Waliszewska, Aleksandra Krystyna2026-01-272026-01-272026https://hdl.handle.net/1828/23079This thesis is composed of two related studies. First, I reflect on the past decade as an educator and graduate student to highlight the joy that accompanied my shifting understanding of literacy. Through an autobiographical narrative inquiry, I use selections from blog entries and graduate coursework to reflect on my “moments of turning”. I begin with a logocentric understanding of literacy as a white settler in two Indigenous communities, but over time embrace a multimodal, embodied, emergent, place-based, and more-than-human conception of literacies within a context of the climate and nature emergency. In a second, post-qualitative inquiry I explore what kinds of literacy practices do learners in an elementary outdoor program engage in, and how are they shaped by the more-than-human world? I situate my research within the context of a socially and ecologically precarious world, from a posthuman theoretical perspective in conversation with Indigenous literacies, to build an argument for an embodied, sensory, multimodal, emergent, relational, and more-than-human conception of literacy. The study focuses on the experiences and literacy practices of fifteen elementary aged children in a multi-grade, forest school program in southern British Columbia, Canada. Using photographs and field notes, this study interrogates logocentric literacies and employs literacy as event, a process-based concept with meaning-making and sense-making occurring relationally, often in surprising ways that defy prior predictions, and therefore contain multiple possibilities. Meaning and sense-making interact to create powerful literacy experiences that transcend language. With these two studies, I argue that more-than-human literacies bring joy and open possibilities in a precarious world.enAvailable to the World Wide WebAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 InternationalLiteracyLiteracy as eventMore-than-humanNature-based educationPost-qualitative inquiryAutobiographical narrative inquiryForest schoolOutdoor educationEducationClimate crisisThesisWaliszewska, A. (2025). Joy amid ruin: More than-human literacies for survival. Language & Literacy, 27(3), 175–193. https://doi.org/10.20360/langandlit29761