Postcomposition

5. Ecocomposition Postcomposition

122 5. Ecocomposition Postcomposition Ecology must stop being associated with the image of a small natureloving minority or with qualified specialists. —Félix Guattari, The Three Ecologies Writing is an ecological phenomenon. It is spatial, relational, and complex and thus requires complex theories (and a complex of theories) in order to attempt to understand its intricacies, functions, and possibilities. Forwarding this notion that writing is ecological, a small number of composition scholars began to import ecological methodologies into composition studies just after the millennial shift. The culminating efforts of those writing about ecology-and-writing has been dubbed “ecocomposition,” a term meant to signify the intersection between ecology and composition studies.1 While the term “ecocomposition” did not make its debut until the mid-1990s, ecological methodologies began to appear in composition studies scholarship as early as the 1970s. Working from the premises I have established thus far regarding the shift of focus postcomposition from subject to writing, from time to space, and from academic to intellectual work, I want to offer another disruptive move, this one geared toward a realignment of the ecocomposition agenda as it has developed over the last ten years or so.2 To begin, I want to look at the definitions of ecocomposition that have become most prevalent. I am not, however, going to provide a history of ecocomposition, as that history has already been detailed in the 2002 College English article “Breaking Ground in Ecocomposition: Exploring Relationships between Discourse and Environment,” which I coauthored with Christian R. Weisser and in which this first definition appeared (it was also repeated in our book Natural Discourse: Toward Ecocomposition)3 : Ecocomposition is the study of the relationships between environments (and by that we mean natural, constructed, and even imagined places) and discourse (speaking, writing, and thinking). Ecocomposition draws primarily from disciplines that study discourse (chiefly composition, but also including literary studies, communication, cultural studies, Ecocomposition Postcomposition 123 linguistics, and philosophy) and merges the perspectives of them with works in disciplines that examine environments (these include ecology, environmental studies, sociobiology, and other “hard” sciences). As a result, ecocomposition attempts to provide a more holistic, encompassing framework for studies of the relationships between discourse and environment. (572) The second comes from the Wikipedia entry for ecocomposition: Ecocomposition is a way of looking at literacy using concepts from ecology. It is a postprocess theory of writing instruction that tries to account for factors beyond hierarchically defined goals within social settings; however, it doesn’t dismiss these goals. Rather, it incorporates them within an ecological view that extends the range of factors affecting the writing process beyond the social to include aspects such as “place” and “nature.” Its main motto, then, is “Writing Takes Place.” (“Ecocomposition”) On the surface, each of these seems important, but I want to argue that these definitions do not really talk about writing, do not establish an ecology of writing. They talk about discourse and literacy, and, as Raúl Sánchez has now made clear, in composition theory, “discourse” (and by extension, I’d add “literacy”) is often addressed in place of writing and often argued to have “more explanatory power than writing. Discourse, in particular, with its Foucauldian resonance, is intended to cover a broader range of culturally embedded signifying functions. Its scope is thought to exceed writing” (Function 9). This substitution is understandable, Sánchez explains, because so many in composition studies sought to “connect our field’s interests to the cultural practices that comprise an increasingly complex, interconnected, and written world” (9). “And so,” the argument continues, “in an effort to broaden the range, applicability, and potential influence of composition studies, they have changed the object of study on the assumption that the category of writing alone cannot describe the theoretical and cultural situations they see before them” (9, emphasis in original). But like Sánchez, I believe that writing can and does do this work, and I see less need to shift the object of study of ecocomposition and postcomposition to issues of discourse than to develop ecological approaches to writing qua writing, without becoming hampered by the ambiguities of discourse. Likewise, these definitions address writing processes and writing instruction , not writing (I hope by now I have made these differences distinct). Even in claims that ecocomposition is a type of postprocess theory, we must now acknowledge that postprocess theories, because they serve as reaction 124 Ecocomposition Postcomposition against...