Racialized Space: Children Map the Post‐Apartheid Landscape

Abstract

Can children's maps shed light on legacies of structural inequality? This article presents a participatory mapping project with rural youth in South Africa's Eastern Cape. The analysis of the maps demonstrates that intergenerational legacies of racial oppression are critical to children's conceptions of space and place. Through a visual analysis of recurring features in the maps, I argue that rural South African children experience a racialized environment that informs their mapmaking and is a product of apartheid's linking of race, space, and territory. Contributing a case study within the larger field of participatory mapping, I offer a visual methodology to access worldviews of youth.