The Country’s Official Map in the Classroom: Memory Policies and Geography Classes in Ecuador (1875-1920)

Abstract

In this article we want to think about the invention of the official memory about the Ecuadorian territory during the 19th and early 20th century. We will address the teaching practices of national geography through a study of the content of geography books for children that were used in schools between 1875 and 1920. The article explores the ways in which geographic knowledge migrates from the country’s official maps to texts that, initially, have a greater chance of being distributed. This dissemination element of geographic information is something that typically does not appear in papers on national maps and is indispensable viewpoint to link the study of geography with its impact on the creation of national identity. The thesis that we want to state is that maps and the paradigms proposed by geographers, their images and their perspectives were well known and disseminated among educated individuals.

In other words, they became part of public discourse and were useful for a more important group of people to be able to imagine the territory they shared with the other inhabitants and, thus, create the geographical fundamentals of a sense of nationality.