MAPPING IDENTITY & COMMUNITY AS SITES OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHIC MEMORY

I. Fundamental Questions of Human Existence

II. WHY People of Color Need to Know Geography

III. The Meaning of Community & Identity

IV. Sites & Sources of Memory

Geography Speaks to the Fundamental Questions of Human Existence

• What am I?-Physical/Biological Facts of Life

• Who am I? Cultural Context of One’s Life

• Why am I? Purpose /Raison d’Etre

• How am I?Action/Praxis

• Where am I? Absolute and Relative Location/Situational Context

• Knowing Who You Are Depends on Knowing Where You Are

What is the Worst Feeling in the World?

• Being Lost

• Disorientation

• Knowing Where You’re Going Depends on Knowing Where You Have Been

• The Need for a Map

• The Need for Understanding Relations, Patterns & Distributions of Phenomena That Impact Life

Why People of Color Need to Know Geography

• Geography is the Science of European Imperialism, Racial Subordination & Spatial Control• Mapping the Terrain of Americas, Africa and Asia prior to

Colonialism and Slavery

• Constructing Anglo-American’s Mental Map and Worldview vis-à-vis Those POC Conquered

• The Legacy of Ideological And Institutional Racism• Personal Prejudice v.s. Political-Economic Systems of Spatial Control

• Reservation-Plantation-Ghetto-Barrio-Bantustan Landscapes

• The Realities of Racial And Ethnic Identity• Social & Spatial Construction of Identity

The Meaning of Community & Identity

• Modern Notions of Identity: I think therefore I am

• Traditional Notions of Identity: I am Because We Are & Because We are Therefore I am

• Identity and Community Context Interwoven

• Internal Dynamics of Community

• External Relations Between Communities

Sources of Memory• Cultural Landscapes & Historic Landmarks

of Community • Community Building as a an Act of Human

Agency, Resistance & Self-Determination• Making History & Making Geography• Historical Neighborhood & Settlement

Patterns of Kin• Social and Physical Relations

Sources of Memory

• Archival

• Bibliographical

• Memories of Elders and Ancestors

• Family Albums, Bibles and Scrapbooks

• Heirlooms

• Stories, Songs & Myths

• Legends & Lies

• Legacies of Silence

Sites of Memory

• Cultural Landscapes & Historic Landmarks of Community

• Community Building as a an Act of Human Agency, Resistance & Self-Determination

• Making History & Making Geography

• Historical Neighborhood & Settlement Patterns of Kin

• Social and Physical Relations

Key Terms:• Geography

• Race

• Racism

• Segregation

• Community & Settlement

• Diaspora

• Frontier

The Historical Geographic Context of Remembering and Forgetting

• Memory formation as a process of remembering the particulars of one’s experiences

• The forgotten past as those things that we choose to not remember

Seeing Oneself in Local/ Diasporan Context

Geography and Worldview

Cartographic and Visual Representations of African

American History