Economic Geography

Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen and Helen Lawton Smith

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Notwithstanding current frustrations with economics, the ongoing evolution
of knowledge production in economic geography will necessarily continue
to be shaped through its relationship to economics. That relationship is
currently plagued by the shared opinion of new economic geographers in
economics and geography that economics is quantitative and neoclassical,
and geography is not. In fact, quantitative, non-neoclassical and post-posi-
tivist economic geography does exist, and suggests different conclusions to
those dominating the new economic geography in economics. Furthermore,
a variety of heterodox, post-autistic economic traditions exist (feminist,
ecological, institutional, historical, Marxian, post-structural, etc.) with which
new economic geographers in geography could have much in common.
His chapter explores conditions under which researchers with differing
approaches can interact to strengthen knowledge production in economic 
geography.
Susan Hanson raises five questions: 1. What will we study? What is the domain
of economic geography? 2. What are the approaches to studying economic geog-
raphy? 3. What methodologies work and what don’t? 4. Who are our audiences?
5. How do we teach economic geography? In answering these questions, more
questions are raised on linkages across sub-disciplines of geography, the power of
fieldwork and the challenge in combining multiple methodologies, as well as the
need to maximize the effectiveness of economic geography in reaching out to
multiple audiences, namely academics, businesses, government and non-govern-
ment organizations. Pedagogic issues are explored with a full understanding of
the need for evaluation through continuous dialogue among students, professors
and practitioners.
Linda McDowell celebrates how feminist geographical scholarship is now
mainstream. It is visible and vibrant, involving considerable numbers of scholars
exploring geographies of difference and of gender relations in different parts of
the world, and publishing in a range of journals. This was not always so and she
records why feminist arguments were neglected and how and why academic
discourses have been transformed thus the theoretical positions that lay behind
the invisibility of women’s lives have been dismantled. She sets out where new
intellectual challenges lie for feminist geographers and how they can inform the
understanding of broader audiences. 
Ray Hudson traces the changing paradigms of theoretical understanding in
economic geography back to radical shifts in approach in the 1950s when
economic geographers returned to explaining and theorizing why economic
activities are located where they are. Reviewing major advances in succeeding
decades, particularly economic geography’s engagement with Marxian political
economy in the 1970s and its legacy, Hudson concludes that a heterodox and
theoretical plural economic geography has emerged and one in which on-going
debates between protagonists adhering to different theoretical positions is likely
to continue. He predicts more serious theoretical engagement with relationships
between economy, environment and nature.
Introduction: the past, present and future of economic geography
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Allen Scott’s chapter fittingly completes this section with his critique of the
current state of economic geography, drawing together a number of themes
raised in the other chapters. He evaluates a number of prominent claims put
forward in recent years by both geographers and economists about the methods
and scope of economic geography. Much of his chapter revolves around two
main lines of critical appraisal. He pinpoints the strong and weak points 
of geographical economics as it has been formulated by Paul Krugman and 
his co-workers. On the basis of these arguments, he identifies a viable agenda 
for economic geography based on an assessment of the central problems and
predicaments of contemporary capitalism. This assessment leads him to the
conclusion that the best bet for economic geographers today is to work out a
new political economy of spatial development based on a full recognition of two
main sets of circumstances: first, that the hard core of the capitalist economy
remains focused on the dynamics of accumulation; second, that this hard core is
irrevocably intertwined with complex socio-cultural forces, but also that it cannot
be reduced to these same forces. In order to ground the line of argument that
now ensues, we need at the outset to establish a few elementary principles about
the production and evaluation of basic knowledge claims. 
In the second section, Clark, Markusen, Walker, Daniels, Angel, Kenney and
Dossani, and Yeung provide perspectives on contemporary capitalism. Gordon
Clark argues that finance is the essential lens through which to study contempo-
rary capitalism – from the local to the global. His chapter explains why and how
the geography of finance is so important to the future of economic geography
and how old theoretical axioms of finance are now inadequate in the light of
heterogeneity of practice. Thus, he argues the need for gaining insights into new
and holistic models of the structure and performance of global finance using
qualitative and quantitative techniques.
Ann Markusen explores the cross-fertilization between political economy and
economic geography and records major research themes from the 1970s, high-
lighting the advantages of the breadth of approach of economic geographers.
She shows how her work and that of others on the defence industry in the 1980s
has resonances for the understanding of contemporary issues. Her key concern,
however, is that today’s students have insufficient grounding in how the field has
evolved or linking that understanding to events and movements in the larger
society.
Through an account of his own experience, Richard Walker tells us about the
education of an economic geographer. Economics training in the 1970s did not
provide him with the answers for solving problems plaguing society. Exposure to
geography at Johns Hopkins introduced him to Marxist ideology. As a junior
faculty member at Berkeley, he started exploring urban topics. His initial inter-
est in environmental issues continues and his career path shows the appreciation
of diverse perspectives from the social sciences.
Peter Daniels reflects on how academic geographers have written and thought
about service industries. Significant contributions came from non-geographers
such as the role of service industries in economic development, uneven distribution
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