of an understanding of culture as the result of everyday discursive practice, which includes ideas of fluidity, hybridity, and dynamism, critical eco-cosmopolitan global citizenship education has been promoted as the framework for approaching the cultural dimension of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. This allows for the integration of both normative and critical elements: normative in the sense that human rights, a sense of global interconnectedness (e.g., by risk or hope), and shared responsibility form the foundation for learners’ engagement with eco-­ documentaries; critical in the sense that this engagement can never happen without critically reflecting on one’s own subjectivity and positionality on and across various scales or concentric circles of belonging and against the background of a normative educational framework. Film literacies, the second area, have been described as a conglomerate of multiple literacies, both in terms of reception and production. Due to the multimodal nature of eco-documentaries as factional texts, the term ‘film literacies’ betrays the complexity of a concept which includes areas such as communicative literacies, narrative literacies, aesthetic literacies, genre literacies, digital literacies, multimodal literacies, and cultural literacies. Importantly, film literacies are not merely theorised as an analytical, receptive category but rather in terms of action and product orientation, geared towards active discourse participation and communicative agency.

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Both ecoliteracies and film literacies are conceptualised as aiming at participation in discourse and society. For language education, this translates into communication as active citizenship. Thus, both areas are indispensable elements of critical discourse literacies in language education with and about eco-documentaries. From this definition of the target dimensions, key principles geared towards the cultivation and development of these literacy areas can be extrapolated. Consistent with the general structure of this book, the first key principle discussed here focuses on environmentally oriented language education based on the conceptual connections between ESD, GCE, and HRE, thus answering Küchler’s (2014, 2021) call for a conceptual and methodological framework for language education regarding sustainable development. On a theoretical and conceptual level, my proposal applies a GCE-informed framework, which relies on a hybrid understanding of culture as explicated above in the context of the cultural dimension of ecoliteracies. With the notion of culture being an everyday construct of discursive practice, the central elements and objectives of this vision of education are the promotion of a sense of global interconnectedness and shared responsibility. The metaphors of the walk within and the journey outside (Gaudelli, 2017) offer the possibility to assume a critical eco-­ cosmopolitan perspective of the world—with normativity and criticism, once more, complementing and relating to each other. With this, a prioritisation of national and neo-liberal scales, scapes, and ideas can be overcome—both of which have been criticised in terms of education and cultural learning as well as in the context of ESD. Instead, the two metaphors highlight the necessity to acknowledge that all scales matter equally. This indicates that the scaling and negotiation of perspectives on and across scales are fundamentally important for environmental learning. On a methodological level, the connection between ESD, GCE, and HRE yields concrete proposals for the classroom. Against the background of viewing all concentric circles as equally important, target group orientation and relevance to everyday life remain two crucial aspects in the design of the learning process and lesson planning. There needs to be room for self-reflection, and learners should be encouraged to develop an awareness of their own positionality and subjectivity within the world and with regard to the discourses on climate change. To achieve this, learning needs to be action-oriented, with meaningful, complex tasks initiating dialogue and communication as well as changes of perspectives over and across multiple scales of belonging. Problem-posing (e.g., Freire, 2000;

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Misiaszek, 2018) and exemplary learning (e.g., Römhild & Gaudelli, 2022) may help students engage with increasingly complex examples and phenomena over time, in the sense of a spiralling curriculum, thereby enabling them to develop the necessary critical thinking skills and literacies. Arguably, these principles are well known and certainly do not mark groundbreaking innovation. However, being able to apply them in lesson design and then translate them into educational praxis is a question of framing learning processes in such a way that critical eco-cosmopolitan global citizenship may be cultivated. When it comes to eco-documentaries as texts, two more fundamental principles have been distinguished. The first one is to view (eco-)documentaries as multimodal designs, which yield numerous implications for how to approach and understand these films. It has been proposed to conceptualise eco-documentaries as being embedded within their media milieu (Weber, 2019) and intertextual web of significance: An eco-­ documentary is not only constituted by the actual moving pictures but also by everything contributing to the design, such as trailers, cast, merchandise, promotion, interviews—from production to distribution to reception. This realisation warrants the orientation towards multiliteracies pedagogy and semiotics-informed approaches to teaching and learning with eco-documentaries. Second, from both the evolution of documentary and its relation to reality and genre, it becomes clear that documentary films cannot be defined on the basis of binary distinctions between fiction and non-fiction or objectivity and bias. Rather, documentary film is an extremely complex genre that can be characterised as narration with facts. In short, eco-documentaries can be considered factional texts which present arguments about reality or, to be more precise, the version(s) of reality depicted and referenced in them. Together, the main objectives and key principles outline a framework that may prove to be helpful in conceptualising and planning the teaching with and learning processes regarding eco-documentaries. In particular, the adoption of a GCE perspective carries wide-ranging curricular implications: If the idea of ESD (in all its dimensions) as a cross-cutting theme of education is thought out consistently, GCE becomes a directive for the entire orientation of ELE. As a whole, the framework presented here therefore aims at a change in mindset, first in educators, then in learners. In other words, on a curricular level, a walk within and an internal transformation complement a journey outside and external transformation.

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Literacies Development with A Life on Our Planet From the main objectives and key principles arise a number of implications for the learning process, in terms of the literacy areas involved as well as the conceptualisation and design of the process proper. For a start, the discussion has indicated that the reception process plays a major role in meaning-making with eco-documentaries. Learners need to be allowed to experience eco-documentaries and express the emotions they felt while viewing these films. Reflecting on the experience and giving learners the chance to engage with their emotions is a first step towards taking them seriously as active agents in the meaning-making process and should thus be incorporated into learning sequences with and about eco-­ documentaries. Furthermore, developing the ability to conceptualise or theorise about the films as multimodal designs of meaning-making and factional texts is important when it comes to building proficiency in terms of films and cinematography, ecology and sustainability, and language— including the languages necessary to communicate about film/cinematography and ecology/sustainability. In addition, critical analysis and contextualisation remain integral parts of dealing with films in the English language classroom. However, the arguments presented here strongly suggest that analysis and contextualisation cannot be viewed as separate processes but need to be thought of in an integrative manner, particularly in light of objectives associated with cultural learning as a crucial element of GCE.  Films are inherently cultural artefacts and should consistently be taken seriously as such. Finally, the development of discourse literacies and the cultivation of global citizenship clearly require learning that is action-oriented and geared towards application, agency, and communication—in short, active participation in discourse and society is essential. These four elements, experiencing, conceptualising, analysing, and applying, are what Kalantzis et al. (e.g., 2016, p. 73) define as the four knowledge processes of meaning-making, which sit at the core of multiliteracies pedagogy. Multiliteracies pedagogy has been identified throughout the discussion as a highly suitable approach to teaching and learning, which revolves around the development of a multitude of literacies involved in the various processes of meaning-making. Its high compatibility with the ideas and arguments presented in this thesis, particularly to GCE, is expressed in terms of conceptualising the digital not merely as an add-on to our lives but as pervading and constituting our lifeworlds and those of the learners.

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It is further expressed in terms of the design of learning environments and its conceptual proximity to pluriliteracies approaches for deeper learning (e.g., Meyer et al., 2015a, b, 2018). Moreover, it allows for the design of learning environments that are suitable for task-based language learning, which includes problem-posing and exemplary learning as concrete steps towards literacies development. Notably, multiliteracies pedagogy has been discussed in the context of an orientation towards social participation and a broader notion of citizenship. Applied to the language classroom specifically, the focus is on meaning-making in a language context, with social participation being realised through language, communication, and participation in discourse—in short, through the development of response-­ ability and discourse literacies, global citizenship can be cultivated. To that end, each of the four processes, experiencing, conceptualising, analysing, and applying, involves a multitude of literacies. Literacies are understood as cultural techniques of the twenty-first century. In a language educational context, this means that language and communication are always considered to be part of the individual literacy areas. It is important to note that these literacy areas cannot be considered separately or independently from one another; rather, they pervade and mutually reinforce one another. While the four knowledge processes described above may be conceived as individual processes that form part of an educator’s repertoire for lesson design, they may also be understood as complementary to one another. Conceptualised as a sequence, the four meaning-making processes arguably form a natural progression of learning which, in the context of teaching and learning with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom, culminates in the application and participation in discourse. This is illustrated in the infinity shape featured in Fig. 6.1, which may be interpreted as starting with ‘experiencing’ and then progressing via conceptualising and analysing towards applying. It is important to recall that this design depicts but one possible iteration of the learning process with eco-documentaries. It is not meant to be static: The knowledge processes may occur in a different order, or one or a few may be subjected to a more focused discussion and literacy development, depending on the learning group and circumstances. They may also run in parallel, with learning scenarios and complex tasks incorporating and mixing activities associated with various knowledge processes. For instance, it is almost impossible to separate (subconscious) processes of conceptualising and theorising from experiencing an eco-documentary, as learners will automatically connect

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what they experience to what they already know. Trying to make sense of it, they will assess the information on the basis of the topic-related theories they have formed so far (i.e., their world knowledge and their convictions at that point). Every meaning-making process may be connected to every other process. This idea is implied by the use of transitioning colours between the four processes in the illustration. In the same vein, all the literacies involved in this design may be regarded as integrated and intertwined. As such, teaching and learning with eco-documentaries, as envisaged in this argumentation, is characterised by integrative literacy development. In what follows, the eco-documentary A Life on our Planet is used to illustrate how the framework may be applied in possible learning scenarios.1 Each meaning-making process is discussed in terms of its significance for the development of an ability to participate in global discourses on climate change and thus for the cultivation of global citizenship in the English language classroom. In addition, this section includes an example for a more complex task (in the sense of Hallet, 2012, 2013a), which illustrates the interplay of various literacies and meaning-making processes in a progression geared towards social and discursive participation in the sense of GCE and critical discourse literacies.  owards a Sense of Agency: Experiencing A Life on Our Planet T The documentary A Life on Our Planet—or rather its design elements— open(s) a number of possibilities for focusing on the film experience in English language classrooms. When experiencing the eco-documentary, learners require and develop multimodal literacies to enter the dialogue with the text and become active agents in the meaning-making process through a variety of modes, including a combination of these modes. This 1  In this context, it is not necessary to repeat or even re-invent formulations for expectations and objectives associated with film literacy areas, as a comprehensive list of these target formulations has been provided by Blell et al. (2016b, pp. 31–51) for their competence areas of analysing film, designing film, contextualising film, and film-related communication. This list can also be applied to the use of eco-documentaries in the English language classroom, albeit with a few minor adaptations in the area of contextualising film: using film for inter−/ transcultural learning (Blell et al., 2016b, p. 49), which needs to be based on the understanding that cultures are hybrid and consistently dynamic. Thus, formulations like “perspectives from foreign cultures” or “culture-specific” would always need to be conceptualised as de-­ territorialised—or avoided altogether—so as to avoid even the possibility for binary conceptions of cultures based on national identities and the myopic distinction of self and other.

