Planting citizenship: Lessons for invoking sustainability via children's civic voice

Abstract

The critical environmental challenges facing our planet have prompted several decades of theory and practice in sustainable design around the world. This has ushered in a period of “experimenting not only with new technologies and new solutions but also with new approaches towards liveability, sustainability and resilience”1 . What was once the domain of science is now increasingly the purview of a range of people, including local communities who are being assembled and resourced to teach and learn, to listen and be heard, to lobby and to act together in realising a sustainable, shared future. Children’s participation in this experimentation and decision-making, however, remains elusive, despite the oft-cited concerns that poor sustainability decisions made now will impact children most intensely2,3 . This lack of children’s inclusion also disregards the growing awareness amongst young people themselves of the impacts that unsustainable practices will have on their futures4 . Children’s relegation to passive recipients of sustainability policy and programming, as opposed to active participants in it, also curtails the development of the skills and agency they will need in future discussions about social, cultural and environmental resilience. As planting and nurturing a garden requires a set of skills and knowledge learned best by doing, so too does active citizenship5 . This paper explores these dilemmas in applied sustainability research and practice, using children’s active citizenship as an anchoring point for thinking about new directions in ‘sustainability’. Two case studies from Melbourne, Australia will be used to illustrate lessons about how children’s active citizenship can be harnessed in tackling questions of eco-sustainability and resilience.