Afro‐Amerindian cosmopolitics in environmental education: A decolonial analysis of academic discourses involving the epistemological disputes around the term sustainability

Abstract Considering the growing calls for decolonial approaches within the scope of Climate Change and Sustainability Education (CCSE), in this research we seek to understand the meanings which have been put into circulation through research narratives on Environmental Education (EE) concluded in Latin America, regarding Afro‐Amerindian knowledges; and, from such narratives, identify their potential relations with the concept‐term “sustainability”. Recognizing the historic marginalization in the realm of Academia of traditional epistemologies, such as Indigenous and Afrodescendants, in this paper we present results of an analysis of Latin‐American theses and dissertations when in their discourse on sustainability they emphasize themes such as interculturality, sustainability and cosmoperception. The documental corpus for the analysis was Latin‐American databases such as Plataforma Fracalanza and LA Referencia, as well as collecting information from the researchers' network Coletivo Estado da Arte em Educação Ambiental na América Latina e Caribe (Earte‐AlyC). Using the dialogical discourse analysis, as proposed by Bakhtin, the present results reveal tensions between technocratic‐developmental approaches versus critical decolonial perspectives. Hegemonic discourses on sustainable development frequently marginalize local knowledges through universalistic structures. The list of the 21 theses and dissertations analysed is available as supplementary material. From the results and systematized discussions herein presented, it can be concluded that we sought to point to possibilities of intercultural and decolonial perspectives capable of transforming educational practices as they promote acknowledgement and active dialogues among different cosmologies, according to the cosmopolitical proposition of Stengers which challenges dominant Western narratives and shun solutions which lessen cultural and territorial diversities to mere gestures of tolerance.