Archiving and Analyzing Imaginary Geographical Spaces
摘要
If the plurality of imagined geographical spaces were to be studied up to the extent it deserves, it is essential to devise an archiving and taxonomic scheme that would facilitate their analysis. No such framework has hitherto been published in the literature, so a first step towards this aim is made with this work. Thus, the taxonomy and analysis of a set of 25 imaginary geographical spaces is presented here. The basic parameters for building such an archive are the documentation from the literature, the provenance (nation/tribe), the main characteristics or functions, the supposed geographical area or location, the type of geographical entity (mountain, city, river etc.) and the (auspicious, neutral or negative) connotations. From the preliminary archiving and the subsequent analysis of the 25 geographical spaces that was carried out here, it follows that (a) Africa, Australia and North America are rather under-represented in the world of imaginary geographical spaces, (b) regions, mountains, cities and forests (with this decreasing order) are the most often encountered geographical entities that have inspired the imagination, (c) imaginary geographies of South America and regions of the Far North are associated with more positive connotations than those from other parts of the world.