Spatial Imaginaries Research in Geography: Synergies, Tensions, and New Directions

Abstract

Human geographers have produced a diverse, and growing, body of literature documenting the existence and consequence of spatial imaginaries. However, reviews explaining and evaluating how geographers conceptualize and empirically verify spatial imaginaries, along with the field's tensions and potential directions, are lacking. This article addresses this gap by assessing geography's spatial imaginary literature. I identify shared features across the literature, while arguing geographers have, in fact, verified three different kinds of spatial imaginaries: imaginaries of places, idealized spaces, and spatial transformations. The article recommends researchers better account for these three, both their differences and relationalities. I also explain and evaluate geography's four competing conceptions of spatial imaginaries' ontology. Some geographers see them as semiotic orders, other geographers believe them to be worldviews, yet spatial imaginaries are predominantly viewed as representational discourse. Recently, however, some geographers have argued them to be performative discourses. This article advocates viewing spatial imaginaries as performative; arguing this view – among other things – clarifies the association between spatial imaginaries and material practices while offering new research directions for the field.

On the Stickiness of Territorial Stigma: Diverging Experiences in Amsterdam’s Most Notorious Neighbourhood

“…Geographers have long been interested in the construction of such sociospatial imaginaries and how these are mobilised in processes of othering (Gregory ; Watkins ). Building on Edward Said’s study of imaginative geographies of the Orient (1978), scholars have questioned how stereotypical narratives about place—ranging from historical representations of “uncivilised” colonies to contemporary representations of “deviant” urban neighbourhoods—constitute difference and otherness (Jazeel ).…”

Approaching the Relational Nature of the Port‐City Interface in Europe: Ties and Tensions Between Seaports and the Urban

“…The practice of waterfront redevelopment has consistently been associated with large‐scale flagship buildings, ‘starchitecture’ and contemporary urban design (see Doucet ), which demonstrates the rather ambivalent degree to which places are associated with overarching rationales and narratives. Thus it would make sense to reflect further the role of cities, territory and space not only as a pre‐given material entity evolving from a sort of objective truth, but also as subject to social construction, set in place by material practices and also through media, communication and discursive practices (Boudreau ; Watkins ). Analysing the urban in the context of constructivist research perspectives can be understood as another means to overcome essentialist ideas of space, regions, and cities, in order to acknowledge the complexity and relational configuration of activities in late modern space‐time frameworks.…”

The significance of mountain glaciers as sentinels of climate and environmental change

“…For example, current observed glacier retreat concurs with looming visions of disastrous climate change (Jackson, 2015). However, those interpretations may well be shaped by imaginaries of spatial transformations (Watkins, 2015) implanted by changes observed elsewhere, without accounting for the particular nature of the landscapes analyzed, such as the importance of seasonal snow cover or high elevation wetlands on water availability (Buytaert et al, 2006;Ohlanders, Rodriguez, & McPhee, 2013).…”

“…As climate conditions change, glacier mass responds accordingly, triggering modifications in the landscape and biogeochemistry of ecosystems at diverse spatial and temporal scales. However, those interpretations may well be shaped by imaginaries of spatial transformations (Watkins, 2015) implanted by changes observed elsewhere, without accounting for the particular nature of the landscapes analyzed, such as the importance of seasonal snow cover or high elevation wetlands on water availability (Buytaert et al, 2006;Ohlanders, Rodriguez, & McPhee, 2013). As mountain glaciers shrink, we may not only lose valuable archives of past climate and culturally relevant landscape features (Thompson, Mosley-Thompson, Davis, & Brecher, 2011) but we may also witness a transformation in the hydrological and biogeochemical cycles that geographers are uniquely poised to appreciate from a truly integrated perspective, using the many tools of observation and methods of tracing over many different scales.…”