Uncertainty and Other Forms of Hope

An Environmental Pedagogy

Authors

  • Tanis MacDonald Wilfrid Laurier University

Keywords:

climate change, creative writing, environmental pedagogy, future, hope, nature writing, place, uncertainty

Abstract

It’s axiomatic to declare that an environmental pedagogy, especially for women, queer folks, BIPOC people, assault survivors, and anyone who identifies as disabled or vulnerable, is vital to making space for ourselves geographically and psychologically in our workplaces and neighbourhoods. It is equally necessary politically at this stage of late capitalism where the spiked club of use-value is wielded to commodify everything, including our experiences of nature. Trust, risk, and the precarious present have been drawn sharply into pedagogical focus in recent years, exacerbated in the classroom and elsewhere by students’ anxieties about the future that manifest as a withdrawal from the uncertainties of the present moment, including—but not exclusive to—climate anxiety. This article’s examination of living in that shifting “now,” in classroom discussions and in writing assignments, considers the important entanglement of uncertainty and experience as they inform, or even form, hope. 

Author Biography

  • Tanis MacDonald, Wilfrid Laurier University

    Tanis MacDonald is Professor of Canadian Literature and Creative Writing in the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, located on the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee and Anishnaabe peoples. She is the author of The Daughter's Way: Canadian Women's Elegies, Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female, and six other books. She is the General Editor of the Laurier Poetry Series, and winner of the 2025 Open Seasons Award for creative nonfiction. 

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Cover images shows a blue ceramic tile with a green fish.

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Published

2025-07-16

Issue

Vol. 46 No. 2 (2025): Open Call / Gender and Climate Justice

Section

Gender and Climate Justice

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Tanis MacDonald

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