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is closely connected to the development of aesthetic and genre literacies. For instance, the film trailer could be used in various ways for a first engagement with the eco-documentary. It is characterised by high-quality production in terms of sound, visuals, and narrative. Reminiscent of Hollywood blockbuster movie trailers, it aims at evoking emotions and sparking interest. To enable reflection on the emotionalising effect of the trailer, learners could be asked to experience it with different foci: One group could be asked to watch the trailer without sound, only experiencing the visuals, while others could only listen to the audio tape. Experiencing the two modes of meaning-making in isolation yields great potential for communicative exchange, especially in comparison to the combined effect of audio-visual meanings. In combination with multimodal literacies, these two approaches help learners to recognise cinematographic effects, for instance, in terms of noticing a discrepancy between expectations of the textual properties of a documentary film and Hollywood-esque cinematography, which is characteristic for many contemporary eco-­ documentaries. Depending on the learners’ prior knowledge and experiences as well as previously held expectations (e.g., with regard to the form and function of film trailers), they might feel various emotions (e.g., anticipation, excitement, or even disappointment, should the Hollywood-­ esque trailer not confirm their expectations for documentary film trailers) and build up different follow-up expectations to the eco-documentary. Communicative literacies, then, are necessary to understand and follow the story told by the film. Likewise, the isolated soundtrack (available online and via streaming services) could be used to spark communication, for instance, about how the use of emotionalising melodic arrangements corresponds with the meaning of titles for individual songs (e.g., “Mistakes” or “Within Our Power”; Price, 2020). Becoming aware of one’s own feelings and reactions, expressing and exchanging these emotions and the subsequent expectations are first steps towards acknowledging one’s own agency in the meaning-making process. While criticality has oftentimes been portrayed as the opposite of a more holistic notion of experiencing film, which reflects full immersion in situated practice (e.g., Viebrock, 2016), the idea that media, including eco-documentaries, are never neutral may already serve as a starting point for discussion while viewing these films (for the first time). Ecodocumentaries tell stories rather than neutrally portraying facts. Hence, when discussing this idea, experiencing and (critically) analysing are rather closely connected. Criticality also plays a role in terms of the development

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of cultural literacies. As early as the stage of experiencing film, learners can become aware of culturally inflected meaning-making, starting with an awareness of their own socio-cultural backgrounds, which informs the way they interpret or interact with eco-documentaries. Following the idea of the journey outside, that is tracing these experiences out in increasingly wider circles, learners could start exchanging the ideas and impressions gained from engaging with eco-documentaries with their classmates or other agents at their school. In terms of ecological literacies, eco-documentaries invite learners to reflect on their experiences as part of an ecosystem, starting with their immediate environments, the classroom, the school, and the local community (both human and nonhuman). The significance of experiencing eco-documentaries as a part of literacies development in the language classroom has been derived from multiple insights gained throughout the discussion led in this thesis. From a film studies perspective, experiencing eco-documentary films highlights the role of the viewers, that is the learners. Learners are no longer conceptualised as passive recipients, but they are now considered to be active agents in the dialogical, dynamic process of meaning-making. With the learners becoming the centre of attention as active agents in the learning process, experiencing film can also be rooted in the importance of the self in global citizenship education, as argued in Chap. 3. Situated practice and experiencing eco-documentaries can be powerful first steps towards self-­ reflection on one’s own subjectivity and positionality in the discourse on climate change, and it can thus lead to the generation of communicative acts. As such, experiencing film is particularly suited for the first phases of engaging with eco-documentaries in the classroom, as it allows learners to become self-aware and active in the learning process. Experiencing may also serve as a focus area for an extended learning scenario that concentrates on the emotional effect of eco-documentaries and which revolves around the discussion of normativity in these films. Notably, the experience gained by engaging with eco-documentaries pervades all other knowledge processes: While viewing a film scene or even witnessing the making of a documentary first-hand, learners constantly connect the experience to already established experiences, knowledge, and understandings of the world. For instance, they might consciously or subconsciously start to conceptualise or analyse a scene of an eco-documentary against the background of their film and world knowledge, their beliefs and expectations, and their own subjective theories about film.

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 iodiversity and Storytelling: Conceptualising with A Life on Our Planet B In the case of A Life on Our Planet, tasks and activities aimed at conceptualising the film and its contents could focus on questions revolving around biodiversity and systemic thinking. Sir Attenborough remarks that “[we] need to rediscover how to be sustainable, to move from being apart from nature to being a part of nature once again” (in Scholey et al., 2020, 1:12:30–1:12:41). This quote could be used as a vantage point for inquiry into what “being a part of nature” means from the point of view of humankind’s embeddedness in its environments. Tasks could also focus on strategies mentioned in the film to keep and enhance biodiversity. These tasks could follow the principles of problem-posing and exemplary learning, for instance, in the shape of a mystery (e.g., Freitag-Hild & Stobel, 2019) where learners have to reconstruct a certain line of argumentation or a chronology of events from an initial statement to a given outcome. This could always be paired with a more creative, solution-­oriented activity such as identifying crucial tipping points in the story and suggesting alternative storylines or lines of argumentation, or proposing ideas that would continue the mystery and guide the narrative towards a re-wilding of the world. Of course, the film as a factional text can also become the centre of attention. For instance, after watching the trailer, a scene, or the entire motion picture, the learners could be asked to formulate three recollections, two insights, and one question they may have about the kinds of cinematographic techniques and strategies that were used to tell a story in A Life on Our Planet. Multimodal literacies play a vital role in the naming and theorising of different modes of meaning-making used when engaging with these films. Likewise, aesthetic and genre literacies include the abilities to name and conceptualise cinematographic and generic features of eco-documentaries, such as the use of certain editing strategies, camera angles, and facts. These literacy areas form the foundation for critical analysis and application. In this meaning-making process, narrative literacies consist of identifying narrative strategies, such as the personal story or religious rhetoric, and noticing how the text works narratively or how facts are used to tell a story and make an argument about reality. In terms of communicative literacies, conceptualising entails the acquisition and development of film-related (aesthetics, stylistic devices, etc.) as well as climate change-related vocabulary and knowledge. This also informs critical literacies in terms of the abilities to recognise and name (elements of) an eco-documentary’s (and one’s own) ecological footprints and mindprints and goes hand in hand

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with aspects of cultural literacies development, such as conceptualising the films as cultural artefacts and products of an industry with a specific background. Further, this could include learning about climate change as a cultural and political crisis, in the sense of learning for and about human rights as well as discerning various scales of belonging pertinent to the discussion of climate change-related responsibilities and socio-­ environmental justice. As such, this literacy development is closely related to ecological literacies in terms of identifying elements of a discursive network or eco-system and the film’s place in this system, which includes an understanding of ecosystems, biodiversity, sustainability, and humankind’s involvement in these. Building on growing a sense of self-awareness and motivating the learners to act, conceptualising eco-documentaries continues a process “in which the learners become active conceptualisers, making the tacit explicit and generalising from the particular” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p. 82). As such, the process of conceptualising is similar to and also informed by the competence area Film verstehen in the concept proposed by Blell et  al. (2016b, p. 19). Since eco-documentaries are created by expert communities of practice, learners should engage with these films critically and develop “metarepresentations (or representations of representations) to describe the ‘design elements’” (Kalantzis et  al., 2016, p.  82). In the design presented here, this process is marked by a shift away from the BICS/CALP distinction regarding the progression of communicative literacies, which involves the development of these metarepresentations. Instead, conceptualising eco-documentaries hinges on a pluriliteracies-­ informed understanding of language and content learning, which acknowledges different levels of proficiency, genre, and communicative purposes (e.g., Meyer et al., 2015a, b, 2018).  arratives and Perspectives: Analysing A Life on Our Planet N In light of the discussion on the significance of critical and cultural literacies, the process of analysing eco-documentaries is understood as entailing a focus on both form and content. Kellner and Share stress the importance of context when it comes to engaging with any type of media: Understanding the role of context is an essential part of reading and writing the world and the word. When a text (whether it involves printed words, an image, video, song, or T-shirt) is taken out of context, re-presented and/or remixed, understandings of its message will vary because of the different

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contexts that readers bring with them, their prior knowledge, beliefs and experiences. Moreover, the contexts of how the message is constructed, the politics of representation (the subjectivities of the people constructing the message, the bias of those sharing the information), the qualities of the medium through which the information is distributed, and the codes and conventions of the text likewise have influence. Context is highly important and always influences messages, regardless of whether listeners/ readers/viewers are aware of it. No message can be neutral, and no technology can represent information without in some way affecting the message. (Kellner & Share, 2019, p. 18)

This statement confirms that film analysis strongly relies on experience and prior knowledge, which includes the process of conceptualising. Media educator Simon Hunter (2017) explains that even the analysis of a single shot is not possible without considering contextual aspects. He suggests that film analysis follow the three steps of noticing, considering context, and applying meaning, arguing that “no shot has only one use” (Hunter, 2017, 0:31–0:33). Including noticing as the first step towards understanding a shot emphasises that the meaning-making processes are closely interconnected. Hence, experiencing and conceptualising the shot establish the foundation for further analysis. The fact that the analysis of eco-­ documentaries always needs context is further highlighted in the work of López (2014, 2015, 2019, 2021, 2023) on ecomedia literacy and the examination of an eco-documentary’s ecological footprint and mindprint: Films can never be regarded outside of their media milieu and discursive, intertextual, and socio-cultural networks. Based on this, Kellner and Share (2019, p. 8) propose a series of questions that could lead educators and learners “down a critical path of inquiry to interrogate any text, medium, and the context that surround it.” Adapted for the use of eco-­ documentaries, and supplemented with exemplary answers for A Life on Our Planet, these questions include: • Who are all the possible people who made choices that helped create this eco-documentary? In the case of A Life on Our Planet, stakeholders involved include Sir David Attenborough, the producers, editors, and Netflix representatives. • How was this eco-documentary constructed and delivered/accessed?

