Introduction

This introductory chapter advances a critical framework that accounts for the deeply geographic nature of spectacle. To that end, it also asks what spectacle might tell us in turn about geography. The chapter suggests that by exploring spectacle's unique reliance on spatial metaphors, we can discern broader patterns of geopolitical thinking across multiple contexts. In some ways, the center-periphery relationships and spatial imaginaries that define and are defined by the Astana project are unique. But, as this and succeeding chapters show, in others, they are not. A rich understanding of political and regional geography can begin to illuminate some commonalities uniting spectacular capital cities in Asia, but this must, ultimately, be rooted in a relational understanding of spectacle that accounts for the unspectacular processes, relations, and experiences that make the spectacle intelligible and, more often than not, possible.