Economic Geography

Economic geography as (regional) contexts
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which the central works on the critique of the political economy (Grundrisse and
Capital) were written), implying that the work of the different phases cannot be
regarded as identical theoretical projects; (b) logic and history referring to the
different levels of abstraction in Marxist theory (i.e. theories about the logic and
laws of motion of capital found in Capital vs. studies of concrete social forma-
tions). In the studies of technological change this differentiation underlines the
interrelation between the (exchange) value dimension (economy) and the material
(use value) dimension (technology), implying that the capitalist production process is
a valorization as well as a labour process, where the valorization process subsumes
that labour process (Asheim 1985). This makes simplistic explanations of, for exam-
ple, locational changes deduced from changes in the valorization process impos-
sible, and establishes studies of concrete social formations as a specific level of
analyses in a Marxist theoretical approach. Also this alternative approach empha-
sizes that Marx gave up the paradigm of necessity in his political-economical
works. This means that the logic of capital must be interpreted as tendencies (i.e.
necessary, internal relations of the capitalist mode of production), which implies
that it is not a question of things being predetermined, but only determined by
the tendencies (structures) whose realization are dependent on contingently
related conditions. In many ways this approach provides answers to most of the
criticism Marxism was exposed to, for example, in the debate in Environment 
and Planning D: Society and Space in 1987, which represented the ending of the
hegemonic position of Marxist economic geography.
This non-deductive and non-reductionist approach represented some serious
methodological challenges, which could not easily be answered by looking for
methodological guidelines in Marx’ own writings. Beyond referring to the ‘two-
route strategy’ from the material-concrete to the theoretical-abstract, and from
the abstract to the concrete, there is not much else.
4
In this situation the intro-
duction of a ‘realist’ approach (Sayer 1992 (1
st
ed, 1984)) was extremely helpful.
First, the distinction of realism between abstract and concrete research enables the
opposition between nomothetic and idiographic approaches to be transcended
(Asheim and Haraldsen 1991); second, it elucidates the relation between the
levels of abstraction in Marx’ political economy in a non-reductionist way by
explicitly stating that one strata (in the stratification of the world) cannot be
reduced to the next as well as emphasizing that ‘concrete intensive research’ is
one specific type of research; and third, it solves the problem of which level of
abstraction space can be theorized as ‘concrete research’ is the level where space –
as a property of an object and, thus, analytically inseparable from the object 
as such – represents an explanatory factor. Sayer underlines that ‘even though
concrete studies may not be interested in spatial form per se, it must be taken
into account if the contingencies of the concrete and the differences they make
to outcomes are to be understood’ (Sayer 1992: 150). This is consistent with an
understanding of geographical analyses as contextual, as well as with positioning
geography as basically a synthetic discipline. According to Sayer, ‘the “fetishization
of space” consists in attributing to “pure space” what is due to causal powers of
the particular objects constituting it. In reaction to this, some proponents of the
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Bjørn T. Asheim

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relative concept of space have made the converse mistake of supposing that space
is wholly reducible to the constituent objects, whereupon it becomes impossible
to see how space make a difference, in any sense’ (Sayer 1992: 148).
5
The consequences for (economic) geography of some (Marxist) geographers
reducing space to its constituent objects was also raised by Doreen Massey, who –
based on her empirical analyses of the regional consequences of industrial restruc-
turing (Massey 1984) reflected upon the radical critique of the 1970s – and
argued that ‘“geography” was underestimated; it was underestimated as distance,
and it was underestimated in terms of local variation and uniqueness’ (Massey
1985: 12). This and similar reactions promoted what was called the ‘new’ regional
geography approach, which, in my mind, came very close to solving the prob-
lems of geography basically being a synthetic discipline (‘regional geography’)
but with the same theoretical ambitions as other social sciences (‘new’), by applying
a realist approach of combining abstract and concrete types of research produc-
ing theoretical informed case studies as contextual analyses providing causal
explanations through retroduction.