Los mapas históricos como instrumentos para la ensenañza de la historia

Abstract

This article aims to propose a dialogue between investigations that analyze how students grasp events of the past from the perspective of historical thinking and investigations that, through the history of cartography, have developed a critical look on the maps. Maps are regarded as instruments of the school material culture and critical thinking on them may provide new didactic strategies for historiographical understanding of the nation State building process. On the other hand, by promoting a dialogue with investigations on historical thinking, students are expected to develop tools inherent to a researcher to think of processes of the national past and images through which the territory is represented. It is concluded that the field of school history teaching might benefit from the critical developments in history of cartography, as they allow students to understand not only what the map shows and how it shows, but also how the national territory was conceived and represented in other times and societies. In short, the dialogue proposed between the two subjects tries to promote in students the acquisition of certain tools that allow them to historicize what the map shows and how it does this.