Learning with the city via enchantment: photo-walks as creative encounters. Issue 1 (2nd January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pyyry, Noora
• Is Part Of: Discourse. Volume 37:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 102
• Page End: 115
• Publication Date: 2016-01-02
• Subjects: dwelling -- enchantment -- hanging out -- learning -- photography -- play -- visual methods; Education -- Periodicals; Education -- Australia -- Periodicals; 370.5
• DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2014.929841
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0159-6306

Abstract

Abstract : In this paper, I approach learning as a process of rethinking the world that happens via the surprising experience of "enchantment." This process becomes possible by dwelling, that is, by forming meaningful multisensory engagements with one's surroundings. I present my arguments by discussing photo-walks that students conducted in Helsinki as part of a geography-learning project. During the photo-walks, learning happened with the spaces of hanging out. In contrast to common understandings of learning, this learning with the city is non-instrumental: it is making the familiar unfamiliar by paying attention to the particular in everyday spaces. Methods such as photography are understood as creative encounters that can help in re-cognizing the world and fostering one's ethical sensitivity.