Research
Relational Cartography is an emerging research programme examining how educational settings distribute the relational conditions of learning.
Three Research Strands
Strand I
Theoretical writing and framework refinement, drawing on field theory in educational sociology, the sociology of recognition, and participation research. Developing the constructs of anchors, edges, and trajectories into rigorous analytic tools.
Strand II
Fieldwork examining how relational conditions are produced and distributed in real learning environments. The primary site is Mini München, Munich's play city, where mapping instruments will be developed and tested. Fieldwork planned August 2026.
Strand III
Development of mapping instruments that support educators and researchers in making classroom patterns more visible, discussable, and open to redesign. Tools will emerge from and be refined through the empirical inquiry strand.
Primary Fieldwork Site
Mini München is a temporary play city that has operated in Munich, Germany, since 1979. For three weeks each summer, children aged 7–15 build and inhabit their own city — with a mayor, currency, shops, media, and governance structures entirely run by children. It is one of the most sustained experiments in child-led collective learning anywhere in the world.
The site offers a rare opportunity to study relational conditions in a learning environment defined by genuine child agency, cross-cultural participation, and sustained collective life. Fieldwork at Mini München will allow RC's constructs to be developed and tested in a setting where the relational field is unusually visible and unusually rich. Fieldwork is planned for August 3–21, 2026.
Relational Cartography is currently in the conceptual and early empirical design phase. Constructs, instruments, and field methods are under active development. The framework is offered in the spirit of intellectual inquiry: as a serious attempt to name something widely felt in education but insufficiently studied.