Economic geography: Island life

Abstract

An allegorical tale of economic geography’s ‘island life’, and some of its possible futures, is presented. There is much to be gained, it is suggested, from reciprocal intellectual trade with others in the archipelago of heterodox economic studies. Trading exchanges with the continental power that is orthodox economics, however, present special – and apparently growing – problems. It is not simply that the terms of trade are asymmetrical; the transactional relationship itself is beset with epistemological and ontological incompatibilities. The stance of largely indifferent, arm’s length cohabitation, laissez faire et laissez passer, may no longer be an option for economic geography, however. The renewed and active interest among the new breed of ‘geographical economists’ in some of the long-buried treasures on economic geography’s island raises the threat, previously experienced by anthropology and sociology, of selective intellectual colonization, if not inundation. Against the cognitive universalism and expansionist predispositions of orthodox theory, the challenge facing economic geography must be to build stronger and more meaningful alliances – indeed, reciprocal exchanges – across the kula rings of heterodox economic studies. Creative analytical, methodological, and political responses to ‘the market’ warrant strategic significance in this regard, within a pluralist, interdisciplinary project of comparative economy.