16. Re-membering Ceremonies: Childhood Memories of Our Relationships with Plants

Esther Pretti is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Sustainability and the Walton Sustainability Teacher’s Academies at Arizona State University. Her work is concerned with the relationships between humans and non-human beings, especially in urban areas, where she relies on posthuman and Indigenous scholarship to examine the hierarchies of knowledge and being that are often overlooked in environmental and sustainability education. From a very young age she found comfort and companionship amongst tropical plants in Brazil, being met with beauty, refuge, and solace by a Cambará bush in her grandmother’s yard.

Keti Tsotniashvili was born in Georgia during the time of Perestroika (Restructuring) and her childhood was shaped by the uncertainties and joys of navigating the turbulent 1990s of post-Soviet time and space. In her childhood, she enjoyed climbing and interacting with tall apple trees, learning from and with them while visiting her grandparents in the village and engaging in the family’s ceremonial act of apple harvesting. Keti recently obtained her PhD in Educational Policy and Evaluation from Arizona State University. Her dissertation research explores transformation of academic identities in post-Soviet Georgia. Her research interests also include decolonial theories and postsocialist transformations, academic cultures, higher education systems and policy, childhood memories, and environmental sustainability. ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4354-8183

Dilraba Anayatova is a PhD student in the Educational Policy and Evaluation program at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University. Born and raised in rural Kazakhstan, she enjoyed her grandmother’s big garden with various flowers, fruits, and vegetables, especially sitting there with female family members and putting medicinal woad ink on their eyebrows. Dilraba is interested in rural education and the interaction of environmental education in and outside classrooms with human and non-human teachers.

Ann Nielsen has been an educator for over 20 years having worked as a classroom teacher, master teacher, school administrator and in the last ten years has broadened her interests to the lived experiences of teachers globally. Her research interests include the lived experiences and subjectivities of teachers and teacher leaders, education for sustainable futures, memory work, visual and post qualitative methodologies. Ann grew up in the midwest region of the United States where she celebrated the spring flowers on May Days.

Iveta Silova grew up in Latvia during the late Soviet period. She spent a lot of time outside, playing in her family’s summer garden, wandering along the river on the edge of her hometown, and exploring nearby meadows and forests. During this time, she learned to speak with trees and make friends with yellow fairies. Iveta now works as a Professor and Associate Dean of Global Engagement at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. Her research examines the intersections of postsocialist, postcolonial, and decolonial perspectives in envisioning education beyond the Western horizon. She is particularly interested in childhood memories, ecofeminism, and environmental sustainability. She enjoys being a part of the Mnemo ZIN collective with Zsuzsa and Nelli.