Jonna Kallaste Håkansson
Affiliated to Research
Unit for General Didactics and Pedagogic WorkAbout Jonna Kallaste Håkansson
I am affiliated to research at the Dept. of Pedagogical Curricular and Professional Studies and received my PhD in subject matter education within environmental and sustainability education in September 2025. In addition to environmental and sustainability education, my research fields consist of critical animal studies and critical animal pedagogy. Focus is on exploring critical approaches to human-animal relations in education through a collaborative methodological approach.
I have a MA degree in gender studies from University of Gothenburg (2018) and have a special interest in addressing intersecting oppressions toward humans and nonhuman animals and engaging with collaborative feminist methodologies through activist research.
Research
My dissertation is titled Toward an Animal Standpoint in School? Critical Animal Pedagogy as Sustainability Education and explores how critical animal pedagogy can contribute to environmental and sustainability education by addressing, challenging, and transforming current exploitative human-animal relations, and enabling a re-consideration of how to live together with other species in ethical and sustainable ways. It is carried out as a feminist activist ethnography in which teachers, students, animal rights activists, and scholars develop and introduce critical animal pedagogy in Swedish schools. Theoretically, the thesis draws upon critical animal studies. It reads animal standpoint theory with and through feminist affect theory, feminist philosophy, educational philosophy, and poststructuralist theory and pedagogy.
The thesis explores the didactical conditions for critical animal pedagogy in upper secondary education and how this context, particularly in environmental and sustainability teaching, informs and possibly transforms what CAP is and can achieve. It is concerned with the (im)possibility for nonhuman animals to emerge as subjects and what human-animal relations are enabled or disabled. The importance of creating space to take an animal standpoint in environmental and sustainability education is emphasized and a sharp division between normative and pluralistic approaches questioned. It shows how critical animal pedagogy can contribute to environmental and sustainability education by addressing and challenging exploitative human-animal relations through engaging with interspecies sustainability.
Platform for critical animal pedagogy
I am currently developing a platform for critical animal pedagogy to create space for learning with and from each other through sharing experiences, organizing lectures and workshops, sharing resources and developing critical animal pedagogy in a collaborative manner – Please reach out if you are interested in learning more or joining the platform.
Teaching experiences
I have teaching experience in environmental and sustainability education in general and critical animal pedagogy in particular. Additionally, I teach intersectionality and norm critical approaches, as well as about sexuality, consent and relationships. I have, among other things, been involved in the teacher education programme and the international master’s programme in education for sustainable development. I also have experience in organizing training in intersectionality and norm critical approaches for workplaces, organizations and networks.
More
I am one of the initiators to the cross-disciplinary network GU-CAS: Gothenburg University’s Network for Critical Animal Studies in the Anthropocene. GU-CAS puts human-animal relations at the center in exploring novel approaches to environmental problems, social injustice and climate change.