mapping.html

SBS 301/Koptiuch

Who Do We Think We Are?

Mapping the Media's Geographies of Cultural Identity

Due: November 26, 2002

Select images/text from any media as "evidence" to map who "we" are
(print, film, electronic, cereal boxes, billboards, graffiti, etc--copies are fine)

Design a visual map charting our geographies of cultural identity

Define the "we" however you wish, e.g. we the people (the nation), we white women, we people of color, we black gay men, we Latinas, we new immigrants, etc.

Be cognizant of the social location of this "we" and its intersection with Others along the key borderlands of difference addressed in this course: race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, (trans)nation

You need not be a member of the "we" group you map÷but be cognizant of the problem of speaking for others
Keep an eye on how the media engages in cultural constructions of "otherness"

Take up a position as a "resistant spectator" or use an "oppositional gaze" and critically read "against the grain" of the media imagery to map the cultural politics of difference in play

Your map may be of any size or complexity (less is often more), and need not be realistic (imaginary geographies may be more suitable for mapping figures of otherness or for the temporal cartography of rememory)

NOTE: If you stick to 8+1/2" x 11" you can easily project your map on the screen in class, using an opaque projector

Keep in mind the contradictions and complexities of multiple subjectivities, cultural hybridity, diasporic identities; cultural commodification, embodiments of difference, etc.

be imaginative! Return to Cultural Diversity home page