Kitchin, Rob and Kneale, James (2001) Science fiction or future fact? Exploring imaginative geographies of the new millennium. Progress in Human Geography, 25 (1). pp. 17-33. ISSN 0309-1325

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Abstract

In this article, we examine the imaginative geographies of the new millennium through a critical reading of cyberfiction. This fiction, we argue, through its use of estrangement and defamiliarization, and its destabilization of the foundational assumptions of modernism, provides a cognitive space in which to contemplate future spatialities given the present postmodern condition – a cognitive space which is already providing an imaginal sphere in which present-day individual and institutional thought and practice are partially shaped. Using a detailed reading of 34 novels and four collections of short stories, we illustrate the utility of this cognitive space, and its appropriation, through an exploration of fictional visions of postmodern urbanism in the early twenty-first century. We assess the viability and utility of these visions by comparing them to academic analyses of the sociospatial processes shaping present-day urban form and spatiality.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The final and definitive version of this article is available at Progress in Human Geography (2001) Vol.25 No.1, pp.19-35, doi:10.1191/030913201677411564
Keywords:	imaginative geographies; science fiction; urban futures;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > National Institute for Regional and Spatial analysis, NIRSA
Item ID:	3909
Depositing User:	Prof. Rob Kitchin
Date Deposited:	26 Sep 2012 15:50
Journal or Publication Title:	Progress in Human Geography
Publisher:	Sage
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://www.uk.sagepub.com/home.nav http://www.uk.sagepub.com/journals/Journ...
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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