Earth month education book talk: Instagram as Public Pedagogy

Exploring Instagram’s public pedagogy at scale, this book uses innovative Big Data methods to trace and analyze how publics reinforce and resist settler colonialism as they engage with the Trans Mountain pipeline controversy online. The book traces opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline in so-called Canada, where overlapping networks of concerned citizens, Indigenous land protectors and environmental activists have used Instagram to document pipeline construction, policing and land degradation; teach using infographics and express solidarity through artwork and re-shared posts. These expressions constitute a form of “public pedagogy,” where social media takes on an educative force, influencing publics whether or not they set foot in the classroom.

Carrie Karsgaard is Postdoctoral Fellow at Arizona State University, USA and currently serves as a researcher at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her research focuses on social, epistemic and climate justice in formal and non-formal education, including social media.