Sustainability discourses in different cultural contexts: curse or blessing?

Abstract

Although a Western discourse of sustainability has been widely implemented in university systems, its main principles do not fully resonate with localized ecological frameworks which ground Asian education. These ancient cosmo-anthropic ecological frameworks preceded Western ecology in its conceptualizations of nature-to-human relationships, and they have been dominating Asian educational traditions for many centuries. Do these frameworks aid or prevent a global spread of sustainability into Asian educational systems? In her comparative case study, the author answers this question by revisiting Asian ecological discourse of Neo- Confucianism and explaining how ignorance to culturally-specific ecological frameworks might minimize or maximize a widespread entry of western sustainability into non-western higher education systems. The author uses an example of the Global Seminar project to uncover tenets of localized tradition, explain innovative specifics of curricular implementation, and propose organic contributions to global sustainability discourse.