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These processes include the planning and organising stages, shooting the material over a long period of time and across a variety of location all over the planet, the post-production phase, and the distribution phase. The latter includes marketing and film promotion. The documentary is available on the streaming service Netflix. • How could this eco-documentary be understood differently? A Life on Our Planet could be understood as an individual witness statement—which is the phrase used by Sir Attenborough to describe the film. It could also be interpreted as a wake-up call in the face of loss of biodiversity or, alternatively, as a harmless account of someone’s life journey. • What values, points of view, and ideologies are represented, missing from, or influenced by this eco-documentary? Values represented include care for both human and nonhuman beings, an awareness and assumption of responsibility for the loss of biodiversity but also for a transformation towards setting things rights in terms of sustainability and biodiversity. • Why was this eco-documentary created and/or shared? This documentary was created as an opportunity for Sir Attenborough, one of the most prolific naturalists in the world, to share his insights, voice his warnings, and urge humanity to change lifestyles and assume responsibility. • Whom does this text benefit and/or harm? It benefits those people making money with the film; it benefits scholars who write books about it; it benefits the environmental movement as it reaches millions of viewers via the streaming platform. At the same time, it arguably hurts the planet in terms of its own ecological footprint (production process; distribution via streaming). (adapted from Kellner & Share, 2019, p. 8) These questions demonstrate that form and function are inseparable categories of film analysis. They also stress that it is almost impossible to conceptualise films such as eco-documentaries without contextualisation—which is an idea expressed in the spatial proximity of the terms conceptualising and analysing in my visual depiction of the design. A Life on Our Planet is characterised by a clear narrative arch, featuring Sir Attenborough’s witness statement as a world-renowned expert in the field of ecology and nature documentary. This storyline could become the focal point of analysis from a multitude of perspectives. For instance,

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learners could be asked to reflect on the role of Sir Attenborough as the star of this film, which includes finding out about his life and his qualifications as an expert in the field. Learners could also analyse the narrative arch itself, creating a storyboard that helps them identify a shift in tone from despair, destruction, and catastrophe to one of hope. Since form and function cannot be separated in film analysis, a combination of multimodal, aesthetic, and genre literacies may be developed to reflect on the emotional effect exerted on the learners during the viewing experience. This includes questions about how this effect is achieved to analyse how emotionality and subjectivity may be employed in or conjured up by the narrative. Narrative literacies, then, are useful for examining the level of factionality of the eco-documentary, much in the sense of a fictionality competence (Fiktionalitätskompetenz), which has been discussed in recent concepts of film literacies (Blell et al., 2016b, p. 47; see also Rössler, 2010). With a focus combining biodiversity and systemic thinking, which served as an illustration for the process of conceptualising above, an analysis of the narrative strategies might spark discussion and reflection, thereby leading to the practice of languages of advocacy and hope. In this context, communicative literacies development entails the analysis of the language and terminology used to tell the story in an eco-documentary, as well as an examination of how nature and humans are portrayed, for instance. There are many ways to foster critical literacies during analysis. For example, learners could critically reflect on the ecological footprint and mindprints (of the texts and their own), on the purposes of the films, on the purposes of narration within the films, and on their own positionality and role in this narrative. This goes, once more, hand in hand with the cultural literacies necessary to reflect on one’s own position in relation to the contents of the eco-documentary and in relation to the world, particularly in the sense of learning for and through human rights. In terms of ecological literacies, analysis might be aimed at cultivating a growing awareness of one’s own place and responsibilities within the learners’ environment and ecosystem as well as across various scales of belonging. Building on this understanding of biodiversity, systemic embeddedness of humans in their environments, and what it means to live sustainably, learners could compare and contrast A Life on Our Planet to other eco-documentaries like Before the Flood, Cowspiracy, or Seaspiracy. This could be done, for instance, by examining the narrative strategies and the films’ purposiveness—with the latter two eco-documentaries focusing much more on singling out certain anthropogenic climate-effective factors, such

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as meat or fish consumption, rather than applying a broader view on the complexity of the planet’s ecosystems.  rassroot Projects: Applying A Life on Our Planet G Aiming at active participation in discourse and society, multimodal, aesthetic, and genre literacies culminate in the ability to produce film-related design elements, such as scripts, storyboards, or even entire scenes. In this context, learners could be encouraged to apply appropriately or creatively. For instance, building on a possible storyboard created while experiencing, conceptualising, or analysing the eco-documentary, they could now be asked to continue the narrative or insert alternative scenes. Learners develop their narrative and communicative literacies by telling their own stories, creating their own discourse fragments, and thus participating in discourse. In terms of critical literacies, learners can build on the reflection of their own position and role in the discourse and the development of a critical understanding thereof, in order to guide future participation and action. Speaking in terms of cultural literacies, this could entail the sharing of experiences and ideas as well as assuming a sense of responsibility and acting accordingly—in the sense of learning for and through human rights. Finally, this culminates in the development of ecoliteracies and transformative action in the sense of eco-cosmopolitan global citizenship. As far as developing critical discourse literacies with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom goes, application represents the pinnacle of the learning process. Application needs to be understood in broad terms. In line with a language educational reading of multiliteracies pedagogy, it may refer to everything from communicative action to the actual designing of film scenes (see, e.g., the competence area Film nutzen in Blell et al., 2016b; see also Becker & Matz, 2020). By thinking of eco-­ documentaries as factional texts, it is possible to speak of performative truths in this context: The films narrate stories which are meant to incite performance and active participation. This is where the ideas of eco-­ documentaries serving as designs, evoking action, and prompting product orientation converge with language and communication. The outcome of this process, as illustrated in Fig. 6.1 (p. 265), is active participation in the discourse and, thus, society. One of the most potent ways of initiating creative application with eco-documentaries is to incorporate the accompanying website,2 which, in the case of A Life on Our Planet and many 2

 https://attenboroughfilm.com/.

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other films, features a section specifically designed for school projects and networking opportunities. Learners could be encouraged to reach out to their community or possibly their partner school abroad to exchange their own experiences, insights, and ideas, in increasingly wider circles, to interconnect or to see how they already are interconnected. The idea of active participation is further pursued and illustrated in the following section.  taging a Screening at the Local School: Active Participation S for Global Citizenship The examples provided thus far have been presented in relative isolation, yet their discussion has also implied that the knowledge processes are not only mutually interdependent but they also build upon and pervade each other. Eventually, only a combination of tasks and activities associated with the four different meaning-making processes might enable learners to engage with eco-documentaries in ways that are conducive to both environmental learning and the development of critical film literacies, thus working towards the cultivation of active participation in discourse and society. To illustrate how this might be achieved in practice, this section resumes and extends the brief discussion of the application process led above. It elaborates on a complex task for learners. While numerous learning outcomes are conceivable, the task in this exemplary scenario asks learners to stage a screening of A Life on Our Planet for invited guests (e.g., fellow students, teachers, parents, local representatives) at their school. This screening is to be framed by a variety of programme items and accompanying contributions for the guests, such as short presentations or an exhibition of learning products created throughout the learning process with A Life on Our Planet. The event could even be framed as a fundraiser campaign to kick-start a grassroot project in the local community. Organising a screening is a rather open learning outcome, in the sense that multiple approaches to and iterations of the learning product are conceivable. Creating such an event necessarily involves the entire learning group and asks of the educator to serve as a designer and initial provider of learning environments in the sense of the pluriliteracies approach for deeper learning (see, e.g., Coyle, 2019), with the learners gradually assuming more and more responsibility for the learning process and its outcome(s). This learning environment consists of a social, a physical, and a cognitive dimension (Jackson, 2013; Paniagua & Istance, 2018; Coyle, 2019). In terms of the social environment, the learning process leading up to the organisation of the event is guided by the principles of learning

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about, for, and through human rights and sustainability (Chap. 3). This includes, among other things, respectful communication between learners and educators, and it may also include adhering to and living by important insights gained from the engagement with the film, for instance, trying to keep the ecological footprint of the event as small as possible. Thus, it helps form a (learning) community of action and transformation in the classroom, fostering social participation from the start: Learners are included in the decision-making process as active agents of their learning processes and determine items of the supporting programme. The physical environment depends largely on the circumstances on site, but it includes providing spaces for learning and for viewing film scenes multiple times, without impacting the learning processes of other students, providing different spaces for different learning foci, and also opening the classroom to include experiences made in the local community and environment. In terms of the cognitive environment, the learning process is guided by the complex task, its sub-tasks, and corresponding activities as well as adequate scaffolding. For instance, learners need to experience the eco-­ documentary before they can plan the screening. If the screening event is to be accompanied by short presentations or posters, the students need to reflect on their own emotions and responses to the film, in order to choose aspects and scenes of the film worth highlighting in spotlight presentations, on posters, or in their own short film productions, thereby maximising the effect on the audience at the event. Based on their experience with the film, they are asked to identify areas of interest and to formulate their own learning goals, to eventually contribute to the screening event. These smaller projects could include a focus on the narrative, as exemplified in the sections above, or on an investigation of how cinematographic techniques are employed in A Life on Our Planet for specific purposes. Other projects could revolve around content matter discussed in the documentary, such as planetary boundaries, biodiversity, systemic embeddedness, or possibilities to enhance socio-environmental sustainability and justice. The guiding principles of exemplary learning and problem-posing are helpful in this regard. A Life on Our Planet features a variety of communities of practice and transformation in various locations and contexts. Learners could focus on one or two of these communities and their situations to investigate the effects of climate change and the corresponding exemplary, yet context-specific, ways to mitigate these. Relating these insights back to their own community, this may help them identify local issues as well as a need for action and transformation on a local scale.

