Constructing an Identity: Environmental Educators in Mexico

Abstract

The environmental education field in Mexico is a relatively new social space characterized by wide discursive proliferation and organized by regional hegemonies. In this context, a plurality of identification processes has taken place. There is not a singular environmental educator identity but a multiplicity of local definitions. In this paper, I focus on the case of the Environmental Educational Masters Program in Mexicali, Baja California from 1993 to 1999, where the ethical definition of environmental educator was naturalized as the sole true one. I trace the beginning of the field of environmental education in Mexico, and the marks of pioneer discourse in the professionalization of environmental education through this program. I use discourse analysis to consider the politics of inclusion/exclusion in a particular ideal of the environmental educator identity.