Economic Geography

Strength through difference
The diversification of economic geography has resulted in a plethora of philosoph-
ical approaches, opening up an equally broad spectrum of definitions, questions
and research methods. The tendency to reduce these to a series of seemingly
antagonistic ‘isms’ belies both how they have fed off one another (in positive as
well as negative ways) as well as the internal heterogeneity of each approach.
Each ‘ism’ over-simplifies a diverse group of scholars who see themselves as engaged
in a more-or-less common sub-project of economic geography. Indeed, every
really existing research project inevitably draws from more than one tradition,
even when the researcher claims otherwise. Figure 1 visualizes these overlaps.
Crudely summarized, three distinct philosophical ideal types can be identified
(the apexes), each of which has been at the center of at least one ‘revolution’ in
economic geography since the 1950s. Each has a distinct ontology (object of
knowledge) and associated epistemology, as well as a methodology for evaluat-
ing claims made about the world. For logical empiricism, sometimes loosely
labeled as positivism, the object of knowledge is events experienced in the world,
its epistemology (what we can know) is the identification of regular relations
between observed events, and its methodology entails observation, generaliza-
tion and hypothesis testing. For idealism, the object of knowledge is the models
and idealizations humans impose on the world, its epistemology is to derive the
meaningfulness and multiple representations of the world emanating from this,
and its methodology entails hermeneutics, discourse analysis and genealogies of
the emergence of and work done by these representations. For structuralism, the
object of knowledge is the structures/mechanisms generating the world, its epis-
temology is rooted in providing theoretical accounts of these mechanisms, and
its methodology is logical (variously Aristotelian and dialectical) analysis of
underlying mechanisms shaping the world. As ideal types, these do not exist in
their pure form. The figure suggests how various approaches heavily debated
The economic geography project
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over the years in economic geography, location theory/geographical economics
(LT/GE), Marxism, political economy, realism, feminism, and post-structuralism
and related ‘posts’, range across the philosophical space bounded by these poles.
In the case of feminism and political economy, clear shifts over time can also be
discerned.
This diversification reflects the synthetic and trans-disciplinary nature of
Geography itself, which in the case of economic geography implies taking seri-
ously the relations between economic and other social and bio-physical processes,
rather than analyzing the economic as either separable from or foundational to
such other processes. Such diversity is to be celebrated, not bemoaned. Even
within a discipline as apparently unified as physics, Peter Galison (1997) argues:
‘It is the disorder of the scientific community – laminated, finite, partially 
independent strata supporting one another; is it the disunification of science –
the intercalation of different patterns of argument – that is responsible for its
strength and coherence.’ Diversity is not necessarily regarded as a strength,
however. Mainstream economics has built its reputation by excluding heterodox
approaches (to the point where even Krugman’s work is denigrated as insuffi-
ciently mainstream). Within economic geography, for a variety of reasons that space
precludes me from detailing here, rivalry and othering of different approaches, on
all fronts, has prevented us from realizing the potential of strength through
difference. Two schisms, in particular, are worthy of mention; that separating
approaches stressing broad theoretical claims from approaches stressing contin-
gency and local interpretations, and that separating disciplinary cultures of
Geography and Economics.
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Eric Sheppard
Figure 1 Economic geography’s philosophical domains.

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