Some forms of geographical imagination tread lightly on the world and
remain largely individualistic or context specific. They may be personal
mental maps or ways of seeing and knowing specific to limited spaces and
times. Others, however, can be called deep knowledges. These knowledges
play a deep and abiding structuring role in the world we live in. One example might be the division of public and private space—a form of geographical
imagination that capitalist and patriarchal relations are based on. Yet it
is possible to think of a world without distinctions between public and
private space. Indeed, significant strands of Marxism, feminism, and anarchism
have all done this. Th e division of public and private space, in other
words, is a social construct—a product of history.