Cartography and Cul-de-Sac: The Racialized Landscape of Public Transit and College Access Discourses in Philadelphia

• In Event: Who's the Culprit? Power, Mobility, and (In)Stability on College Access

Abstract

There is a scarcity of research on how space and forms of development in Philadelphia contribute to inequitable discourses of education. In this study, we – a professor and 14 students – explored the landscape of Philadelphia to learn how college access discourses are conceived for residents in North and West Philadelphia who ride public transportation. Exploring domination through the use of qualitative descriptive data and subaltern spaces of resistance through observation data collection and analysis, we engage a postcolonial geographic methodology specific to Philadelphia’s residential and educational landscapes. Findings reveal how visual space and community are relational and how the SEPTA system engages in racial discourses of educational access through its transit design.

Authors

• Amalia Z. Dache, University of Pennsylvania

• Jessica Ch'Ng, University of Pennsylvania

• Manon Steel, University of Pennsylvania

• Margaret Tebbe, The University of Pennsylvania