During the height of the ‘quantitative revolution’ of the 1960s, Economic Geography was a tightly focused and specialized field of research. Now, it sprawls across several disciplines to embrace multiple theoretical, philosophical and empirical approaches. This volume moves economic geography through a series of theoretical and methodological approaches, looking both towards the future and to the discipline’s engagement with public policy.

Economic Geography covers contributions by selected economic geographers whose purpose is to help explain the interconnection among all forces that trigger societal change, namely the ever-changing capitalist system. The contributors record changing foci and methodologies from the 1960–1980 period of quantitative economic geography, the 1980s interest in understanding how regimes of accumulation in a capitalist world construct spaces of uneven development, and how the 1990s literature was enriched by differing viewpoints and methodologies which were designed to understand the local effects of the global space economy. In the new century, the overwhelming response has been that of bridging gaps across ‘voices within the sub-discipline of Economic Geography’ in order to maximize our understanding of processes that shape our social, political and economic existence. Contributors also highlight what they see as the challenges for understanding contemporary issues, thus putting down markers for younger researchers to take the lead on.

Through a collection of 20 chapters on theoretical constructs and methodologies, debates and discourses, as well as links to policymaking and policy evaluation, this volume provides a succinct view of concepts and their historical trajectories in Economic Geography. Readers are exposed to the breadth of the discipline and engaged in current debates and understandings of the critical components of research in economic geography, theoretical, empirical and applied.

The Authors

Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen is a Professor in the Department of Geography, University at Buffalo-State University of New York.

Helen Lawton Smith is Reader in Management, School of Management and Organisational Psychology, Birkbeck, London University and a Distinguished Research Associate at the School of Geography, Oxford University.