necessarily without concreteness, substance
and, indeed, ‘reality’. On the contrary, im-
aginative geographies circulate in material
forms (including novels, paintings, photo-
graphs and film; intelligence reports, academic
geographies and populartravel writing; and
collections and exhibitions) which become
sedimented over time to form an internally
structured and, crucially, self-reinforcingarch-
ive. This supplies a ‘citationary structure’ for
subsequent accounts that is also in some sub-
stantial senseperformative: it shapes and
legitimizes the attitudes and dispositions, pol-
icies and practices of its collective audience, so
that in this way imaginative geographies spiral
into and out of a sort of cultural paradigm of
‘otherness’ that has the most acutely material
consequences.
Imaginative geographies thus act to both
legitimize and produce ‘worlds’. The circula-
tion and sedimentation of imaginative geog-
raphies produces a sense of ‘facticity’ and
hence of authority: the repetition of the same
motifs becomes a taken-for-granted citation of
Truth (Vanderbeck, 2006). In some cases, im-
aginative geographies work to domesticate
other spaces and hence validate (for example)
colonial dispossession: thus Carter’s (1987)
project of an avowedlyspatial historyshowed
how thelandscapeofaustraliawas brought
within the horizon of European intelligibility
through a series of explicitly textual and carto-
graphic practices. In other cases imaginative
geographies articulate spaces of (radical) dif-
ference, but here too, through their implica-
tion in systems of power and practice, they
may be read as so manyperformancesof
space. Thus Gregory (2004b) distinguished
three strategies put to work during the ‘war
on terror’ to bring ‘the enemy’ into view within
three different spaces: reduced to targets in the
coordinates and pixels of an abstract, geomet-
ric space; reduced to barbarians attacking the
gates of civilization from a wild, savage
space; and reduced to the inhuman, lodged
in a paradoxical space of exception (seeexcep-
tion, space of) wherein their deaths were of
no consequence (see alsoterrorism).
Strategy Register Space
Locating Techno-cultural Abstract, geometric
Inverting Cultural–political Wild, savage
Excepting Politico-legal Paradoxical,
topological
Seen thus, imaginative geographies are
spaces of constructed (in)visibility and it is
this partiality that implicates them in the play
of power.
In response, imaginative counter-geographies
are deliberate attempts to displace, subvert and
contest the imaginative geographies installed by
dominant regimes of power, practice and repre-
sentation. Usually produced from within thetar-
gets of representation,theyseek to givevoiceand
vision to their subjects and to undo the separ-
ationsbetween ‘ourspace’and‘theirspace’:thus
‘the empire writes back’ and ‘the subaltern
speaks’ to undermine the impositions of imperi-
alism and subalternity (Slater, 1999: seesubal-
tern studies). Testimonies of this sort have a
long history, but today they frequently use so-
called ‘new media’ to produce new publics:
hence Gregory (2009c) explores blogs from
Baghdad whose counter-geographies of every-
day life contest US political and military imagin-
aries of Arab cities. dgSuggested reading
Driver (2005); Gregory (1995a); Said (2003
[1978, pp. 49–73]).immigration A form of migration that oc-
curs when people move from one nation-state
to another. Immigrants change their perman-
ent dwelling place and are therefore distinct
fromsojourners, who relocate temporarily, usu-
ally for employment-related reasons; immi-
grants also move voluntarily and are therefore
distinct fromrefugees, who are forced to
leave their homes because of persecution.
When immigrants settle in a new country
without the knowledge and approval of the
government in power, they are called ‘undocu-
mented’, ‘illegal’ or ‘unauthorized’ immi-
grants. Millions of people immigrate each
year, and this form of migration is one of the
most significant causes of social change in the
world today (Clark, 1986; Sassen, 1996).
There have been several episodes of mass
migration in history, but the decades following
the Second World War have seen the largest
population movements of all time. Immigra-
tion, in the sense in which the term is used
today, began after the creation of nation-states
and, until recently, was closely associated with
colonization (cf.colonialism). For example,
British subjects migrated to the colonies and
created settler societies; after colonies gained
independence, this movement continued in
the form of immigration. Others, at first
mainly from European countries, joined them
and many former colonies, such as Australia,
Canada and the USA, consider themselves
‘immigrant societies’ in the sense that theGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_I Final Proof page 371 31.3.2009 7:05pmIMMIGRATION