Summary
A social imaginary is the shared, mostly unspoken picture a society holds of itself – the meanings, symbols and expectations that make its institutions and habits feel natural. The philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis used the term in ‘The Imaginary Institution of Society’ (1975), arguing that every society creates its own way of living and seeing. Charles Taylor later used it to trace how the modern West came to imagine itself.
An imaginary is lived more than stated, which separates it from a theory or an ideology. Manfred Steger and Paul James call imaginaries “deep-seated modes of understanding” that set “largely pre-reflexive parameters within which people imagine their social existence”.
Rationale
Part 2’s first footnote lists ‘social imaginaries’ among other fields’ names for this territory. The fit with deep dispositions is close: shared, lived, mostly unreflective. We put more weight on bodies, habits and built surroundings.
Source: dukeupress.edu