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Problem-posing, then, could entail a specific issue in one of the contexts featured in the eco-documentary or in one of the texts forming its vast intertextual web. Learners could be encouraged to examine the origins of this problem, its effects on the environment and (non)human beings, and possible approaches towards solving the issue. For instance, they could take the highly emotionalising Walrus scene mentioned earlier and engage in discussions about climate change effects on natural habitats. Tracing back these deliberations, the learners could examine local animals’ habitats and how these have changed over the past years and through the influence of human activity, and, at the screening event, they could promote projects for biodiversity and the protection of habitats in their surroundings. Crucially, the documentary is experienced, conceptualised, and analysed as a narrative and serves as a starting point for further investigation rather than as a source of positive, objective information or biased manipulation. At the heart of the screening event would be the interconnectedness of global and local issues and communities. This becomes particularly apparent once the screening event is tied to the launch of a grassroot project. Throughout the learning process, students approach the global issues discussed in A Life on Our Planet and trace them back to their local school, community, and themselves. The choice of a suitable grassroot project largely depends on the learners and which issues depicted in the film they consider to be relevant for their own local community. Tracing back the relevance of global issues for local agents also provides the learners with an opportunity to discern their own experiences and actions, that is to reflect on their own positionality within their environments and the world. In other words, by actively participating in social discourse through the organisation of an eco-documentary screening event at their school, for example, they learn about eco-cosmopolitan global citizenship. In summary, the four knowledge processes, experiencing, conceptualising, analysing, and applying, can be framed as an outline for language pedagogy which is inherently and ab initio geared towards learner orientation and learner agency, communication, and active participation in discourse and society. This section has illustrated how the framework presented in this book may serve as planning guidance for the design of learning scenarios with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom. However, a myriad of other uses of eco-documentaries is conceivable. It is important to stress that what is depicted in Fig. 6.1 is but one iteration, which itself is prone to being re-designed as a function of concrete, individual circumstances found in different learning

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environments—hence the use of the term design as a synonym for framework to refer to it, referencing one of the fundamental concepts of semiotics and multiliteracies pedagogy.

Summary This chapter has revolved around the product of the theoretical and conceptual discussion led in this book, in terms of applying a meta-perspective on the research and designing process as well as the presentation and discussion of the framework proper. The concept presented here may enter the English language educational discourse as a stand-alone guide for teaching and learning with eco-­ documentaries, but it is also deeply embedded in the same discourse and is highly compatible with existing concepts of teaching and learning with film; particularly Blell et al. (2016b). What is unique about it is its evident inspiration by and thus proximity to multiliteracies pedagogy, its orientation towards the development of discourse literacies as the superordinate language education goal, as well as its conceptual embeddedness in the GCE discourse. In the context of ELE with eco-documentaries, the ability to participate in (global) discourses comprises the cultivation of both ecoliteracies and film literacies. These learning objectives are to be understood against the background of key principles derived from theories and concepts in the fields of ecocriticism, education for sustainable development, global citizenship education, human rights education, as well as film and literary studies, among others. The key principles call for a framing of the learning process with eco-documentaries in what has been called a language education for sustainable development, in the sense of critical eco-cosmopolitan global citizenship education, and the conceptualisation of eco-documentaries as multimodal, factional texts, which tell stories with facts and present arguments about (one version of) reality. The two literacy areas of ecoliteracies and film literacies, in turn, comprise a multitude of literacy areas, including multimodal, aesthetic and genre (including digital), narrative, communicative, critical, cultural, and ecological literacies. These areas are considered to be both prerequisite and intended outcome at any point in time throughout the learning process. In other words, in the sense of a spiralling curriculum, they form the foundation for engagement with eco-documentaries and are continually being developed further by engaging with the texts. The learning process entails the four knowledge or meaning-making processes of experiencing,

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conceptualising, analysing, and applying. While these have been portrayed as a sequence in the visual illustration, the four processes can also run in parallel or overlap. In conclusion, this culminates in an interplay of literacies and meaning-making processes which result in language education aimed at social and discursive participation by taking the learners seriously as active agents and global citizens from the onset.

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion: Cultivating Global Citizenship Education Through Eco-documentaries in the English Language Classroom Following Homi Bhabha’s (2019) invitation and applying a proleptical perspective on a micro-level, that is ELE, eco-documentaries have been identified as being worthwhile learning objects to help learners achieve key literacies of the twenty-first century. Sitting at the intersection of discourses on climate change as a global, cultural, and political issue and the debate surrounding factuality versus fiction, these films can be exceptionally powerful means for helping learners foster the complex set of literacies and competences needed to navigate these discourses successfully. The identification of a set of antinomies among associated learning objectives served as one point of entry into the discussion of using eco-­documentaries as learning tools in the English language classroom: The gap between opposing learning goals such as ecoliteracies and environmental awareness versus critical film literacies, subjectivity and emotionality versus objectivity, normativity versus criticism, and construction versus deconstruction seemed incommensurable. However, a key characteristic of the above antinomies is that each opposing premise is true at the same time. As such, this text discussed the development of (critical) discourse literacies as the superordinate objective of ELE in Germany and, in doing so, proposed the adoption of a more inclusive, dialogical perspective: Within the scope of discourse literacies, learning objectives associated with subjectivity and objectivity, normativity and criticism, construction and deconstruction need to be regarded as mutually complementary to one another rather © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Römhild, Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education, Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44674-0_7

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than incompatible. On a meso-level, then, ELE with and about eco-­ documentary films may be embedded within ESD as a cross-cutting theme of education—and thus be re-imagined as English language education for sustainable development, which, in turn, can be realised within a GCE framework. In this light, the dissolution of the antinomies via the development of critical discourse literacies with eco-documentaries is closely connected to the educational goal of social participation or—re-contextualised on a macro-level and in the context of sustainability education—the cultivation of global citizenship. In lieu of a reproduction of this book’s structure, the following paragraphs briefly summarise four central insights and suggestions gathered from the discussion. It is worth noting that the caveats mentioned in the introduction apply here as well. All these aspects have had extensive academic research dedicated to them, and while these four paragraphs highlight ideas important to the cultivation of global citizenship education with eco-documentaries in the English language classroom, the non-­ inclusion of other aspects discussed throughout this book does not render them any less significant.

One: Critical Eco-cosmopolitanism—Global Interconnectedness, Shared Responsibility, and Multiple Citizenships In terms of a theoretical and methodological framework for environmental learning in the English language classroom, this text has discussed a critical eco-cosmopolitan vision of GCE as its foundation. Following this suggestion and adopting GCE consistently as a superordinate way of thinking and doing (English language) education yields profound curricular implications for all education, even though the discussion has focused on the use of eco-documentaries within critical eco-cosmopolitan GCE exclusively. The intention is to cultivate in leaners (and educators) an awareness of one’s global interconnectedness and shared responsibility, in order to not only develop response-ability (Delanoy, 2017) and the ability to scale across various concentric circles of belonging but also progressively foster discourse literacies as a way of partaking in global discourses

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and societies from the very beginning of ELE at schools. Applying the principles of human rights education when engaging with eco-­ documentaries, learners can be encouraged to learn and practise languages of hope and advocacy via exemplary learning and problem-posing, thereby replacing the dominant paradigm of target culture and target country teaching, in favour of the development of critical thinking skills and action-­ oriented learning with global issues. What this presupposes (and at the same time facilitates) is a paradigm shift from intercultural learning in the sense of Byram’s (1997; 2021) ICC model—which is today still dominant in both environmental learning and film didactic approaches discussed in Germany—and towards the consistent application of a hybrid concept of culture, which does justice to the idea that cultures are constructed as results of everyday practice and that the learners are therefore active agents in this process.

Two: Multiliteracies and Faction—Multimodal Storytelling in Documentaries The discussion of eco-documentaries as cinematic texts has led to the definition of them being multimodal designs, which entails an understanding of meaning-making as a dialogic process of negotiation between the films and the learners. This multiliteracies-informed notion of eco-­documentaries ties in with the idea of these films being factional texts that present arguments about one version of reality by narrating stories with facts. It is important, though, not to think of facts as fully narrativised and relativised, as this would lead to declining the responsibility within the relevant discourse. Facts remain facts, but the way they are used and arranged within the story told by an eco-documentary can become the segue into detailed discussion of notions such as reality, fictionality, and expectations regarding the objectivity level of a given film. Since this process is at least bilateral—between the texts and the learners—it is crucial to take seriously aspects such as the subjectivity and emotionality as well as the constantly evolving expectations of the learners when dealing with eco-­documentaries. This insight expands to the idea that form can never be analysed without also considering its function in this highly narrativised, emotionalising text form.

