Lessons from another world - Chapter IV

Mabe Bethônico develops two interrelated investigations, based on Swiss pedagogic documents from the 2nd half of the 20th century for history and geography for students aged 13 to 18 in the French-speaking region of Switzerland. One relates to how the colonial history of South America is considered. Can one locate exotic or extractive perspectives tied to the continent built in the Swiss imaginary represented in didactic tools? In parallel, how do Swiss adolescents learn about their own geographic and historic context in relation to the Alps? Are the mountains, which are a laboratory for climate change studies, exoticised or viewed from extractive angles?

Schools mark one’s imagination, contents are integrated. Even if Switzerland as a nation is not a coloniser on a political level, it is involved in global exploitation on an economic level. How is this condition raised between the lines of pedagogical path and in relation to foreign spaces and histories?