Revealing Community: Participatory Countermapping and the Politics of Place in Social Inquiry

• In Event: Inquiry With Youth in Pursuit of Truth

Abstract

This paper reports on a participatory curriculum study in which 5th graders from Wisconsin investigate the concept of community, and counter-map their findings. Using a place-based approach, this curriculum had students collect data that helped them question their ideas of community and discuss the racialized and colonial boundaries that fracture and segregate community. This paper argues three things. First, social studies curriculum should critically interrogate the use of "community," and use it as a point of inquiry. Second, community engagement in social studies curriculum should be approached as an opportunity to explore the intersections of civic participation, spatial justice, and anticolonialism. Third, counter-mapping is a curricular methodology with the possibility to facilitate such exploration across K-12 settings.

Authors

• Gardner R Seawright, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater
  Presenting Author

• Nini Hayes, Western Washington University
  Presenting Author