Towards gentle futures: co-developing axiological commitments and alliances among humans and the greater living world at school

Abstract

ABSTRACT Maturing into ethical human beings is not just an important dimension of human development, it is central to the continued survival and thriving of our species. Viewed through experiences of Arm (student) and Noom (teacher) in an urban Indigenous school in Thailand, this article uplifts gentle ways of being and becoming as important pathways toward enacting more social and ecologically just worlds. I consider the ways the pair became gentle learning environments for the other and how homeland lessons designed and taught by Indigenous students to their teachers created conditions for the joint development of axiologies and alliances with the natural world, and ultimately Indigenous futures. I ask: How might we “unpack the signs” of relational becoming in interaction – the axiological and alliance-building work among humans and others in the natural world? I present three episodes between Arm and Noom as they co-develop ethical stances, specifically human-fish relations. I find the pair engaged in various gentle futurity gestures – poetic, dialogic, responsive practices that attune to the dynamic agency of living beings in everyday ways. I illustrate how political possibilities of re-designing schools emerge from these gentle gestures and carry with them renewed possibilities of cultivating more liveable worlds.