All Staff Members | Dr David A G Clarke

Biography

My interests lie in the philosophy of environmental and sustainability education and political ontology in formal and informal education, policy, and research. To this end my interests traverse many areas of education, including how experience, nature, place, and childhood are conceptualised in education discourse. I also research the education of ordinary life, as well as creative inquiry, and ethics. I see education and research as necessarily responding to the materiality and politics of what is widely being called the Anthropocene. My current research projects include a British Academy funded (£268k) international interdisciplinary collaboration with researchers in Vietnam to explore shifting worldviews with ethnic minority peoples.

I am the author of the book Practising Immanence: Living with Theory and Environmental Education (Routledge, 2023). I co-edited the book New Materialisms and Environmental Education (Routledge, 2023). I have published articles in Qualitative Inquiry, Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies, the Journal of Autoethnography, The Qualitative Report, Environmental Education Research, the Journal of Environmental Education, the Australian Journal of Environmental Education, Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, and the Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education. I have contributed to UNESCO reports and made sustained contributions to environmental education research internationally.

Before starting at the University of Cumbria I held research and teaching positions at the University of Edinburgh, University of the Highlands and Islands, and the University of Brighton. I have worked for a number of organisations focusing on outdoor, adventure, and environmental education in the UK and abroad in both the private and charitable sectors and I have led educational overseas expeditions to the Nepalese and Indian Himalayas, China, Mongolia, and Borneo.

Qualifications and memberships

I completed my PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2018, on Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's philosophy of immanence and practise in environmental education research. The thesis was examined by Jonathan Wyatt and Ken Gale are resulted in the publication of my monograph: Practising Immanence: Livining with Theory and Environmental Education (Routledge, 2023).

Qualifications

• PhD Education - University of Edinburgh
• MSc Outdoor Education (with distinction) - University of Edinburgh
• Postgraduate Certificate of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education - University of Brighton
• BA (Hons) Adventure Education - University of Chichester
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Responsibilities & affiliations

• Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas
• Human Nature Relations Theme
• Sustainability in Education Research Group
• European Educational Research Association Network 30: Environmental Sustainability Education
• Environmental Sustainability Education Research Development Network
• Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network
• Centre for Creative-Relational Inquiry

Academic and research interests

Knowledge exchange:

• Contributor to Working Group 3 of the UNESCO International Science and Evidence based Education (ISEE) Assessment (2022): https://mgiep.unesco.org/iseeareport

• Guest Editor for Environmental Education Research: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ceer20/26/9-10?nav=tocList

• I have peer-reviewed for the following publications:

Science Education
Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy
International Journal of STEM Education
History of Education Review
Environmental Education Research
Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning
Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education
Book reviewer for Springer
Book reviewer for Palgrave Macmillan

PhD Supervision:

I view educational research-practice as situated in and necessarily responding to the Anthropocene era. I am hopeful to work with candidates in the following areas:
• Creative-relational approaches to environmental education research/experiences of policy/political ontology/being alive
• Practitioner inquiry and participatory action research in environmental education research/health and wellbeing/experiences of policy/political ontology/being alive
• Narrative, autobiographical, and autoethnographic inquiry in environmental education/health and wellbeing practice/research/and policy
• Philosophical inquiry, writing as inquiry, thinking with theory, and post-qualitative inquiry in practice
• Immanent ontologies, including animisms, feminist new materialisms, and posthumanisms as applied to practice
• The work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in relation to education and the act of living
• The work of Tim Ingold in relation to education and the act of living
• Research into the methods and methodologies of environmental education research

Publications

Past Research Projects:

Principles Teaching Award Scheme (PTAS) (2021) (£15k) Keeping the Door Open: Curating, developing and evolving Edinburgh University teaching in spaces and places within the city and beyond.

Peer-reviewed Articles:

• Clarke, D. A. G. (2023). Haecceity altercation: thisness as pedagogy. Qualitative Inquiry.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10778004231172224

• Clarke, D. A. G. (2022). A political ecology of ecologies: Walking in Glen Almond with students and immanent ethics. Journal of Autoethnography. 2(3), 411-414. Available at: https://online.ucpress.edu/joae/article-abstract/3/3/411/189870/A-Political-Ecology-of-EcologiesWalking-in-Glen?redirectedFrom=PDF

• Jukes, S., Clarke, D. A. G., Mcphie, J. (2021). The wisp of an outline ≈ Storying ontology as environmental inquiry↔education :–). Australian Journal of Environmental Education. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/australian-journal-of-environmental-education/article/wisp-of-an-outline-storying-ontology-as-environmental-inquiryeducation/32474643006B6603E894D39DC8BBBBF6

• Bittinger, R., Clarke, D.A.G., Erb, J., Hauser, H., & Wyatt, J. (2021). Intimacy as Inquiry: Collaborative reading and writing with Deleuze and Guattari. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies. 21(6), 480-490. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15327086211037761

• Clarke, D.A.G., & Mcphie, J. (2020). Tensions, knots, and lines of flight: Themes and directions of travel for new materialisms and environmental education. Environmental Education Research. 26(9-10). Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2020.1825631

• Clarke, D.A.G., & Mcphie, J. (2020). New materialisms and environmental education: Editorial. Environmental Education Research. 26(9-10). Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2020.1828290

• Mcphie, J., & Clarke, D.A.G. (2018). Nature matters: Diffracting a keystone concept of environmental education research - just for kicks. Environmental Education Research. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2018.1531387