J-READING Journal of Research and Didactics in Geography

Le voyageur, le charme du pittoresque et le progrès des sciences : Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)

Marcello Tanca — 2024-06-14

Dans “ L’Homme et la Terre ”, Éric Dardel réfléchit au concept d’inquiétude géographique : il s’agit – il explique – du premier et bouleversant sentiment d’émerveillement ressenti par un être humain face au monde. C’est la motivation qui déclenche la curiosité et, par conséquent, l’envie “ de courir le monde, de franchir les mers, d’explorer les continents ”. Si je devais donner un exemple concret et historiquement incarné de cette “ géographie en acte ” (comme Dardel l’appelle), de ce désir de connaître l’inconnu et atteindre l’inaccessible, je crois qu’il n’y a pas de meilleur choix qu’Alexandre de Humboldt. Décrit par ses contemporains comme l’homme le plus célèbre de son époque, Humboldt est “ le savant qui, dans la première moitié du siècle dernier, a réussi à convaincre la bourgeoisie européenne et américaine d’apprendre les sciences naturelles ” (Farinelli, 1992, p. 203). En fait, il n’était pas simplement un scientifique et un explorateur mais bien plus encore. Bien sûr, comme on le sait, entre 1799 et 1804 il explora les territoires des colonies hispano-américaines avec Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland (1773-1858) en dessinant, entre autres, la première carte du système fluvial du Rio Orénoque. Mais ici je voudrais me concentrer brièvement sur sa écriture ; une écriture très moderne, d’un type nouveau, à la fois rigoureuse et sensible, et qui implique une stratégie rhétorique et communicative : l’écriture du monde pour Humboldt représente l’outil pour rendre intelligible le monde pour le plus grand nombre (Péaud, 2021). Comme le rappelle Franco Farinelli (Farinelli, 1981 et 1987), Humboldt est animé par un projet à la fois scientifique et politique, dont il hérite du siècle des Lumières : la prise du pouvoir par la bourgeoisie et simultanément l’affirmation de la culture scientifique comme outil de compréhension du monde. Ce sont deux processus complémentaires et convergents. L’un met fin à la fracture entre société civile et État, cause et symptôme de la subordination politique à l’ancien système aristocratique-féodal ; l’autre au caractère purement esthétique et littéraire de la culture bourgeoise, cause et symptôme de la subalternité culturelle par rapport à l’ancien système aristocratique-féodal. L’écriture constitue un élément central de cette opération : elle sert à capter l’attention du lecteur et à façonner son imaginaire. C’est Humboldt lui-même qui nous le dit.

Learning post-representational mapping from professional cartography

Heather J. Miles — 2024-06-14

There is a sustained distancing of the discipline of geography from academic and professional cartography. Countering this geography-cartography separation, this article presents some of the findings from an ethnographic exploration with two professional cartographers, Molly O’Halloran and Daniel Huffman. The study highlighted the personal, as well as the processual and post-representational value of O’Halloran’s and Huffman’s map-making. Furthermore, O’Halloran’s and Huffman’s mapping practices can be described as postdigital: they both interweave digital and analogue techniques, expanding the application of the digital in mapping beyond for example geographic information systems (GIS), geovisualisation and virtual reality (VR). The affordances of postdigital mapping approaches for engaging research participants/collaborators and aiding exploration in the context of empirical geography research could be fruitfully further explored.

Challenges and opportunities for Geography Education beyond the 21st century: the importance of speaking about climate change inspired by Chew-Hung Chang

Davide Pavia — 2024-06-14

In the spring of 2018, Prof. Chew-Hung Chang (President of the Southeast Asian Geography Association and Co-Chair of the International Geographic Union – IGU – Commission on Geography Education) spent time at the Sapienza University of Rome to discuss research and didactical perspectives with the colleagues of Geography from the Department of Letters and Modern Cultures. During his visit at the University, Prof. Chew-Hung Chang noticed the panel placed inside the atrium of the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, which represents Article 3 of the Italian Constitution that says: “All citizens have equal social dignity and are equal before the law, without distinction of sex, race, language, religion, political opinion, personal and social conditions”. These were the words that he chose to start his speech with, entitled “Challenges and opportunities for Geography Education beyond the 21st century”, which took place on 8 May 2024 in front of a number of students from the “Geographical Sciences for Environment and Health” and “Archeological Sciences” courses and several Ph.D. students.

Learning to know, do, be and live together for climate change education. A reflection on practices that work in the context of geographical education

Chew-Hung Chang — 2024-06-14

Research literature on climate change education has been primarily focused on reporting how programmes are designed to help students learn the topic of climate change better. The aim of such education programmes invariably endeavours to educate a globally informed citizenry in response to the contemporary climate crisis through effective teaching and learning. While there have been literature to show how students’ knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviour have changed for the better with effective teaching and learning, this article seeks to curate some of these practices, especially those published by the author to exemplify how we can achieve the UN Delors report’s (1998) suggestion that education needs to help students to learn to know, learn to do, learn to be and learn to live together. These desired outcomes are also aligned with the aspirations of geographical education as set out in the International Charter on Geographic Education (CGE, 2016). The article will draw on published works by the author, review the relevance of these studies and compare them with other published works to provide an argument for using the Delors Report to help teachers in their curriculum planning and lesson designs. While education is inherently future-oriented, there needs to be some coherent and contiguous treatment of the way education practices can be used. To this end, the article’s approach to curating the published work will provide a critical discussion using a known framework to advance the discourse on best practices for climate change education. Ultimately the aim of climate change education should be to provide students with the capabilities and opportunities to flourish in society now and in the future, particularly in the face of the challenges brought about by global climate change.