ABSTRACT
This chapter follows Eric, a little ‘alien’ foreign exchange student-come-geographer-come-spatial-anthropologist, through a literary-spatial critique of the tale by the same name, taken from Shaun Tan’s (2009) Tales from Outer Suburbia. Focusing on the materialities of mapping and the materiality of embodied place-making within ‘Outer Suburbia’, and looking to dimensions beyond the literal for significance, it is my aim to critique and disseminate Shaun Tan’s work towards new audiences, positioning Shaun Tan as a major figure within contemporary childhood studies, children and youth geographies, and beyond. Moving from the pantry to the pavement and back again, I explore othering as a process of alternative directedness that implicates children’s everyday politics; specifically, the agencies and politics of different materialities of the everyday, which are less than overt and obvious. In doing so, I discuss ways in which the counterpoint between pictures and words initiates young readers into a cartographic language that invites them to identify and critique attitudes towards otherness, strangeness and difference within the stories as well as real-life contexts. Ultimately, this chapter underscores the formative potential of Eric as an innovative and creative approach to teaching geography within the primary classroom as well as doing children and youth geographies creatively.