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Three: Learner Agency—Empowerment and Active Citizenship from the Onset In addition to a multiliteracies-informed approach to teaching and learning with eco-documentaries, the idea of pluriliteracies for deeper learning has been discussed as taking learners seriously as emotional, active beings, and participants in the meaning-making process with these films. As such, agency becomes a key concept in each of the areas touched upon thus far: Agency is central to a broad notion of citizenship(s), which comes with the adoption of a critical eco-cosmopolitan vision of GCE. Citizenship is no longer only conceptualised as passive enjoyment of rights and duties that come with one’s assigned political status or with the affective component of a sense of belonging to a place. Rather, a broad notion of citizenship allows for the acknowledgement of social, de-territorialised citizenships and the fact that learners can consider themselves to be citizens on multiple scales of belonging at the same time. This includes an understanding of citizenship as active participation in society, to which ELE can contribute the development of discourse literacies. A multiliteracies-informed approach to teaching and learning with eco-documentaries aims at social participation by design and thus inherently includes agency as a central component. Learner orientation and learner agency pervade throughout the entire learning process—from experiencing via conceptualising to analysing and applying—in terms of both film reception and (language) production.

Four: Necessary Change for Global Citizenship In reference to one of the main themes of this book, socio-environmental transformation towards sustainability and global citizenship, the three previous aspects all point to necessary changes if ELE were to subscribe to them. In line with Beach et al. (2017, p. 131), change is understood as taking place at two levels, internally and externally: (1) educators and learners adapt their own personal knowledge, understanding, and beliefs (about documentaries, discourses, the environment, climate change and related lifestyle changes necessary to reduce their ecological footprints and adapt their mindprints); (2) changes in larger systems (discursive, curricular, educational, communities, political, economic, ecological), as part of the great transformation towards sustainability and global citizenship, are made.

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Concluding his elaboration on the concept of slow hope, Mauch argues that [what] we need […] are stories and histories of change and transformation: stories of ecological alarm and stories of slow hope. We need stories that alert us to our collective vulnerabilities […]; stories that remind us that we are indeed living in what Donald Worster has called an “age of vulnerability,” and what Rob Nixon has called a world of “slow violence[,]” [and, one might add, what Ulrich Beck has called a “world risk society”; the author]. We need ecological stories that make us confront the fact that our power (however well-intentioned it might be) is potentially destructive and that the survival of humans on this planet depends on the preservation of soil and water and the habitats and ecological systems that we are an intrinsic part of. But we also need stories that provide us with alternatives to narrowly defined pathways: with ideas that seemed unimaginable before they were voiced and with paths that seemed unwalkable before they were walked. We need stories that empower us to become thinkers, actors, and activists capable of imagining alternatives in a world dominated by technical and economic constraints. We need ideas that will find their way through the mesh of an ever-­ tighter net of path dependencies. And we need people who will dare to cut apart some of the meshwork. (2019, p. 37)

English language education with and about eco-documentaries, embedded in a GCE framework, can contribute to these goals by making stories of hope accessible for learners and by inspiring discussion. Change, then, also refers to the reflection of the recent renaissance of the documentary form: In a way, this book represents an argument for more consistent inclusion of this powerful text form into learning scenarios aimed at the development of discourse literacies, and thus social participation in the sense of GCE.  Regarding the textual properties of eco-documentaries, change also refers to mindsets in the sense of the general design of lessons and units on the basis of multiliteracies and the notions of eco-­ documentaries as multimodal designs and factional texts. Only then can eco-documentaries truly be approached as stories of hope and transformation. Furthermore, it has been argued that external change needs to occur in environmentally oriented language education by means of a paradigm shift towards global citizenship education, on the grounds of critical eco-­ cosmopolitanism and human rights education. This, however, presupposes another change in mindset: Educators and scholars need to ask what

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ELE, with its focus on language, literature, and cultures, can contribute to ESD. The answer, I suggest, is developing the ability to participate critically and actively in global discourses surrounding the climate crisis, which necessitates (and fosters) a strong sense of global interconnectedness and shared responsibility; in other words, the cultivation of discourse literacies and (or: for) global citizenship.

Outlook While this volume may have contributed to the answering of some questions associated with the use of eco-documentaries in the English language classroom, it undoubtedly has pointed at or even raised many more questions which could not be answered within the scope of this project. These desiderata might inspire follow-up research in two respects: (1) questions and desiderata that could be addressed by further research on eco-documentaries; and (2) questions and desiderata that emerge from abstraction and transfer of this discussions’ results to related fields of research. As to the first set of possible follow-up questions, these can generally be attributed to the decisions made in the beginning of this project, as foreshadowed in the introductory remarks, which have necessarily excluded several worthwhile research questions, particularly in terms of classroom practice. For instance, in light of eco-documentaries being a constantly evolving text form, the specification of the individual mode-related literacies subsumed under the notion of multimodal literacies in Sect. 4.3 (spatial, tactile, visual, written, oral, gestural, audio) could yield important implications for classroom practice and the design of learning scenarios which revolve around a film’s properties as a multimodal design, the multimodal meaning-making processes, and the effects thereof. In the same vein, it would be beneficial to design learning processes aimed at critical thinking skills, so as to further adopt an ecomedia perspective, particularly with documentaries in the field of tension between fact and fiction. Furthermore, such genres as solar punk (a utopian genre based on the principle of hope) or indigenous perspectives and voices (e.g., the documentary The Condor & the Eagle [Guerra & Guerra, 2019]) deserve more scholarly attention than could be afforded here. Generally, the rather theoretical discussion of eco-documentaries within a field of tension between two seemingly opposing educational goals (i.e., the antinomies) could lead to ecocritical analyses of eco-documentaries against the background

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of, for instance, Buell’s (in Garrard, 2012a, p. 14) notion of “toxic discourses,” Beck’s (1986) risk society, Bartosch’s (2018) focus on scaling, or a spotlight on ecofascism and power relations within the ecological discourses (e.g., Michael Moore’s film Planet of Humans [Moore et al., 2019]). In addition, the idea of action orientation could be pursued further in the sense of performative pedagogy and/or the creation of the learners’ own (short) eco-documentaries. One of the most pressing desiderata emerging from decisions made early in the process, however, is certainly empirical research aimed at the usefulness and applicability of the framework presented in Part V as a planning guide in actual teaching practice. Arguably, questions revolving around the use of eco-documentaries in the English language classroom lend themselves for design-based research projects that integrate perspectives from academic scholars and, crucially, practitioners. As such, it needs to be stressed that the questions raised by Küchler (2014, p. 33) remain research desiderata. Nonetheless, this theoretical discussion has conceivably contributed to researching potentials of environmental education in the English language classroom by discussing and proposing a theoretical and methodological framework for English language education for sustainable development. The second set of desiderata is derived from abstracting my results and deliberating implications of their application to the broader context of (English language) education. For instance, while much of the discussion led in this text has primarily been concerned with an ecological perspective on sustainability and the climate crisis (a by-product of the focus of most eco-documentaries), ESD is characterised by a much more balanced integration of ecological, economic, and socio-political aspects. As such, it is also possible to apply the principles of GCE and ESD to other areas of learning the English language, thereby helping to develop a much more comprehensive framework for GCE-informed ELE. This already hints at another aspect worth discussing in future research projects: trans- and interdisciplinarity. Certainly, this project is rather transdisciplinary, having engaged in sociological, philosophical, literary, cinematic, and (language) educational theory, to name but a few. As such, questions arise that have to do with the potential of environmental education in the English language classroom, transcending the siloed approach of distinguishing an array of school subjects, starting with content and language integrated learning (CLIL), and possibly moving towards truly cross-curricular learning.

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To conclude with the words of Süssmuth (2007, p. 202), “[we] need to push forward innovative educational paradigms at the global level because the fortunes of our children and youth are tied to the processes of global change.” In this sense, through the examination of the potentiality of eco-documentaries for classroom use, this volume pushes forward innovative approaches to (documentary) film didactics, ecodidactics, and cultural learning within a GCE framework, which move beyond current approaches in the German academic discourse on ELE. In terms of documentary film didactics, the discussion led herein could provide new impetus to the consistent adoption of multiliteracies-informed language education. If it were to stop here, it would already be an ambitious project. However, apart from the discourse on (documentary) film didactics, this book positions itself in two other current research trajectories within the English language educational discourse in Germany, both of which are just as ambitious and aspirational: global citizenship education and ecopedagogy. Informed by the international discourse (e.g., Andreotti, 2006, 2014a, b; Gaudelli, 2003, 2016; Pashby et  al., 2020), GCE has only recently entered the German discourse on language education— thanks in no small part to the work of Lütge (2013, 2015a) who initiated this process—and much research and contouring is still to be done in this emerging field. Likewise, ecopedagogical thought has entered the German discourse on ELE relatively recently but has since enjoyed increasing popularity and attention amongst scholars and practitioners. This project sits at the intersection of these discourses and connects them to one another. As such, it may also be interpreted as a call for the consistent integration of approaches in the sense of GCE: Taking the climate crisis seriously as a cultural and political issue means to gear all education, including ELE, towards the preparation of our youth to face the challenges of the twenty-­ first century and to mitigate socio-environmental injustices. Language education can make a unique contribution to this effort since its aims and contents mirror everything that is considered quality education by SDG 4.7 (UN 2015b, p.  19): active participation in discourse and society, culture-­transcending communication and cooperation, and the promotion of human rights. In short: Engaging in learning scenarios with and about eco-documentaries which follow these principles in a GCE framework may help put our youth in a position to follow Bhabha’s (2019) invitation to effectuate change.

