Project Title: ALTERMAP: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods for the Study of Mental Maps and Representations of Otherness in Europe and Africa
Project Leader: Claude Grasland
Géogpraphie-cités Teams Involved: PARIS, TERMS
Géographie-cités Members Involved in ALTERMAP: Claude Grasland, Adrien Doron, Pierre Pistre
Programme Leaders Outside the UMR: Anne Bouhali (Université Paris Cité), Cheik Ba (Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar), Labaly Touré (Université du Sine Saloum Elhadj Ibrahima Niass – USSEIN, Kaolack, Senegal)
Funding: Université Paris Cité
Description:
The ALTERMAP project aims to foster pedagogical innovation in the study of geographical imaginaries and representations of spatial otherness. More specifically, it focuses on the role of mental maps in undergraduate geography teaching and in research training at the master’s level.
Bringing together scholars from Université Paris Cité, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, and other universities in Senegal, the project adopts an original approach based on the co-construction of a questionnaire and the conduct of interviews on representations of Europe in Africa and of Africa in France. In each country, the questionnaire will be administered by master’s or doctoral students to undergraduate students. The results will be presented within thematic courses (social geography, geography of the Global North and South, contemporary world structures, mobility and migration, etc.) and used as examples in methodological courses (qualitative methods, statistics, cartography, geomatics, etc.).
The project will conclude with a summer school involving researchers from both countries as well as interested doctoral students, with the aim of consolidating the methodological insights gained through the survey. This summer school will provide an opportunity to share experience in areas such as textual analysis of discourse, sensory and participatory mapping, visualization of attractive and repulsive spaces, and statistical modelling of the factors shaping perceptions of otherness.
Ideally, this innovative pedagogical initiative will lead to the development of co-supervised doctoral theses and to the expansion of the survey to other countries in the Global North and South, with a view to responding to international calls for proposals from the European Union, the African Union, or the World Bank.
