本文通过对相关文献的梳理,对想象地理的理论起源及研究内容进行了总结与分析。根据想象的主体和想象对象的地理尺度差异,国外想象地理研究主要分为两个流派:一是探讨后殖民主义语境下“西方”对“东方”的文化形象的话语建构;二是研究“作者”通过地理文本的生产,以想象的方式对地方的文化形象进行重构的过程。同时,文章通过分析国外近30个实证案例,指出想象地理在地方的文化建构和空间文化意义的生产等文化地理重要话题的研究中都具有重要的作用,并据此对国内想象地理研究提出了展望。
This article introduces the axis of studies on imaginative geography, which is borrowed from Ed- ward Said who presented the conception of Orientalism and imaginative geography and indicated that imagi- native geography was a kind ofpostcolonial 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 predomi- nated by the Occident, they created an imagined place called the "Orient" through which the heterogeneous- ness, 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 geog- raphy for Chinese scholarship, nearly for the first time in the discipline of geography, and it addresses key is- sues 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 hu- man geography put imaginative geography into practice, and also puts forward some suggestions for the Chi- nese scholars for their researches in cultural geographies, based on a detailed review of approximately 30 em- pirical case studies.