Towards a cultural political economy of the illicit

Abstract

This article intervenes in debates on the illicit in economic geography, notably in the tensions between cultural and political economic approaches. First, it assesses critiques of political economic evaluations of the illicit. It then offers a ‘trading zone’, drawing upon both cultural and political economy, and argues that the two economic epistemologies are complementary, not mutually exclusive. The article instates political and ecological missing links in cultural political economy to foster multidimensional analyses of illicit practices in discursive, material and ecological registers. It concludes by discussing the broader implications of a cultural political economy of the illicit for economic geography.