Introduction: locating imagination in popular culture: place, tourism and belonging

This chapter investigates the multifaceted relations between imagination, place, and popular culture in the context of contemporary society. It is time to scrutinize these claims and to investigate in detail how the connections between imagination, place, and popular culture are made in cultural practice. The concept of the imagination can serve as a – thus far — missing link between media studies, cultural geography, cultural studies, and tourism studies. The imagination, as mediator between cognitive, and practiced experiences of place, could be an important concept for efforts in this direction. Within Rationalism and Enlightenment thinking, the imagination was even interpreted as an obstacle to the progress of mankind. Instinctive, organic emotions such as fear, love, hate, and lust will excite the imagination, but it is the schemata of our culture that determine how these emotions take shape and result in certain scenarios and locations. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.