OTHERNESS, POWER AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF PLACE: TOWARDS A THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL REASSESSMENT OF IMAGINATIVE GEOGRAPHY
AN Ning1, ZHU Hong2
1. School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China;
2. Center for Cultural Industry and Cultural Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
Abstract This article introduces the axis of studies on imaginative geography,which is borrowed from Edward Said who presented the conception of Orientalism and imaginative geography and indicated that imaginative geography was a kind of postcolonial way used to describe the Orient by the Occident for colonial and imperial purposes,and also from David Harvey who promoted a certain conception of geographical imaginary which is concerned about how the people portrayed and constructed the place and placeness,and the culture of place in an imaginative way. In the article,with particular references to the objects being imagined in the constitution of geographical narratives,and the geographical scales of studies,Anglophone human geography has focused primarily on two strands of imaginative geographies. Under the power of the discourse predominated by the Occident,they created an imagined place called the "Orient" through which the heterogeneousness,ignorance,and irrationalness etc.,which of it was displayed for their political purposes. To conclude,this article interprets the two strands as an effort to introduce the conception and theory of imaginative geography for Chinese scholarship,nearly for the first time in the discipline of geography,and it addresses key issues such as postcolonial geographical studies,the symbolic production of space,the construction of place and placeness,and the cultural construction of place as well. Also,this article analyzes how Anglophone human geography put imaginative geography into practice,and also puts forward some suggestions for the Chinese scholars for their researches in cultural geographies,based on a detailed review of approximately 30 empirical case studies.
2013, Vol. 28 
