Paulston, Rolland G. (Ed). (1996). Social Cartography: Mapping Ways of Seeing Social and Educational Change. Reviewed by Irving Epstein, Illinois Wesleyan University

Paulston, Rolland G. (Ed). (1996). Social Cartography: Mapping Ways of Seeing Social and Educational Change. New York: Garland 456 pp. $100         ISBN 0-8153-1994-0 Reviewed by Irving Epstein Illinois Wesleyan University             Social Cartography: Mapping Ways of Seeing Social and Educational Change, is an ambitious attempt to address educational issues from an innovative perspective by taking account of the perceived exigencies of a rapidly changing post- modern world. Rolland Paulston views this attempt as being particularly salient to comparative educators because of the field's generic heterogeneity and although many of the contributors to this volume engage in academic discourse that is not always closely related to the comparative education literature, their chapters hold intrinsic interest to those of us who are concerned with comparative theory and method in a broad sense. Paulston defines social cartography as "the writing and reading of maps addressing questions of location in the social milieu" (p.7), and views the use of social cartography as positively exemplifying the use of metaphor as a way of navigating discourse between the polarities of modernistic totalism and post-modernism's relativism. Because the process of mapping encourages the personal interpretation of objective criteria in representing spatial relationships among differing ideas, social cartography relies heavily upon the use of visual metaphor as an explanatory device to provoke further discourse. Paulston, and many of his colleagues who have contributed to this volume, view such a process as having inherent benefit for a field that is fragmented into numerous perspectives, whose proponents are not always able to speak with one another in constructive terms. The use of social cartography to depict the spatial relationships among these perspectives assumes that these views share a broader social context with regard to the production of knowledge whose deciphering makes the perspectives more understandable. But it is also argued that because map making allows us to communicate a representation of fields whose truth we acknowledge from the start to be both personal and qualified, we engage in dialogue that is reflexive and non- absolutist when we embrace the process of social cartography.             To be sure, as is true of the other social science disciplines, the positivist influences upon the study of geography are strong and have grown stronger as technological innovation has increasingly been applied to spatial analyses. Joseph Seppi, in his useful chapter, "Spatial Analysis in Social Cartography," distinguishes between the science of cartography as the production of a map that "abstracts real physical features in space as forms or shapes onto a two or three-dimensional plane and in a Cartesian coordinate system (p.122),"and looser notions of [social] mapping that do not adhere strictly to Cartesian principles. Social cartography, Seppi concludes, should create metaphors of spatial representation using logical premises derived from geometric patterns, a process that can indeed valuable through its "substitution of physical fact and laws with social facts and laws (p.138)." The differences that arise over the use of the terms social mapping and social cartography are not only semantic distinctions though, for they speak to larger issues regarding the ability to represent spatial truth and fact scientifically. It seems to me that Paulston and many of his contributors are arguing for a kind of middle ground, where the perpetual use of the mapping metaphor, conceived of in constructivist rather than positivist terms, nonetheless encourages a further assessment and refinement of the basic cognitive and ideological relationships that are depicted. And as the depiction of these relationships changes from one of metaphor to one of analogy, where the act of representation corresponds more and more directly to contexts with which we already feel familiar and certain, the opportunities to discover the common ground necessary for enhancing a shared understanding of knowledge forms increases.             Because his project is so ambitious, it invites a certain degree of skepticism. Is social cartography, for example, to be thought of as simply a tool of social analysis, or does it represent a set of normative value claims unique unto themselves? The contributors answer these questions in different ways with differing degrees of success. Nelly Stromquist, in her chapter "Mapping Gendered Spaces in Third World Educational Interventions," and Esther Gottlieb, in her piece, "Mapping the Utopia of Professionalism: The First Carnegie International Survey of the Academic Profession," for example, analyze how unexamined assumptions concerning the nature of educational development and its relationship to women, and the presumed characteristics of the academic profession, govern policy recommendations in the field of development and influence our views of academic life so as to decontextualize them. Both authors present maps that are illustrative of their arguments but they use their maps as tools in aiding the reader to codify these arguments rather than extend them. As a result, the reader is left wondering whether or not one needs to use the map as an analytic tool in order to expedite discourse, and is puzzled as to why in these instances, the use of social mapping should be construed as having comparative advantage over the use of more traditional hermeneutical devices in deciphering the underlying meanings these authors present.             