Abstract

ALEGRIA, Maria Fernanda. Geographies of the imagined world. Finisterra [online]. 2010, n.89, pp.27-46. ISSN 0430-5027.

The idea that Geography is more about the construction of images of the world than about a given “objective reality” inspired this study of the mental representations of several countries. Among the multiple possible representations of 12 countries (Portugal, France, Norway, Egypt, Mauritania, Mozambique, United States, Mexico, Brazil, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia), we began by charting their location in a world map as indicated by over 300 respondents with at least high school attendance. Then, the compilation of a vast number of mental images (three per country and respondent) led to the definition of six general categories that bring together mental images of a similar kind: nature, culture and history, tourism and gastronomy, economy and society, specific places and no answer/wrong answers. In each category, we have highlighted the dominant (most frequent) idea. Location, the relative frequency of the no answer/wrong answers category and the dominant images for each country all proved significant when it comes to dividing the countries into groups, and serve as indicators of the richness and variety of the mental representations. The study provided answers to some of the original research questions, but leaves many others unanswered.

Keywords : Location; mental image; countries; representational categories.

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