Dealing with uncertainty in Environmental and Sustainability Education – learning from young ‘hustlers’ in Africa?

Within Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) research, discussions about uncertainty has primarily focused on uncertainty in relation to knowledge and the wickedness of sustainability problems. Sustainability challenges are considered ‘wicked’ due to their complexity and ambiguity, the uncertainty of our knowledge about them and the disagreements about norms and values (see e.g. Block, Goeminne, & Van Poeck, 2018; Lotz-Sisitka, Wals, Kronlid, & McGarry, 2015). This perspective relates uncertainty to dominating forms of knowledge most often considered universal (cf. Gough, 2014). In this presentation, I take a different point of departure with a focus on everyday experiences of and ways of dealing with uncertainty. Drawing on research on livelihood uncertainty in Africa, I hope to bring new perspectives to discussions on ESE in the European context, and, in particular, to the question of how ESE may address increasing experiences of uncertainty and climate anxiety among young people.