Imaginative geography designates a familiar ‘ours’ and unfamiliar ‘theirs’ that need no external acknowledgment.

Evidence

It is perfectly possible to argue that some distinctive objects are made by the mind, and that these objects, while appearing to exist objectively, have only a fictional reality. A group of people living on a few acres of land will set up boundaries between their land and its immediate surroundings and the territory beyond, which they call “the land of the barbarians.” In other words, this universal practice of designating in one’s mind a familiar space which is “ours” and an unfamiliar space beyond “ours” which is “theirs” is a way of making geographical distinctions that can be entirely arbitrary. I use the word “arbitrary” here because imaginative geography of the “our land-barbarian land” variety does not require that the barbarians acknowledge the distinction. It is enough for “us” to set up these boundaries in our own minds; “they” become “they” accordingly, and both their territory and their mentality are designated as different from “ours.” — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 154

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘our land-barbarian land’ mechanism of imaginative geography — a one-sided boundary-setting that needs no confirmation from the other side.
• XREF: This is the core constructivist insight the later Islamophobia readings will build on: the Oriental is epistemically made by the West without consultation. — connects to: A ‘them’ alone does not determine how an ‘us’ is united internally. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 228
• CANDY: ‘It is enough for us to set up these boundaries in our own minds; they become they accordingly’ is a compact, tweetable formulation of the whole othering mechanism.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 154