Border Crossings and (Re)crossings: The Post-representational Turn in Social Cartography

摘要

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the utility of a post-representational social cartography for mapping educational texts. As a strategy for culturally responsible pedagogy, mapping provides a polyphonic discourse that helps educators navigate the spatial nature of the educational experience. By visualizing their students’ latent assumptions about cultural diversity, for example, educators can identify harmful or apathetic worldviews, such as cognitive dissonance, and differentiate instruction for transformative learning.ududFrom a post-representational perspective, which frames maps as inscriptions as opposed to representations or constructions, cartography does not simply explain or describe the world; rather, it is a part of the complex interplay between people and their surroundings. Mapping is a process of becoming, of negotiating and (re)negotiating the rhizomatic weavings of heterotopic space, and maps are practices that unfold in the liminality of human experience. What this means for education is that post-representational maps can help reify and decode the perceived locations and relationships of disciplinary phenomena in the social milieu. As both a celebration and an extension of the work of Rolland G. Paulston, who first encouraged his colleagues to become social cartographers, this study addresses our current crisis of difference, and opens possibilities for new ways of seeing social and educational change.