What is Ecocomposition Anyway?

(If you're looking for the newest version of my place piece, it's below this post.)

At the end of Fall quarter earlier this year, I found my self wrestling with the same question to which this post is dedicated: What is Ecocomposition, anyway? I was working on a seminar paper about Ecocomp., and let's just say my inability to define the term, paired with my newness to graduate school , made for a really bad paper. The amazing thing is that now, maybe 30 weeks wiser, I still find it difficult to define. But this time I'm okay with it. It is, after all, something that Dobrin recognizes as resisting definition (14).

But, here's my stab at it:

Ecocomposition is an area of inquiry/pedagogy that involves:

• interdisciplinary approaches and holistic thinking
• emphasis on activism
• constant questioning of itself
• viewing relationships
• consideration of the author and his/her contexts as interdependent factors in creating writing
• identity construction in terms of place--not just through other humans

The benefits of an ecocompositional approach seem, to me, numerous. In encouraging students to explore their relationships with places, we encourage students to explore their own identity and foster interest in environmental issues. Also, an ecocompositional approach lets us work in tandem with other disciplines to broaden our perspective of our world and ourselves. And focusing on relationships instead of analyzing individual aspects of a greater whole allows us to understand a greater cause-and-effect system. It's holistic consideration in identity construction, interdisciplinary studies, and emphasis on context do not seem to isolate place from social issues, so arguing that it abandons human interactions is impossible. And by supposedly questioning itself constantly, ecocomposition practices what it preaches, always reevaluating its relationships. We become more well rounded and we care about others. Sounds like a good approach to me.

But also with these things in mind, the only shortcoming of ecocomposition I can see is this: what doesn't it include? Might adopting holistic thinking dilute, instead of enrich? And perhaps ecocomposition is too idealistic. It's easy to say that we need to think a certain way, but putting it into practice can be a bigger hurdle to jump.