Travelling Imaginations – Perception, adaptation and popularisation of Halford J. Mackinder’s Heartland theory

想象之旅——哈尔福德·J·麦金德心脏地带理论的认知、改编和普及

• 批准号: 433575562
• 负责人: Dr. Oliver Krause
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde (IfL)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2019-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/433575562?language=en
• 关键词: Travelling; Imaginations; Perception; adaptation; popularisation

The project studies the “Heartland” theory of the British geographer Halford J. Mackinder as an example of a space-related imagination that, in the first half of the 20th century, had transcontinental and interdisciplinary effects. The theory predicts a global spatial order. The order’s centre is the resource-rich and difficult-to-access northern part of the Asian continent, which is referred to as “Heartland”. Mackinder presumed that once the Heartland was equipped with transport infrastructure – an effort already underway at the beginning of the 20th century – it would become the basis of a new territorial power. In his eyes, this power would pose a threat to the sea-based hegemony of the British Empire. The theory, thus amounting to a geopolitical dystopia, was published by Mackinder in three versions (1904, 1919, 1943), which were perceived, adapted and popularised across various countries and disciplines. In the course of that reception and adaptation, the global spatial order imagined by Mackinder developed lives of its own, leaving the regional context and Mackinder’s authorship behind. The project combines questions and current states of research that so far have been tied to discrete disciplines: on the perception and adaption of the Heartland theory, on the emergence of imaginations, and on processes of visualisation and reterritorialisation of power under the Global Condition. Thereby, the subject will be embedded into the interdisciplinary context and the spatial thinking of the Global History. The project’s goal is to use the example of the Heartland theory to show how and why (geo-)imaginations of global spatial orders can veer away from their original context and become sources of evidence and explanations for different contexts, available to various users. The project’s hypothesis is that in the process central roles are played by a complex translation between the media “text” and “map” (visualisation), and by interdisciplinary reception (history). The project shall result in a habilitation thesis, and is subdivided into three steps: First, the genesis and structure of Mackinder’s Heartland theory are analysed. Second, its reception and adaptation within a large international and interdisciplinary network of actors are examined comparatively. Third, findings are summarised and underpinned by theory-related inductions in order to derive, from the Heartland theory’s example, an explanatory model of the emergence and impact of popular space-related (geo-)imaginations in the 20th century.

该项目研究英国地理学家Halford J. Mackinder的“中心地带”理论，将其作为与空间有关的想象的一个例子，这种想象在世纪上半叶产生了跨大陆和跨学科的影响。该理论预言了一种全球空间秩序。骑士团的中心是亚洲大陆资源丰富且难以进入的北方地区，被称为“心脏地带”。麦金德推测，一旦中心地带配备了交通基础设施--这一努力在世纪初就已经开始了--它将成为一个新的领土强国的基础。在他看来，这股力量将对大英帝国的海上霸权构成威胁。这一理论相当于地缘政治的反乌托邦，由麦金德出版了三个版本（1904年，1919年，1943年），这些版本在不同的国家和学科中被理解，改编和普及。在接受和适应的过程中，麦金德所设想的全球空间秩序发展出了自己的生命，把地区背景和麦金德的作者身份抛在了后面。 该项目结合了迄今为止与离散学科有关的问题和研究现状：关于中心地带理论的感知和适应，想象力的出现，以及全球条件下权力的可视化和重新领土化过程。因此，该主题将嵌入到跨学科背景和全球史的空间思维中。 该项目的目标是使用中心地带理论的例子来展示全球空间秩序的（地理）想象如何以及为什么可以偏离其原始背景，并成为不同背景的证据和解释的来源，可供各种用户使用。该项目的假设是，在这个过程中，媒体“文本”和“地图”（可视化）之间的复杂翻译以及跨学科的接受（历史）发挥了中心作用。本课题的研究成果是一个概括性的论文，论文分为三个部分：第一部分，分析麦金德中心地带理论的起源和结构。其次，它的接收和适应在一个大型的国际和跨学科的网络行为者进行比较研究。第三，研究结果进行了总结和支持的理论相关的归纳，以得出，从中心地带理论的例子，流行的空间相关（地理）的想象力在20世纪世纪的出现和影响的解释模型。