Counter-mapping for social justice

Abstract

This study underscores the importance of place in the political formation of young people. In the research project, students from a middle school in Seattle were asked to map significant historical sites associated with women or an ethnic group in the city. The 29 seventh graders worked in teams and collaborated extensively on each of the mapping projects. The researchers used a participatory action research framework to study the varied ways in which the students began to comprehend how space is actively produced through human agency. Topics and themes that emerged as important included processes of spatial inclusion and exclusion for the historical groups that were studied, as well as the possibilities of challenge and contestation of those processes that were considered unjust. Some of these possibilities of challenge and political agency for the students were made evident through their own collaborative mapping projects.