Social cartography as heterotopic mapping of perspectival difference¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

Social cartography is the paper's own methodological contribution: a spatial, postmodern mapping practice that juxtaposes in one intertextual field all knowledge positions in a debate, including outlying ones, rather than plotting a central tendency. Inspired by Foucault's notion of heterotopia — spaces "capable of juxtaposing in a single place a great variety of different sites which in themselves may be wildly incompatable" — it functions as metaphor, heuristic, and "a useful new spatial tool specifically created to give visual form to the growing complexity of knowledge work today."

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Choose the widest possible range of texts constructing the debate; identify textual communities; field test the map with the communities involved and re-map as desired

Constraints¶

• The author reports criticism that administrators and aid agency officials may see social cartography as esoteric comparative education irrelevant to planners who require only hard data

Target Learners¶

• comparative education researchers and doctoral students

Target Learning Objectives¶

• mapping and translating across conflicting knowledge perspectives

Claims¶

Related Theories¶

• Five postmodern-favorable knowledge communities in comparative education discourse
• Four modernist genres opposing the postmodern challenge in comparative education
• Heterotopic social cartography maps perspectival difference as an intertextual field

Examples¶

• Five-step discourse mapping procedure for representing a contested knowledge debate
• Use inclusive visual maps of a discourse field to expose educators to multiple perspectives before making pedagogical and curricular choices

Key Sources¶

• Paulston, Rolland G. (1999). Comparative Education After Postmodernity: Occasional Paper Series. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED430912