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Filmography Andersen, K., & Kuhn, K.. (Directors) (2014). Cowspiracy. The sustainability secret. Appian Way, A.U.M Films, First Spark Media. Armstrong, F.. (Director) (2009). The age of stupid. Passion Pictures, Spanner Films. Berlowitz, V., Gunton, M., Brickell, J., & Hugh-Jones, T.. (Executive Producers) (2016). Planet earth II. BBC National History Unit, BBC Studios, BBC America. Boutsikaris, C., & Palmer, A.. (Co-Directors) (2021). Inhabitants. Indigenous perspectives on restoring our world. Inhabit Films. Conners, L.. (Director) (2019). Ice on fire. Appian Way, HBO, Tree Media Group. Drew, R.. (Director) (1960). Primary. Drew Associates. Eastwood, C.. (Director) (2018). The 15:17 to Paris. Warner Bros. Emmerich, R.. (Director) (2004). The day after tomorrow. 20th Century Fox, Lions Gate Films. Flaherty, R. J.. (Director) (1922). Nanook of the north. Pathé Exchange. Fothergill, A.. (Producer) (2006). Planet earth. BBC Natural History Unit. Fothergill, A.. (Producer) (2019). Our Planet. Silverback Films.

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Index1

A Action orientation, 93, 104, 221, 226, 229, 243, 293 Actuality, 146, 148–176, 207 Advocacy, 77, 84, 103, 114, 178, 183, 279, 289 Affect, 70, 71, 79, 96–98, 165, 166, 194, 208, 215, 219 Agency, 5, 20, 27, 84, 93, 130, 134, 141, 161, 195, 196, 205, 210, 213, 238, 240, 243, 248, 254, 258, 262, 267, 270, 272–274, 283, 290 Agenda 2030, 30–33, 37, 39 Agents, 9, 30, 73, 88, 93, 134, 163, 203, 205, 206, 213, 238, 270, 272, 274, 282, 283, 285, 289 Akomolafe, 71, 100 Andreotti, Vanessa, 109–112, 115, 125, 126, 140, 236, 294 Anthropocentrism, 41–43, 70, 79, 128

Antinomy, 8–10, 12, 14, 17, 19, 59, 60, 142, 262, 263, 266, 287, 288, 292 Appadurai, Arjun, 116–119, 127, 129, 240 Appiah, Kwame Anthony, 116, 117, 119 Argument about reality, 174–176, 184, 187, 275 Aspiration, 8, 104, 108 Attenborough, Sir David, 6, 7, 41n8, 101, 180, 213, 275, 277–279 Audience, 1, 4, 6, 71, 98, 147–156, 159, 160, 163, 164, 168, 170, 173, 175, 177–179, 181–193, 196–198, 204, 206, 210, 213, 214, 217, 219, 223, 234, 251, 282 Audio-visual, 52–54, 161, 223–225, 225n3, 254, 257, 258, 273

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Römhild, Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education, Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44674-0

337

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INDEX

Aufderheide, Patricia, 5, 143, 146, 150, 152, 153, 156, 175 Author-driven process, 161, 164, 167 Available design, 56, 57, 201, 206 B Bartosch, Roman, 30, 34, 38, 44, 50, 74, 79, 82, 91, 100, 135, 136, 293 BBC, 5, 160 Beck, Ulrich, 2, 74, 98, 99, 116, 117, 130–132, 291, 293 Before the Flood, 5, 7, 30, 46, 84, 98, 103, 131, 136, 153, 161, 170, 173, 174, 176–181, 213, 214, 233, 279 Bhabha, Homi, 1, 2, 98, 116, 287, 294 BICS, 230, 233, 234, 243, 258, 276 Bildung, 26–28, 41, 45, 47, 58, 59 Bildungsstandards/educational standards, 26–28, 52–54, 56 Biocentrism, 70, 79, 128 Blell, Gabriele, 50–52, 55, 57–59, 91, 92, 192, 217, 221, 224–227, 225n3, 229, 230, 235, 243, 243n7, 253, 254, 272n1, 276, 279, 280, 284 Bredella, Lothar, 8, 91, 147, 158, 167, 207–209, 217–220 Byram, Michael, 24, 45, 93, 95, 105, 111, 123, 239, 289 C CALP, 230, 233, 234, 243, 258, 276 Camera, 146, 152–155, 157, 158, 160–162, 164, 166, 166n8, 170, 175, 183, 188, 250, 275 Care, 71, 80, 278 Centrifugal

ecocriticism, 69, 75 force, 69, 75 Centripetal ecocriticism, 69, 75 force, 69, 75 Change, 1, 17, 64, 144, 219, 259, 287 Cinematic modes expository, 181, 182 observational, 181, 182 poetic, 181–184 reflexive, 181, 183 Cinematography, 144, 159, 174, 177, 222, 270, 273 Cinéma vérité (CV), 155–158, 162, 164, 169 Circular process, 202–205, 211 Citizenship active, 236, 268, 290 cosmopolitan, 126, 127, 135 democratic, 117, 118 environmental, 122, 124–129 global, 12, 32, 33, 39, 64, 76, 90, 94, 102, 105–122, 126, 129–141, 247, 266, 269–272, 280–284, 288, 290–292 performative, 123 planetary, 126 world, 69, 121 Claim to truth, 167–169 Clark, Timothy, 70, 135, 136 Classroom praxis, 14, 132, 141 Climate change literacy, 35, 36, 79 Climate crisis as cultural crisis, 1, 41, 43, 90 as human rights crisis, 12, 96, 97, 105, 112, 134 as political crisis, 125, 276 Climate migration, 1, 98 Co-author, 196, 243 Co-creator, 196 Cognitive discourse functions (CDF), 232, 233, 235

 INDEX 

Communication, 18, 19, 21, 25–27, 50, 68, 72, 77, 79, 91, 114, 118, 124, 131, 134, 141, 143, 148, 154, 170, 172, 186, 188, 195, 198, 203, 204, 217, 219, 221, 222, 224, 225, 227, 229–231, 234, 235, 237, 242, 245, 250, 251, 254n10, 255, 256, 262, 268, 270, 271, 272n1, 273, 280, 282, 283, 294 Competence, 3, 20–22, 24, 26–28, 40, 51–58, 76–78, 80, 82, 93, 134, 135, 208, 217, 224, 225, 227, 229, 230, 235, 239, 243n7, 254, 257, 264, 272n1, 276, 279, 280, 287 Competence orientation, 248 Concentric circles, 133, 133n4, 135–138, 140, 141, 239, 267, 268, 288 Content-based language learning, 231 Cope, Bill, 21, 146n1, 200, 248 Cosmopolitanism critical, 116 embedded, 121, 239 rooted, 119, 121, 239 vernacular, 119 Criticality, 8, 27, 110, 235–238, 263, 266, 267, 273 Critical media literacy, 8, 12, 17, 236–238, 240, 253n9, 259 Cultural diversity, 32, 106, 120, 126 Cultural studies, 29, 66–72, 239 Curriculum framework, 38, 76, 78, 82 D Decke-Cornill, Helene, 47–50, 49n11, 57, 192, 198, 216–218, 220, 221 De-distancing, 125 Deep ecology, 70, 80 Deeper learning, 231–234, 244–247, 252, 258, 260, 271, 281, 290

339

Delanoy, Werner, 91, 92, 95, 122, 134, 135, 138, 218, 239, 240, 262, 263, 267, 288 Democracy, 118, 119, 127, 129, 131, 251 Desiderata, 292, 293 Design, 12, 18, 83, 146n1, 213, 260, 289 Design-based learning, 201, 202, 205, 211 De-territorialised, 95, 127, 137, 272n1, 290 Dialogue, 90, 112, 113, 120, 170, 208, 230, 263, 268, 272 DiCaprio, Leonardi, 7, 46, 131, 136, 170, 173, 174, 178–180, 183, 194, 207, 213 Digitalisation, 6, 7, 10, 18, 55, 90, 91, 144, 159, 164, 185, 197, 211 Dignity, 25, 32, 96–105, 127 Direct cinema, 155, 156, 158 Director-driven process, 161, 164 Disappointed hope, 1, 98 Discourse fragment, 18, 22–25, 43, 45–47, 50, 51, 175, 204, 210, 219, 241, 244, 260, 266, 280 literacies, 7, 14, 17–60, 96, 122, 127, 131, 135–138, 144, 182, 199n18, 204, 209, 220, 221, 223, 235, 241, 245, 257, 260, 263, 264, 266–268, 270–272, 280, 284, 287, 288, 290–292 Discourse of consequence, 193 Discourse structures, 20, 22–25, 28, 45, 46 Distribution, 6, 85, 140, 151, 154, 157–159, 163, 165, 167, 184, 188, 193, 196, 197, 203–205, 211, 213, 215, 260, 269, 278 Diversity, 37, 72, 91, 93, 95, 108, 126, 154, 209, 236, 240, 245

340 

INDEX

Documentary, 3, 17, 142, 143, 213, 259, 289 Documenting, 195, 209, 210, 248 E Earth, 43, 70, 75, 178, 239 Ecocentrism, 128 Ecocinema, 4, 36, 67, 101, 153, 182, 192, 235, 243 Eco-cosmopolitanism, 121, 122, 129, 130, 132, 133, 139, 288–289, 291 Ecocriticism, 11, 14, 34, 34n5, 63–73, 75, 76, 90, 130, 139, 284 Eco-documentary, 3, 17, 64, 144, 213, 259, 287 Ecofascism, 70, 293 Ecofeminism, 66 Ecoliteracies critical, 85, 86, 89, 267 cultural, 90, 95, 96, 267 functional, 267 Ecological footprint/mindprint/ handprint, 85, 86, 89, 238, 275, 277–279, 282, 290 Ecology, 5, 6, 18, 30, 36, 41, 63–142, 231, 270, 278 Ecomedia, 14, 29, 64, 292 literacy, 85, 277 Ecopedagogy, 14, 29, 34, 34n4, 34n5, 64, 72, 76, 78, 81, 86–88, 90, 91, 99, 105–107, 110, 112, 114, 125, 235, 238, 241, 253n9, 294 Ecopoetry, 74 Ecoracism, 66 Education for sustainable development (ESD), 2, 8, 14, 15, 18, 28–45, 60, 61, 64–78, 81, 82, 86, 87, 89, 90, 94–97, 101, 102, 104–107, 109, 111, 112, 116, 120–122, 134, 139, 141–142, 240, 262, 268, 269, 284, 288, 292, 293

