Speculative Space: Radical Imagining of Spatial Justice in Education in the Professions

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 9:45 am - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Speculative Space: A Conversational Laboratory to Explore Speculative Education and Research in the Professions

Abstract

Introduction
An essential, yet often ignored, aspect of critical approaches to pedagogy is space, in particular
spatial (in)justice: the ways space, power, and knowledge intertwine to support—and
resist—oppression. 1 To bring space into our critical sphere is to not only name the ways it
oppresses and affordances for its resistance, but also to ask why spaces were built the way they
were and how they inscribe power on some bodies and remove it from others: critical spatial
analysis. 2 Bringing this critical spatial approach together with speculative education, this
presentation offers an invitation to engage in radical imagination for collective spatial justice in
the professions. 3

Theoretical Framework
Following Houlden and Veletsianos, who conceive of radical imagination as targeting the
foundation of systems, this presentation is grounded in a deep understanding of systems of
intersecting oppressions, particularly racism and ableism. In this system, racism and ableism are
normal and accepted and, thus, racially marginalized and disabled people must attempt to act
white and abled—to normalize—in order to access resources for their basic needs. The system
only offers equal resources when the interests of white, abled bodies converge with Black,
Brown, and disabled bodies.

Modes of Inquiry and Evidence
Grounded in this understanding of systems of oppression, this presentation brings critical spatial
analysis and radical imagination together to create countercartographies of hope by centering the
knowledge of historically oppressed people to create a spatial, temporal, and social map of what
education in the profession could look like. 4 Houlden and Veletsianos note that radical
imagination must be a communal activity, that it comes out of a collective working together to
imagine new systems and structures. 3 Thus, this presentation will ask attendees at the session to
work as a collective to create countercartographies through sharing of stories and speculative
dialogue.

Conclusions and Significance
While the outcomes of this dialogic foray into radical imagination and critical spatial analysis are
yet to be determined, the process is equally as important as we in the professions build the skills
and connections to work as a collective to imagine what might be: for us, for our learners, and
for the people we and our learners serve in our professions. Critically, “radical imagination is
intended to work upon the present moment while it engages with the future.” 3,p.608 This
presentation seeks to straddle future and present, imagining liberatory spaces for the future while
creating a communal space to do that creating in the present moment.


1. Soja EW. Seeking spatial justice. U of Minnesota Press; 2013 Nov 30.
2. Annamma SA, Morrison D, Jackson DD. Searching for Educational Equity Through
Critical Spatial Analysis. In Critical Race Spatial Analysis 2023 Jul 3 (pp. 3-7).
Routledge.
3. Houlden S, Veletsianos G. Impossible dreaming: On speculative education fiction and
hopeful learning futures. Postdigital science and education. 2023 Oct;5(3):605-22.

4. Morrison D, Annamma SA, Jackson DD. Conclusion: Critical Spatial Analysis in
Education: Today and Tomorrow. InCritical Race Spatial Analysis 2023 Jul 3 (pp. 165-
168). Routledge.

Author

• Darrell D. Jackson, University of Wyoming