Historical Maps and Historical Narratives Representations as Cultural Tools

PARELLADA, CRISTIAN

Amsterdam

Congreso; 48th Annual Meeting of The Jean Piaget Society; 2018

Jean Piaget Society

Developmental psychology has primarily focused on analyzing what concept of space people hold, how they orient themselves in it, on their ability to read maps and to draw them. However, it has not been explored in depth how subjects represent national territory when they are narrating about foundational national history, such as national independence. Specifically in Argentina, various governments have endorsed a (master) narrative of the national past, centered on the territory as an element that past and present have in common. The study presented here examines what representations of the territory university students construct in relation to the national past, how they are based on narrative templates and socially standardized representations of the territory. Given the obtained results, it will be argued that in order to understand how subjects represent the national territory it would be beneficial to adopt a relational perspective. A perspective that takes into account how the processes of individual elaboration are not independent of the historical culture in which they take place.