Eitzen, Dirk, 162, 175, 184–193, 185n14, 196, 207 Emotion, 9, 59, 71, 72, 106, 189, 191–194, 206, 214, 215, 218–222, 252, 260, 262, 270, 273, 282 Emotional appeal, 190–195, 214, 217 Empathy, 98 Empirical turn, 11 Empowerment, 31, 38, 122, 127, 196, 200, 243, 253, 290 English for Specific Purposes, 199, 201 English language education (ELE), 2, 2n1, 3, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18–30, 34, 39, 44, 52–55, 74–76, 82, 88, 101, 106, 133, 135, 141, 201, 211, 213–258, 262, 269, 284, 287–294 Environmental education (EE), 29, 34, 34n4, 35, 35n7, 67, 86, 87, 105, 293 Environmental justice, 43, 66, 69, 73, 86, 87, 128, 132, 194 Environmental turn, 1, 66–72 Epitexts, 163 Essentialist, 94, 123, 132, 161, 165, 171, 174, 176, 204, 206, 207, 239 Ethos, 194, 214 Exemplary learning, 137, 141, 253n9, 269, 271, 275, 282, 289 Expectation, 38, 153, 163, 183, 185, 196, 199, 202–205, 208, 210, 229, 272n1, 273, 274, 289 Experiences of crisis, 47–51, 198 Experiencing film, 50n12, 58, 191–195, 210, 214–222, 249, 253, 258, 265, 273, 274 F Fact, 1, 3, 5, 7–10, 19, 27, 37, 39, 42, 49, 52, 54, 57, 66, 67, 72, 73,

 INDEX 

79, 83, 92, 95, 98, 105, 110, 111, 121, 132, 133, 142, 145, 146, 149, 159, 162, 168, 169, 171, 173, 174, 177, 178, 183–188, 193, 196, 201, 205, 206, 208–211, 216, 238, 260, 269, 273, 275, 277, 284, 289–292 Faction, 15, 167, 169–176, 178, 182, 209, 210, 213, 214, 221, 234n6, 238, 255, 257, 260, 289 Factuality contract, 188–190, 194, 203, 215, 234 Fake news, 237 Fatalism, 99, 123 Fiction, 3, 18, 136, 143, 218, 238, 269, 287 Filmbildung, 45, 51, 52, 57–59, 217, 224 Film education, 10, 51, 55, 61, 195, 234, 242–244, 251, 253–258, 260–262 Filmerleben, 50n12, 192, 196, 197, 207, 210, 214, 216, 217, 220, 221, 249 Filmic reality, 166, 169, 229 Filmverstehen, 51, 56n13, 57 First-person essay, 179, 180, 183 Flaherty, Robert, 150, 151, 156, 165, 168, 169, 172 Fluidity, 199, 201, 267 Formalism, 152 Foucault, Michel, 22–24, 263 Framework, 8, 10, 12–15, 21, 24, 25, 33, 37, 38, 55, 57, 60, 64, 65, 73, 74, 76, 78, 82, 85, 89, 93–95, 97, 101, 103, 105–122, 126, 127, 129, 132, 134, 138–142, 145, 149, 163, 176, 181, 203, 206, 208, 214, 215, 219, 238, 240, 249, 251, 259–285, 288, 291, 293, 294 Freire, Paulo, 12, 22, 23, 73, 86, 87, 89, 99, 102, 238, 268

341

Fremdsprachliche Diskursbewusstheit, 19 Fremdsprachliche Diskursfähigkeit, 19 Future orientation, 101 G Gaia (hypothesis), 80 Garrard, Greg, 19, 34n4, 34n6, 65, 66, 68–70, 73, 293 Gaudelli, William, 1, 12, 25, 29, 32, 39, 77, 94–97, 105–109, 111, 113, 115–117, 119, 121, 122, 133–135, 137, 138, 253n9, 268, 269, 294 Genre (literacies), 197, 199n18, 201, 210, 225–227, 267, 273, 275, 279, 280 Global citizenship education critical, 109, 110, 284 soft, 109 Global education, 10, 36, 78, 93, 106, 107, 111, 140 Globalisation, 3, 18, 55, 90, 91, 114, 117–119, 125 Global issues, 74, 94, 98, 283, 289 Graz group, 231, 244 Greek Cynics, 116 Grierson, John, 150–154, 156, 165, 171 H Habermas, Jürgen, 22, 23, 114 Hallet, Wolfgang, 12, 19, 20, 22, 23, 27, 46, 50–53, 55, 56n13, 91, 92, 138, 206, 222, 226, 227, 231, 235, 242, 243, 253–255, 272 Heise, Ursula, 44, 68, 69, 71, 121, 122, 129–132, 139 Hermeneutics, 11, 263, 264 Hollywood-esque, 7, 160, 177, 191, 273 Hollywoodisation, 159–161, 190

342 

INDEX

Hope, 1, 96–105, 99n2, 140, 174, 240, 267, 279, 289, 291, 292 Hulme, Mike, 18, 30 Human rights duties, 97 for, 103, 282 learning about, 103, 281–282 and through, 103, 282 Human rights education (HRE), 39, 44, 60, 64, 95–106, 111, 112, 126, 127, 139, 141, 268, 284, 289, 291 Hybridity, 68, 92, 95, 110, 120, 202, 206, 210, 226, 267 I Idealism, 108 Ideology, 5, 8, 9, 24, 59, 73, 85–87, 89, 102, 108, 110, 117, 147, 158, 171, 182, 236, 251, 278 An Inconvenient Truth, 3, 5, 7, 46, 71, 72, 153, 173, 178–181, 192–194, 199, 235 Indigenous, 91, 292 Interconnectedness, 2, 7, 49, 72, 76, 94, 95, 101–105, 108, 120, 126, 130, 139, 179, 219, 239, 240, 259, 263, 266–268, 283, 288–289, 292 Intercultural, 26, 45, 74, 89–96, 105, 106, 111, 239, 289 Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC), 24, 45, 93–96, 101, 105, 111, 123, 239, 264, 289 Intertext, 6, 46, 50, 85, 265, 269, 277, 283 Introspection, 133–135, 137 J Jackson, Liz, 12, 40, 118, 133, 133n4, 137, 139, 281

Journey outside, 122, 133, 135–138, 141, 268, 269, 274 K Kalantzis, Mary, 21, 55, 56, 84, 146n1, 200, 205–207, 223, 238, 247–253, 255, 264, 270, 276 Kellner, Douglas, 21, 236, 237, 251, 253n9, 276–278 Knowledge processes, 244, 247–253, 256, 262, 264, 270, 271, 274, 281, 283 Kompetenz, 22, 51, 227, 228 Kress, Gunther, 56, 146n1, 200–202, 205, 211, 244 Küchler, Uwe, 7, 10, 14, 34, 73, 74, 82, 83, 85, 86, 89–91, 134, 139, 192, 235, 268, 293 L Language education for sustainable development, 14, 15, 39, 43–45, 61, 64–78, 82, 89, 90, 94–97, 101, 102, 104, 105, 109, 111, 112, 116, 120, 122, 139, 141–142, 240, 262, 284, 288, 293 Language proficiency, 229–231, 233, 234 Learner centredness, 245, 246 Learning by design, 56, 59, 206, 242, 244 A Life on Our Planet, 6, 7, 41n8, 42, 46, 69, 84, 86–88, 101, 131, 153, 161, 170, 180, 181, 192–194, 199, 211, 213, 214, 262, 270–284 Literacies aesthetic, 267 communicative, 229–235, 258, 265, 267, 273, 275, 276, 279, 280

 INDEX 

critical, 11, 21, 104, 225, 227, 235–239, 275, 279, 280 digital, 222, 226, 267 discourse, 7, 14, 18–59, 135–138, 144, 182, 199n18, 209, 220, 221, 223, 235, 241, 245, 257, 260, 263, 264, 266–268, 270–272, 280, 284, 287, 288, 290–292 eco-, 9, 12, 14, 17, 35–37, 59–61, 64, 68, 76, 78–96, 104, 105, 139, 144, 221, 223, 235, 239, 241–242, 259, 266–268, 280, 284, 287 film, 12, 15, 17, 45, 51–60, 59n14, 144, 214, 216, 217, 220, 223–225, 227–230, 234, 235, 237–243, 245, 251, 253, 255–257, 266–268, 272n1, 279, 281, 284, 287 genre, 197, 199n18, 201, 210, 225–227, 267, 273, 275, 279, 280 multimodal, 223–226, 257, 267, 272, 273, 275, 292 narrative, 227–229, 267, 275, 279 Literature, 27n1, 30, 34n5, 66, 68, 71, 72, 74, 77, 86, 91, 100, 101, 121, 136, 146n2, 167, 208, 209, 219, 292 Logos, 194, 214 Lütge, Christiane, 51, 52, 55, 57–59, 59n14, 74, 106, 192, 217, 221, 224, 225, 225n3, 229, 235, 254, 294 M Maastricht Declaration, 107 Manipulation, 14, 47, 100, 147, 158, 166, 171, 190, 224, 259, 283 Manipulative, 8, 43, 158, 171, 182, 191n16, 200n19, 209, 210, 227, 228, 238, 257, 260

