Such geographical identities and ‘the struggle over geography’ (Saïd 1993: 6)1 that they
imply provide the setting for a new imaginative geography: for instance, the recurrent
theme of Englishness in post-devolution literature, or the revival of the travel writing
genre which marked the end of decolonization. If we accept that the nation is an
‘imagined community’ (Anderson 1991), then the new spaces of identity suggest new
forms and formulations of the imaginary, a geo-narrative map yet to be drawn. In the
last thirty years, the ‘spatial turn’ in social theory has reached beyond the boundaries of
geography and its subdisciplines to encourage a focus on: