Imaginative Geographies

The postcolonial critic Edward Said originally formulated the concept of imaginative geographies in his analysis of Orientalism. Imaginative geographies are representations of peoples and places that express the perceptions, desires, fantasies, fears, and projections of their authors, who are generally external observers. The dramatization and reification of the distance between self and other, or between home and abroad, is an integral part of imaginative geographies. In their use of the concept, geographers have been particularly attentive to the material effects of the cultural‐political performances of imaginative geographies, notably the geopolitics of the “war on terror.”