Imaginary


 * Etymology and Everyday usage**

According to the //Oxford English Dictionary,// the term imaginary comes from the Latin //imaginarious//, which refers to a religious term for an unreal or semblance of something, or something non-corporeal. Many of the earliest uses of the term were religious, such as ghosts or spirits. The term was then used in other contexts to denote things that only existed in the imagination, not in reality. In the 4th century the concept became associated with visual images; a combination of “image”-ary.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, the [Anglo Norman //ymaginere//] brought in the concept of imagination; the mental faculty to create internal images or situations not present outside the mind. Newton was the first to apply the term to mathematics [using a later Middle-French derived version of //imagenierie//], denoting “impossible” or “imaginary” quantities as theoretical values that are expressed as the square root of a negative; its real equivalent would equal zero.

The most commonplace usage of the term “imaginary” relates to pretending or dreaming of things that are not real in the material world. Something is or is an imaginary because it is not the same as reality. Not all imaginaries have the same relationship to reality, however; some imaginaries are a version of reality that simply is not true for the person in that moment, others are fantasies that could never exist in any reality. The concept of imaginary has retained an abstract and fantastical component, as well as component of conceiving of a mental version of real phenomena.


 * Individual Imaginaries**

Imagination was theorized by Aristotle as a type of interior image-making; his concept of //phantasia// includes a component of mental visualization (O'Gorman, 20). This type of mimetic imagining was based upon a reflection of reality – a cognitive figure or likeness that mirrored some part of the material world. However, during later Renaissance and Enlightenment reformulations of the rational self, the imaginary was theorized as a more creative, complex, and human created set of images and symbols residing within the minds of individuals (Gunn, p. 42). After the developments of psychoanalysis, the imaginary was theorized by Jacques Lacan (1977) as both a component of the psyche, in addition to the //Ego// and the //Id.// The imaginary (which Lacan calls the //imago//), is a false sense of autonomous selfhood that serves to mask the reality of a split psyche. Lacan argues that when individuals realize that their imagined version of themselves as independent is flawed, they recognize the subconscious desires (for the Other) that they truly need.


 * Ideological Imaginaries**

Lacan is not the only theorist to connect imaginaries with false consciousness, however. Marxist theorists drew upon critiques of an autonomous individual to assert that external forces determine unconsciousness ideas through ideology. Marx and Engles most often use ideology as a component of false consciousness (Eagleton, 89), where individuals view the world through an abstracted or imaginary logic that is determined/controlled by external forces - both the ruling class and the means of production. Many Marxist authors thought that if individuals were confronted with the reality of their material conditions, their consciousness would move away from ideology.

The most significant Marxist theorists for the study of ideologies and imaginaries are Louis Althusser (1977) and Cornelius Castoriadis (1987). Althusser defined ideology as “the imagined relationship of individuals to their reality” indicates the way that he saw ideology as the forces that constitute and articulate the subjects who live within it. This is a collective form of false consciousness, where people fail to recognize that their reality is determined. Castoriadis builds upon Althusser in his conception of the imaginary as a constellation of meanings that is communicated through symbols and practices (p. 127). However, he allows for much greater agency, as he argues that both individuals and collective societies create their identities through the communication of their imaginaries.


 * Social Imaginaries**

This “constellation of meanings” that Castoriadis describes parallels closely with the way that sociologists have articulated imaginaries. //Social imaginary// refers to the subconscious set of associations and expectations that exist between groups of individuals, as well as “the normative notions and images that underlie those expectations” CITE 6. Social imaginaries can exist on a local level; Steger (2008) uses an example of a 4th of July parade to illustrate the way that imaginaries can allow individuals to navigate a sea of symbols, myths, customs, and practices with relative ease (p. 6). This set of tacit understandings undergirds social structures, and gives people a sense of shared group life (p. 10).

Social imaginaries are less codified than a theory of society or an articulated set of beliefs (like a political or social ideology); Taylor (2004) compares imaginaries to having a sense of one’s physical surroundings, whereas an ideology would be akin to a map of that area (p. 108). The imaginary, the symbolic, and the embodied are all in constant influence on each other. Together these create the symbolic foundation of a group's social interaction.


 * Implications for Communication Research**

Imaginaries are made up on symbols, images, and language – all the purview of communication research. Thus, communication scholars can contribute a great deal of clarity to abstractions of “the imaginary” writ large. However, as Darrel Enck-Wanzer (2012, p. 5) contends, the concept of a social imaginary encourages communication scholars to appreciate the "wide set of practices and beliefs that are constitutive of who we are in some meaningful way." Communication is the mediator between imaginaries and embodied practice, and scholars such as McGee (1975) have examined how linguistic phenomenon can point back to the imaginary that they embody. The concept of an imaginary is also a useful framework for examining the subconscious assumptions that undergird our communication practices. There is great potential for communication research to map the matrix of assumptions, myths, and expectations that make up imaginaries.

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 * References**

Althusser, L. (1968). //Lenin and Philosophy and other essays.// New York: Monthly Review Press.

Allen, D. (2006). //Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education.// Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Anderson, B. (1982) //Imagined Communities, Revised Edition.// London: Verso.

Azoulay, A. (2012). //Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology of Photography.// London: Verso.

Caughey, J. (1984). //Imaginary Social Worlds: A Cultural Approach.// Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Castoriadis, C. (1987). //The Imaginary Institutions of Society.// Translated by Kathleen Blamey.Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Durand, G. (1993). The Implication of the Imaginary and Societies. //Current Sociology// 41, 17-32.

Eagleton, T. (1991). //Ideology: An Introduction.// London: Verso.

Enck-Wanzer, D. (2012). Decolonizing Imaginaries: Rethinking ‘the people’ in the Young Lords’ Church Offensive. //Quarterly Journal of Speech// 98:1, 1-23.

Gaonkar, D. (2002) Toward New Imaginaries: An Introduction. //Public Culture// 14:1, 1-19.

Gunn, J. (2003). Refiguring Fantasy: Imagination and Its Decline in U.S. Rhetorical Studies. //Quarterly Journal of Speech// 89:1, 41-59.

Hutamo, E. (2011). Dismantling the Fairy Engine: Media Archaeology as Topos Study. in //Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications, and Implications.// Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lacan, J. (1977). //Ecrits: A Selection.// Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: W.W. Norton.

Julien, P. (1994). //Jacques Lacan’s Return to Freud: The real, the symbolic, and the imaginary.// Translated by Debra Beck Simiu. New York: New York University Press.

Kearney, R. (1998). //The Wake of Imagination.// New York, Routledge.

McGee, M. (1975). In Search of 'The People': A Rhetorical Alternative. //Quarterly Journal of Speech// 61, 235-249.

O'Gorman, N. (2005). Aristotle's //Phantasia// in the //Rhetoric//: Lexis, Appearance, and the Epideictic Function of Discourse. //Philosophy and Rhetoric// 38, 16-40.

// Oxford English Dictionary // (online version) (2015). Oxford University Press.

Steger, M. (2008). //The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror.// New York: Oxford University Press.

Taylor, C. (2004). //Modern Social Imaginaries.// Durham: Duke University Press.

Thompson, J. (1982). Ideology and the Social Imaginary: An Appraisal of Castoriadis and Lefort. //Theory and Society// 11, 659-681.

Williams, R. (1985) //Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society, Revised Edition//. New York: Oxford University Press.