AbstractsSociology

What is the imagination, and how does one examine it ethnographically? Philosophers like Derrida, Sartre, Barthes, and Taylor have often questioned its existence in relation to consciousness, investigating the nature of consciousness through the imagination. As an ethnographic inquiry, this research goes beyond defining the imagination and investigates how it operates in the mundane performances in life. Through questioning the relationship between the imaginary and imagination on a social level, it becomes apparent that the imaginary and imagination are not nominal forms of the same entity, rather, aspects of the process of imagining. The social imaginary provides the basis for, and is transformed into new ideals, through the social arena into the social imagination.