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Geographical Imagination

The geographical imagination is a way of thinking about the world and considering the relative importance of places and the relationships between “our” places and “other” places. The term encompasses a variety of meanings, including individual mental images and socially produced discourses about cultures, spaces, and differences. How people see the world is influenced by many factors, including social class, education, and personal and political philosophies. The particular moments in history in which people live also play a major role in how they view the world around them.

Derek Gregory explains that the geographical imagination plays a significant role in shaping much of the world's social and spatial thought. Through the geographical imagination, people (both individually and collectively) develop a sense of boundaries, which separate “our” spaces and places from other spaces and places. Geographical imaginations are thus central to the social and spatial constructions of identity. However, few people take the time to contemplate on these issues and think them through thoroughly. The geographical imagination thus forms a part of taken-for-granted everyday assumptions, perceptions, and expectations. Sometimes people gain facets of their geographical imagination through travel, the media, or by sharing travel stories; most people gain the earliest parts of their geographical imagination through what they learn in school about other places. More important, people learn where they fit into the world that they perceive; this is the essence of the geographical imagination. Throughout history, as the particular discourses and social narratives about how the world is structured have been changing so have geographical imaginations.

This entry examines three broad examples of the geographical imagination: (1) the British imperial imagination; (2) manifest destiny and its relation to the American geographical imagination; and (3) Cold War fears in the U.S. geographical imagination.

The British Imperial Geographical Imagination

Empires thrive, in part, because of the geographical imaginations that sustain them. One important way in which geographical imaginations are represented is through maps. The geographer Denis Cosgrove, among others, examined the role of maps in the formation of Western views of the world during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and the ways in which they gave some groups a commanding view of the world, that is, a perspective “from above” that integrated the planet's diverse spaces into a coherent whole. Cartography played a major role in structuring the geographic imaginations of European colonial powers. During the years of colonization, for example, many British colonialists referred to the British Empire as the set of places “where the sun never sets.” This belief was an important part of the British colonial geographical imagination and was reinforced through world maps in which Britain's colonies were often shaded red.

The British took great pride in their knowledge of the world, but like their maps, their knowledge was colored with the air of superiority and domination. In turn, this knowledge of the world was used to reinforce pride in the empire. Literature, religion, and the social and natural sciences (e.g., social Darwinism) were often closely mingled with imperial discourse. Figure 1, subtitled “God Save the Queen!” shows the relationship between knowledge and the British imperial imagination. Queen Victoria is surrounded by icons of the empire, including the banners of “Commerce,” “Literature,” and “Science.” Each of these banners justified British colonial superiority in the British geographical imagination.

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