Responding to crises: rewilding accounting education for the Anthropocene
- 20 January 2022
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Emerald in Meditari Accountancy Research
- Vol. 31 (1), 101-120
- https://doi.org/10.1108/medar-06-2021-1333
Abstract
Responding to COVID-19, this conceptual paper uses rewilding to interrupt anthropocentric and human/nature dualist properties of accounting education. Through rewilding accounting education, informed by posthumanist and ecofeminist thought, this paper aims to develop an accounting pedagogy that shapes greater ecocentric narratives. Accounting educators can contribute to addressing crises by evolving new pedagogies that radically transform the education of future accounting professionals. The authors take a critical stance in analysing the human-centred accounting education model. They explore how this model can be reimagined through rewilding accounting education, resulting in learning interventions that foster an understanding of intrinsic value, complexity of systems and collective disposition with all species and the natural world. Rewilding learning interventions embed an ecocentric approach in accounting curricula design to extend beyond a human focus. Rewilding learning interventions practically explored with application to accounting include learning with and from nature, Indigenous knowledge perspectives, play as a common language and empathy as a dialogical bridge. The authors present an accounting pedagogy that fosters among accounting students and educators a relational orientation and ecological consciousness that encompasses compassion and openness to others, including non-human species and nature. This will ensure that accounting graduates are better prepared for addressing future crises that stem from our disconnect with nature. This paper adds to limited research investigating accounting and the Anthropocene. Investigations into the Anthropocene’s human-centred discourse in accounting education are vital to respond adequately to crises. This paper extends social and environmental accounting education literature to encompass less anthropocentric discourse and greater relational learning.Keywords
This publication has 42 references indexed in Scilit:
- Sustainability + Accounting Education: The Elephant in the ClassroomAccounting Education, 2013
- Is ‘the posthuman’ educable? On the convergence of educational philosophy, animal studies, and posthumanist theoryDiscourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 2010
- Social Accounting Research as If The World MattersPublic Management Review, 2009
- Pacioli and humanism: pitching the text in Summa ArithmeticaAccounting History, 2008
- The Effect of Empathy in Proenvironmental Attitudes and BehaviorsEnvironment and Behavior, 2007
- Accounting ethics education: Integrating reflective learning and virtue ethicsJournal of Accounting Education, 2006
- Social, environmental and sustainability reporting and organisational value creation?Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 2006
- Accounting: Filling the negative spaceAccounting, Organizations and Society, 1992
- On Valuing NatureAccounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 1991
- Financial accounting: In communicating reality, we construct realityAccounting, Organizations and Society, 1988