343

Mauch, Christoph, 100, 101, 291 Mayer, Sylvia, 1, 29, 34, 34n4, 35, 44, 106, 192 McLane, Betsy A., 146–148, 146n1, 150, 151, 153–157, 159, 161, 165, 182, 196, 197, 210 Meaning-making, 15, 21, 51, 54, 57, 58, 84, 134, 144, 146n1, 155, 165, 172, 175, 196, 205, 206, 210, 211, 213, 214, 217, 218, 221–225, 227, 231, 232, 237, 245, 246, 248, 252, 256, 270–275, 277, 281, 284, 285, 289, 290, 292 Media literacy, 8, 9 Media milieu, 6, 163, 165, 188, 196, 202–204, 206, 246, 277 Minh-Ha, Trinh Thi, 145, 169, 170 Misiaszek, Greg, 11n3, 12, 34n4, 38, 42, 73, 86–89, 99, 104, 105, 107, 110, 114, 123, 125, 126, 139, 235, 238, 239, 241, 253n9, 269 Mode of reception, 185–197 Moral, 20, 24, 25, 28, 40, 41, 61, 70, 72, 76, 88, 89, 97, 100, 104, 105, 112, 113, 115, 119, 214, 219, 220, 267 Multiliteracies pedagogy, 10, 21, 36, 55, 57–59, 146n1, 214, 247, 248, 251–253, 256, 258, 260, 264, 269–271, 280, 284 Multimodal design, 15, 204–207, 209, 211, 213, 214, 222–224, 242, 246, 255, 256, 260, 269, 270, 289, 291, 292 Multimodality, 20, 27, 54, 202, 206, 244–246 N Nanook of the North, 168, 169 Narrative design, 228, 229, 248, 253 Narratives of hope, 101

344 

INDEX

Nation stateism, 117, 118, 123, 127, 131 Nature film, 3–7, 150, 163 New London Group, 21, 36, 244, 248, 252, 255, 256, 264 New Rhetoric, 199–201 Nichols, Bill, 4, 145, 147–149, 149n4, 153, 163, 166, 167, 172–178, 176n12, 180–184, 187, 202, 204, 209–211 Non-fiction, 7, 15, 145, 146, 149–151, 157, 160, 162, 164, 165, 167, 168, 171, 174, 176–184, 176n12, 202, 210, 211, 221, 234n6, 269 Nonfiction models, 176–184 Non-filmic reality, 166, 169, 171, 174, 175 Nonhuman (non-human), 31n2, 42, 66, 68–70, 76, 86, 114, 128, 130, 132, 138, 274, 278 Normativity, 9, 10, 39, 43, 59, 144, 166, 262, 263, 266, 268, 274, 287 Nussbaum, Martha, 113, 116, 133n4, 219 O Objectivism, 197–209 Object orientation, 50n12, 217, 220, 221, 230, 266 Orr, David, 29, 35, 80, 82 Osler, Audrey, 24, 101, 102, 126, 127 Oxfam, 107 P Paratexts, 6, 162, 170, 174, 188, 189, 203, 204n21, 211, 226, 234 Participation, 10, 11, 21, 25, 28, 36, 40, 50, 51, 55, 56, 56n13, 58–60, 76, 78, 85, 90, 94, 105, 122, 127, 200, 209, 225, 236,

238, 247, 251–253, 256, 264, 267, 268, 270–272, 280–285, 288, 290, 291, 294 Pathos, 194, 214 Pedagogy of hope, 102–105 Piepho, Hans-Eberhard, 22, 23 Platinga, Carl, 167, 187–189, 191, 215 Plurality, 113, 120, 127, 222–258 Pluriliteracies, 214, 231, 233, 234, 244, 247, 252, 256, 258, 260, 271, 281, 290 Post-filmic reality, 166 Post-truth, 3, 143 Practitioner, 149, 207, 209, 242, 264, 293, 294 Pragmatics, 26, 27, 49, 186–188, 234 Pre-filmic reality, 166 Problem-posing/problem-solving, 32, 73, 77, 104, 137, 141, 253n9, 268, 271, 275, 282, 283, 289 Production, 3, 6, 33, 50, 51, 53, 56n13, 66, 85, 86, 106, 117, 143, 147–151, 154, 156–161, 163–165, 167–169, 181, 183, 184, 188, 191n16, 193, 195–199, 203–206, 211, 213, 215, 224, 226, 228, 229, 236, 242, 248, 249, 254, 255, 257, 258, 260, 267, 269, 273, 278, 290 Product orientation, 243, 257, 267, 280 Prolepsis (proleptical position), 1–13, 98 Prosumer, 195–197, 210 Purposive, 84, 112, 148, 182, 200n19, 207, 228 R Rationality, 98, 114, 217, 220–222 Reader Response Criticism, 208, 208n22

 INDEX 

Realism, 152 Reality, 46, 49, 61, 64, 143, 213, 260, 289 Reality Film, 166–169 Reception, 51, 53, 54, 56n13, 149, 150, 154, 159, 162, 163, 165–167, 169, 175, 184–198, 203–206, 208, 210, 211, 213–215, 217–221, 225–229, 232, 248, 251, 255, 257, 258, 260, 267, 269, 270, 290 Relativism, 24, 197–209, 238 Representation, 14, 21, 41, 43n9, 50, 63, 85, 92, 113, 134, 137, 145, 146, 148, 155, 156, 160, 162, 167, 169–171, 174, 175, 186, 190, 191, 207, 209, 210, 228, 236, 251, 264, 276, 277 Response-ability, 122, 133–135, 138, 271, 288 Responsibility, 2, 4, 8, 20, 24, 41, 49, 97, 98, 101, 102, 104, 108, 112, 114, 121, 124, 126–128, 131, 133–136, 138–140, 153, 165, 218, 219n2, 236, 238, 247, 266–268, 276, 278–281, 288–289, 292 Rezeptionsästhetik, 208, 208n22 Risk society, 98, 99, 130, 131, 291, 293 S Scale effect, 135 Scaling, 42, 54, 135–138, 268, 293 Self-reflection, 14, 59, 104, 105, 141, 251, 268 Self-reflexivity, 153, 156, 157, 167, 169–170, 180, 183 Semio-pragmatic approach, 161–163, 165, 188, 203, 206, 210 Semiotics, 20, 57, 82, 146n1, 167, 172, 185n14, 186–188, 197,

345

199, 199n18, 206, 222, 224, 231, 235, 244, 284 Sense of place, 121, 130, 132, 139, 141 Sense of planet, 44, 60, 121, 129, 130, 132, 139, 141 Sentimentality contract, 194, 203, 215 Share, Jeff, 21, 236, 237, 251, 253n9, 276–278 Ship of Theseus, 151, 157–165 Sidney School, 199, 205, 255 Situatedness, 83, 133–135 Slow hope, 98–102, 104, 105, 291 Slow scholarship, 100 Slow violence, 98–102, 107, 115, 291 Social actors, 149, 166, 176 Social justice, 41, 75, 77, 96, 107, 125, 126 Socio-environmental injustice/justice, 34n4, 86, 87, 89, 96, 97, 100–102, 104, 105, 110, 112, 113, 115, 140, 241, 267, 276, 282, 294 Stable-for-now, 201, 202, 210, 226 Starkey, Hugh, 20, 24, 25, 104, 126, 127 Storytelling, 7, 153, 158, 160, 161, 165, 167, 169, 171, 172, 174, 182, 211, 215, 227, 228, 242, 248, 260, 275–276, 289 Subject orientation, 83, 159, 230, 266 Surkamp, Carola, 51, 55, 57, 74, 192, 226–228, 237, 243, 243n7, 254 Suspension of disbelief, 190–191, 228 Sustainability, 2, 18, 72, 270, 288 Sustainability literacy, 35, 79 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, SDG 4.7), 8, 30–33, 37–39, 41, 45, 90, 95, 96, 103, 105, 138, 139, 141, 294 Symbolic competence, 19 Synaesthesia, 206, 223, 224 Systemic thinking, 70, 76, 80, 84, 86, 136, 241, 267, 275, 279

346 

INDEX

T Target country, 77, 94, 253n9, 289 Target culture, 27n1, 77, 94, 253n9, 289 Task-based learning, 221, 253 Teachers as designers, 245, 246 Technocentrism, 128 Television (TV), 27, 154–159, 163, 164 Testimonial, 179, 183 Tolerance, 106, 117, 191, 210, 226 Transcultural, 34, 73, 91–93, 136, 222, 239, 240, 264 Transformation, 2, 23–25, 27, 28, 40, 44, 47, 48, 57, 59, 60, 86, 87, 89, 94, 99–101, 107, 108, 117, 118, 141, 154, 163, 238, 252, 267, 269, 278, 282, 290, 291 Transformative action, 72–78, 84, 99, 102, 103, 105, 137, 280 Transnational, 27, 117, 124, 127, 138 Travel writing, 179, 183 Truth, 6, 7, 9, 12, 47, 117, 143, 145, 150, 156, 167–169, 171, 174, 181, 182, 185–187, 237, 263, 280 U UNESCO, 8, 30, 33n3, 35, 36, 76–78, 82, 90, 95, 105–108, 133 United Nations (UN), 18, 173, 183, 294 Utopia, 99, 99n2, 104

V Value basis, 25, 266 Vertov, Dziga, 151, 153, 156, 169 Viebrock, Britta, 22, 52, 192, 217, 220, 222, 224, 225, 230, 235, 237, 243, 255, 258, 273 Viewer response, 15, 150, 214–222 Viewers, 8, 84, 136, 142, 148, 150, 152, 153, 160, 163, 170, 173, 177, 179, 183–197, 185n13, 191n16, 203, 208, 210, 213–219, 221, 222, 226, 228, 245, 251, 259, 274, 277, 278 Visual anthropology, 179 Voice, 4, 5, 18, 41, 80, 110, 114, 153, 172, 173, 175–177, 180–183, 188, 213, 232, 245, 278, 292 W Walk within, 122, 133–135, 137, 138, 141, 268, 269 Web of significance, 6, 175, 202, 204, 204n20, 210, 265, 269 Weik von Mossner, Alexa, 4, 63, 99n2, 184, 189, 191–193, 215, 218n1, 240 Willoquet-Maricondi, Paula, 4, 5, 36, 41, 42, 63, 66, 101, 182, 190, 191 Wilson, Graham, 1, 29, 34, 34n4, 35, 44, 106 Workers Leaving the Factory, 152, 157, 168, 210 World mindedness, 240