Socio-spatial representations of the world among Lebanese and Salvadorians

Conclusion

The mental maps help us to understand that the knowledge of the conceptualizers is structured, having been filtered, selected and signposted for intentionality. This knowledge is in fact twofold: one facet is spontaneous, loaded with affects, but often fuzzy; the other is academic, formalized and precise. As stressed by Gumuchian (1989), these maps constitute a significant means of expression that allows a more spontaneous and direct formulation than writing.

These supports help us to see just how vast, complex, discontinuous, closed and heterogeneous the world is. The desire to live together with the ‘Other’ and ‘Elsewhere’ appears to be limited to a country, a region or a continent. These are compact, contiguous, closed territories that may either expand or shrink. Each expansion signifies apenness, conviviality and cultural proximity, whereas shrinking expresses conflict.

The world thus perceived and represented is a juxtaposition of experienced spaces of the possible, in other words of living together in resemblance. What is identical takes the place of what is different, hence the territorial grid that often favours what is close by and familiar, but excludes what is distant, unfamiliar and synonymous with distrust and avoidance.