EDUCATION THROUGH IMAGES OF THE EARTH GLOBE IN THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18554/rt.v18i00.7344Keywords:
Geographic education, Visual narratives, Conceptions of the worldAbstract
In this text, we discuss images of the globe disseminated by National Geographic magazine, from 1970 to 2021. We intend to reflect on conceptions of the world arising from visual narratives about the planet made visible by the images present in the periodical and, also, think about these conceptions for geographic education. Based on the theoretical contributions of Denis Cosgrove and Verónica Hollman, we assume that the conceptions of the world generated by the narratives present in the images imply geographic education, as they educate us visually, culturally and geographically. To follow this investigative path, we undertook an archaeogenealogical reading of the images, through an archival procedure based on Michel Foucault. We identified 2,201 images of the globe published in the magazine during the period studied, including photographs, satellite images and various types of drawings. The set of images was organized into four fronts: a world that can be known by the National Geographic Society; a world that can be visualized and understood through cartographic images; a globalized world and the target of socio-environmental actions; and a world that is our home, that is, that is our home, our place. We present, in this text, the analytical archival gesture of the specific world conceptions of Earth as our home, such as that of a unique place, in which there is life; a home surrounded by technologies and artificial views and a home that needs protection, as it is fragile, vulnerable, finite in its resources. We observe in such conceptions the perpetuation of knowledge that has already been disseminated and consolidated over the last few decades, especially by the mainstream media, and that the use of images can encourage the reproduction of dominant discourses about the world and the strengthening of hegemonic narratives. This use would be to the detriment of a geographic education with a critical and plural bias, as we aim to promote.
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