No such ambiguity exists in Thomas Mouat IV's chapter, "The Timely Emergence of Social Cartography," where the author uses the process of mapping to describe of personal view as to how Eurocentric historical influences from medieval times onward have shaped our notions of cognitive development. To complete such a task within 38 pages while doing justice to the vast number of topics that are discussed is certainly daunting, but one wonders whether or not the author's conclusions are in fact based upon a selective engagement with a wide ranging amount of information. In this case, the use of mapping is provocative, but it is questionable as to whether the conclusions that arise from the use of the technique are sufficiently grounded.             Rolland Paulston's elaborate map of comparative education discourse (p. 15), which is based upon his reading of over sixty works in the field, is certainly a more tightly constructed project, yet the juxtaposition of this map with Val Rust's corrective mapping response (p. 48), raises the issue as to the utility and exactitude of the map as a generic tool to another level. To be sure, throughout these pages, authors express a significant degree of discomfort with the authority attached to metanarrative. But, how does one prevent the social map from being used as a nontraditional metanarrative with all of the weaknesses germane to that form, and what evidence is there to support the claim that it holds generic appeal as a more inclusive analytical tool? Rust's critique of Paulston's map, for its inattention to the context and power dimensions through which various comparative education ideological perspectives are portrayed, gives evidence for such concern, even if he personally reaffirms his belief in the tool through presenting his own map.             Of course, the authors in this volume believe that more is at stake than the advocacy of the social map as a research tool or as a provocative metaphor inciting further discourse. The subtext to any advocacy of social cartography or social mapping is the belief that practitioners of contemporary social research must become engaged with the challenges that a post-modernist view presents to prevailing modernist assumptions regarding our understandings of the fragmented characteristics of time, space, power and capital, without necessarily embracing post-modernism uncritically. To this end, John Beverley is particularly insightful in his chapter, "Pedagogy and Subalternity: Mapping the Limits of Academic Knowledge," where he reminds us of the difficulty in accurately depicting through the mapping exercise, the voices of the subaltern, without unfairly appropriating those voices for our own purposes. And, Crystal Bartolovich and Robert T. Tally jr., in their respective chapters, "Mapping the Spaces of Capital" and "Jameson's Project of Cognitive Mapping," offer sensitive reminders of the dangers of embracing totalistic thinking when examining Foucaultian concepts of power or Jamesonian notions of global capital flows. Carlos Torres, who in his concluding chapter, summarizes a number of issues presented throughout the volume, recognizes the important contributions of a post-modernist world view, but is not ready to abandon a "critical" modernist stance in his approach to academic discourse.             Clearly, the authors of this volume are asking their readers to become engaged in the modernist/post-modernist debate, attacking the fundamentalism that accompanies a modernist worldview as well as the radical relativism that sometimes emanates from post-modernist perspectives. To the extent that the exercise of social mapping or in its purer form, social cartography, forces us to tackle such issues honestly, it represents an important advance and cannot be ignored or easily dismissed. However, whether one needs to rely solely upon this tool in order to embark upon such an enterprise remains to be seen. I personally remain unconvinced that in privileging the use of spatial analysis through visual representation, one obtains access to an analytical tool that is more intrinsically powerful than those that are based upon temporal, textual, or oral forms. But because its use has been undervalued and heretofore largely ignored by educational researchers, I am at the same time deeply appreciative that Paulston and his colleagues have highlighted its strengths and have creatively applied its use to a number of research contexts. Clearly, Social Cartography: Mapping Ways of Seeing Social and Educational Change is one of the more important theoretical contributions to the field of comparative education over the past few years, and it should be of use to graduate students and scholars alike. About the Reviewer Irving Epstein             Irving Epstein, Associate Professor of Education, graduated from Lake Forest College with a history major, obtained his masters degrees in history and education from the University of Toronto and the Claremont Graduate School, and obtained his doctorate in comparative education from UCLA. Before becoming a college professor, he taught high school and adult school in Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Los Angeles. In addition to teaching education courses at Illinois Wesleyan, he is teaching a gateway seminar on children's rights during the fall and spring semesters. He has published widely in the fields of comparative education and Chinese education and is currently serving as an associate editor of the Comparative Education Review.