Policy and Practice Spatial imaginaries: tyrannies or transformations?

This Policy and Practice (P&P) originated from the round table discussion held in the UK and Ireland Planning Research Conference at Queens University Belfast from 11 to 13 September 2017. Its aim is to explore the representational and performative role of spatial imaginaries in both describing identities and ascribing them to places and thus influencing spatial relations and planning practices. The P&P consists of four contributions which reflect on and respond to the editor's opening essay by focusing on a number of key questions that are pivotal in understanding spatial imaginaries and their role in planning thoughts and practices, such as: how do spatial imaginaries come about? Which mechanisms and tools are drawn upon to construct, circulate and galvanise them? How and why do certain spatial imaginaries become dominant in planning? And what is the role of planning in generating, uncovering, enacting or resisting certain imaginaries?