THE IMAGINARY IN URBAN STUDIES
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2023-4-59-78
The article deals with the conceptualization of the notion “imaginary” in urban studies. The author analyzes the theoretical prerequisites for the formation of the concept “urban imaginary” and various options for its definition. She argues that the urban imaginary is significant for identifying the uniqueness of a particular inhabited place, understanding the cultural meanings associated with it, and the corresponding patterns of social behavior. The author shows that the urban imaginary is a set of representations of the city, that is, a complex of mental, figurative and symbolic representations of the urban environment. Such representations of the city can be individual and collective, textual and visual, subjective and fixed in cultural practices, attractive and repulsive. The urban imaginary in many ways anticipates and determines the actual perception of the city, influences the tactics of further human interaction with the urban space. In addition, the urban imaginary can act as a stimulus for the development of urban areas or, conversely, as a cause of their degradation and decline. It can serve as a way to attract tourists and new citizens, as well as the reason for the tourist unattractiveness of a place and an impulse for resident migration. The author discovers the origins of the theme of the urban imaginary in the concepts “social imaginary” and “geographical imaginary”. In these concepts, the focus of attention is shifted from the givenness of the object of study as some natural fact to its construction through mental, symbolic and figurative comprehension, which ultimately serves as a key tool for the production of society, the production of space, and the production of the city. The author also explores the significance of the urban imaginary in Christian culture and demonstrates that it plays a special role as a tool for conceptualizing, creating and transforming Christian urban spaces, and becomes one of the ways of demonstrating religious faith. In conclusion, the author argues that the urban imaginary has a significant impact on real urban pragmatics and allows citizens to realize their right to the city.
Keywords: urban studies, urban imaginary, symbolic landscape, cultural meanings, social and spatial structures, city in Christianity, city as existential space, right to city
References:
Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities. Verso.
Augé, М. (1999). From Imaginary City to Fiction City. Khudozhestvennyy zhurnal, 24.http://old.guelman.ru/xz/362/xx24/x2402.htm
Avanesov, S. S. (2017). Jerusalem Topic: Western Siberia / Lower Silesia. ΠΡΑΞΗΜΑ (Praxema). Journal of Visual Semiotics, 4(14), 65–89. (In Russian).
Avanesov, S. S. (2022). Sacred Topics of Russian Cities (11): Visualization of the Sacred-Political Theme in the Vladimir Temple Decoration. Journal of Visual Theology. (Vol. 4. 1. P. 67–98). (In Russian).
Barthes, R. (2008). Le degré zéro de l’écriture. Editorial URSS. (In Russian).
Bloomfield, J. (2006). Researching the Urban Imaginary: Resisting the Erasure of Places. In European Studies: An Interdisciplinary Series in European Culture, History and Politics (Vol. 23, pp. 45–61). Brill.
Bonakdar, A., & Audirac, I. (2021). City Planning, Urban Imaginary, and the Branded Space: Untangling the Role of City Plans in Shaping Dallas’s Urban Imaginaries. Cities, 117. 103315.
Castoriadis, C. (1975). L’institution imaginaire de la société. Le Seuil.
Delorme, P. (2005). De l’école de Chicago à l’imaginaire urbain. In P. Delorme (Ed.), La ville autrement (pp. 9–27). Presses de l’Université du Québec.
Fedotova, N. G. (2020). Visual Markers of the Urban Imaginary. Praxema. Journal of Visual Semiotic, 1(23), 121–139. (In Russian).
Lacan, J. (1966). Écrits. Editions du Seuil.
Le Goff, J. (2011). L’imaginaire médiéval. Progress.
Lindner, Ch., & Meissner, M. (Eds.). (2019). The Routledge Companion to Urban Imaginaries. Routledge.
Lindner, R. (2006). The Gestalt of the Urban Imaginary. In European Studies: An Interdisciplinary Series in European Culture, History and Politics (Vol. 23, pp. 35–42). Brill.
Lindner, R. (2019). Die Eigenlogik der Städte. Neue Wege für die Stadtforschung (pp. 101–116). Logos. (In Russian).
Lindner, R. (2021). The Imaginary of the City. IN A. Schwanhäußer (Ed.), Sensing the City: A Companion to Urban Anthropology (pp. 114–120). De Gruyter.
Lynch, K. (1960). The Image of the City. Routeledge.
Mitin, I. (2011). Toward an Imaginative Geography: Two Turns, Three Spaces. Topos. Literaturno-filosofskiy zhurnal, 1, 62–73. (In Russian).
Mosco, V. (2019). The Smart City in a Digital World. Emerald Publishing.
Perry, N. (2012). Ethnography of a Concept: Rethinking the Urban Imaginary. In L. R. Koos (Ed.), Hidden Cities: Understanding Urban Popcultures (pp. 73–83). Brill.
Rose-Redwood, R., & Bigon, L. (Eds.). (2018). Gridded Worlds: An Urban Anthology. Springer.
Said, E. W. (2006). Orientalism. Russkiy mir.
Sartre, J.-P. (1940). L’imaginaire: Psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination. Gallimard.
Shapovalov, M. S. et al. (2021). Voobrazhaya Palestinu: Svyataya zemlya i russkaya identichnost’ v XIX – nachale XXI v. [Imagining Palestine: The Holy Land and Russian Identity in the 19th – Early 21st Centuries]. Nestor-istoriya.
Smirnov, S. A. (2022). A Person in a City and a City in a Person, or Once again about the Subject of Urban Anthropology (2). Urbis et Orbis. Mikroistoriya i semiotika goroda, 1(2), 7–28. (In Russian).
Soja, E. (2000). Postmetropolis. Critical Studies of Cities and Regions. Blackwell Publishing.
Soja, E. W. (1996). Thirdspace. Journey to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Blackwell.
Starodubtseva, L. V. (1996). Poetics of an Imaginary City in the Real World of Spiritual Search (as a goal in a person’s historical action). In G. Z. Kaganov et al. (Eds.), Gorod i iskusstvo: sub”ekty sotsiokul’turnogo dialoga [City and Art: Subjects of Sociocultural Dialogue] (pp. 48–60). Nauka. (In Russian).
Vakhshtayn, V. (2020). Voobrazhaya gorod. Vvedenie v teoriyu kontseptualizatsii [Imagining a City. Introduction into Theory of Conceptualization]
Zamyatin, D. (2010). Humanitarian Geography: Space, Imagination, and Interaction between Contemporary Human Sciences. Sotsiologicheskoe obozrenie, 9(3), 26–50. (In Russian).
Zukin, Sh. et al. (1998). From Coney Island to Las Vegas in the Urban Imaginary. Urban Affairs Review, 2(5), 627–654.
Issue: 4, 2023
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 59 — 78
Downloads: 224