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

该项目研究了英国地理学家Halford J. Mackinder的“中心地带”理论，将其作为20世纪上半叶具有跨大陆和跨学科影响的与空间有关的想象力的一个例子。该理论预测了全球空间秩序。该组织的中心是亚洲大陆资源丰富、交通不便的北部地区，被称为“心脏地带”。麦金德推测，一旦“心脏地带”配备了交通基础设施——这项工作在20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，这种力量将对大英帝国的海上霸权构成威胁。麦金德以三个版本（1904年、1919年、1943年）发表了这一地缘政治上的反乌托邦理论，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，麦金德想象的全球空间秩序发展出了自己的生命，把地域背景和麦金德的写作抛在了脑后。该项目结合了迄今为止与离散学科相关的问题和研究现状：关于心脏地带理论的感知和适应，关于想象力的出现，以及在全球条件下权力的可视化和再领土化过程。因此，该主题将被嵌入到跨学科的背景和全球史的空间思维。该项目的目标是使用心脏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，成为不同背景的证据和解释的来源，可供不同的用户使用。该项目的假设是，在这个过程中，中心角色是由媒体“文本”和“地图”（可视化）之间的复杂翻译和跨学科的接受（历史）所扮演的。该项目将形成一篇康复论文，分为三个步骤：首先，分析麦金德心脏地带理论的起源和结构。其次，比较研究了它在一个大型的国际和跨学科演员网络中的接受和改编。第三，对研究结果进行总结，并以理论相关的归纳为基础，以便从心脏地带理论的例子中推导出20世纪流行的空间相关（地理）想象的出现和影响的解释模型。

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.