Open AccessMAKING SPACE AND NATION MEANINGFUL THROUGH BORDERS AND THEIR REPRESENTATIONS IN ROMANIAN GEOGRAPHY TEXTBOOKS, DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Author(s) -
Oana-Ramona Ilovan
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
territorial identity and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2537-4850
DOI - 10.23740/tid220205
Subject(s) - cultural geography , romanian , historical geography , geography , time geography , identity (music) , human geography , language geography , space (punctuation) , sociology , social science , linguistics , aesthetics , philosophy , development geography
Lately, in Romania and abroad, research about the hidden agendas of educational discourses circulated by school textbooks has become richer. This research focuses on the process of bordering that took place in 1918 and the creation of Greater Romania and on the new borders and their representations in Geography school textbooks before and after that year. These representations are considered in the form of both text and images. First, I describe these representations and, secondly, I uncover and explain their intentions in the respective historical and geographical contexts. As History and Geography have been always viewed among the most influential subject matters in school, I employed visual methodology and discourse analysis to study Geography of Romania school textbooks – officially accepted products. The research material is made of Geography school textbooks. From a temporal perspective, my research material includes textbooks that were circulated starting with 1902 and in the 1930s. In addition, I assessed the degree to which Geography education was politicized. Results showed that, in the first half of the 20th century, the wished-for or newly-established and contested borders of Romania generated a lengthy and argumentative discourse about state borders and about the history and geography of the territories inhabited by Romanians. Ethnocultural identity concepts and conceptions of national identity were provided for the young and not only. Geography of Romania school textbooks were not apolitical, but reinforced a socio-spatial consciousness, based on the natural and anthropic features of the borders and on how they were represented, revealing the social practice of the educational discourse about border areas.