INSTITUTIONAL EMBEDDEDNESS AND REGIONAL ADAPTABILITY AND RIGIDITY IN A CHINESE APPAREL CLUSTER

In recent years, the flexibilities industrial clusters may offer to firms within them have been questioned as inter‐firm linkages have, in some cases, locked‐in path‐dependent practices and increased economic rigidities. In this sense, the canonical path dependence model has tended to overlook such trajectories of cluster evolution and has not paid as much attention to the ways in which actors can affect path‐dependent processes. In this article, we build on this critique which has largely been developed in evolutionary economic geography to explore how a cluster becomes progressively locked‐in and how the knowledge base of an industry becomes homogenized, resulting in a loss of innovative dynamism and a slowdown in the growth, or even stasis, of the cluster. By focusing on a case study from China, the article investigates some of the ways in which different kinds of actors respond to external shocks, and the ways in which the resulting processes are fraught with tensions and divergences. In doing so, the article emphasizes that the association between trans‐local pipelines and innovation is not predetermined. The second theoretical contribution of this article lies in its attempt to reveal that all actors can be both path dependent and path breaking, and the process of co‐evolution can be driven by the heterogeneity and divergence of particular actors. Finally, we seek to contribute to existing literature by showing the potential advantages of working at the interface between evolutionary economic geography and other theoretical approaches.     

BREAKING THE COGNITIVE DIMENSION OF LOCAL PATH DEPENDENCE: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL PERSPECTIVE

Few attempts have been made to consider the role of individual activities in path dependence. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how local entrepreneurial activities can lead to a break in the cognitive local path. The theoretical framework rests on the literature on path dependence, but focuses mainly on cognitive frames as carriers of path‐dependent behaviour. A qualitative case study has been used to analyse the formation and breaking of a local cognitive path through individual activities. Four main conclusions can be drawn. First, cognitive paradigms explain why the degree of adaptability differs between locations. Second, external shocks are translated to local change through individual activities. Third, acknowledging cognitive barriers to individual behaviour, the important role of outsiders is highlighted for breaking the cognitive path. Fourth, the long durability of cognitive paradigms and the importance of outsiders suggest the emergence of a parallel, alternative cognitive path.     

经济韧性视角下城镇产业演化的路径依赖与路径创造——基于东莞市樟木头、常平镇的对比分析

在经济韧性视角下,本文基于路径依赖与路径创造理论构建了一个研究城镇产业衰落与转型的分析框架,进而对东莞市樟木头与常平的产业发展路径进行详细梳理和对比分析,探讨地理区位、产业结构等初始条件相似的城镇受到相同外部冲击时出现韧性差异的原因,包括地方制度、技术变革、经济结构、劳动力结构、社会文化氛围等。据此提出转型升级对策：寻找新主导产业,提升经济主体潜力与联系;科学规划空间结构,调整存量用地功能,提高土地利用效率,全面升级硬件设施;重塑强调风险管控与危机意识的社会文化氛围。通过建立演化经济地理学与经济韧性相结合的实证研究范式,本文为产业结构单一城镇提供了具有借鉴意义的韧性增强途径和路径创造方式。     

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT,INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT AND THE CHANGING POLISH PIG INDUSTRY

The world's meat market has had tremendous growth in the past decades. Global meat producers, particularly in developed economies, have grown bigger through expansion, mergers and acquisitions. The livestock markets in less developed countries are particularly the prime targets for investments by these producers. This article looks at foreign direct investment in a transitional economy, using Poland's pig industry as the empirical case study. It argues that such investments not only bring significant changes in the method of producing meat in the host country; they also have particular socio‐political impacts and have thus been met with some level of resistance by local communities. Our study suggests that the relations of foreign firms to the local community are crucial for their long term presence; and these relations are in turn dependent on a gamut of place specific features and the firms' broader corporate philosophy and strategy. In general, foreign firms need to find ways to replicate the kinds of deep social‐economic links between the livestock industry and places that existed in the socialist era. The case studies of American‐owned Agri Plus and Danish‐owned Poldanor illustrate some of the difficulties involved in the foreign investment in the meat industries while demonstrating the viability and possibility of such companies becoming more accepted and welcomed in the local communities.     

ENVIRONMENTAL AND EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY: TIME FOR EEG2?

This article argues that recent proposals for environmental and evolutionary economic geographies (EEG 1 and EEG2) should be integrated; EEG² is used as “passing convenience” to make this case. EEG1's emphasis on environmental imperatives is loosely framed and needs a theoretical socio‐economic evolutionary base that is the central thrust of EEG2. Meanwhile EEG2 would be empowered by incorporating environmental concerns within its mandate. Moreover, both EEG1 and EEG2 share common roots in institutional methodologies, emphasize cumulative causation and path‐dependent behaviour, have strong interests at regional scales of analysis, and both are intimately tied to the causes and consequences of innovation. This article provides a rationale and suggests an integrative conceptual approach for developing EEG². In particular, the article outlines a conceptual framework that interprets EEG² in terms of co‐evolutionary socio‐ecological and multi‐scalar processes that are situated within a reasoned history interpretation of economic development. This framework further highlights the roles of path dependency, innovation, multinational corporations and value chains. How this multi‐scalar framework may be elaborated is then discussed around three themes: extending placed‐based analysis of localized clusters; broadening the scope of global value chain analysis; and re‐engaging the analysis of core–periphery relations. Ultimately the case for EEG² is to ensure that economic geographic perspectives are fully incorporated in debates over the co‐evolution of economy and environment, in research and policy terms one of, if not the, central challenges of development in the 21st century.     

Reconciling Economic and Cultural Explanations for Participation in Alternative Consumption Spaces

ABSTRACT With the cultural turn in economic geography, the emphasis on economic necessity when explaining participation in alternative consumption spaces (i.e. informal and/or second‐hand retail channels) has been contested by an agency‐orientated cultural reading that views engagement in such spaces as about the search for fun, sociality, distinction, discernment, the spectacular and so forth, and more recently by a geographically sensitive approach that ascribes agency to affluent populations and economic rationales to deprived populations. Drawing upon evidence collected during 120 face‐to‐face interviews in the English city of Leicester, however, this paper finds that people's reasons for engaging in such practices cannot be reduced simply to either economic necessity or agency. Instead, it reveals that such either/or thinking obfuscates how both co‐exist in people's explanations for engagement and combine in contrasting ways in different neighbourhood types, modes of goods acquisition and according to the type of good sought. The outcome of this paper is thus to transcend and reconcile previous reductive explanations using a both/and approach that recognises the varying ways in which economic necessity and choice are entangled in rationales for participation in alternative consumption spaces.     

Unpacking the ‘Emergent Farmer’ Concept in Agrarian Reform: Evidence from Livestock Farmers in South Africa

South Africa has historically perpetuated a dual system of freehold commercial and communal subsistence farming. To bridge these extremes, agrarian reform policies have encouraged the creation of a class of ‘emergent’, commercially oriented farmers. However, these policies consider ‘emergent’ farmers as a homogeneous group of land reform beneficiaries, with limited appreciation of the class differences between them, and do little to support the rise of a ‘middle’ group of producers able to bridge that gap. This article uses a case study of livestock farmers in Eastern Cape Province to critique the ‘emergent farmer’ concept. The authors identify three broad categories of farmers within the emergent livestock sector: a large group who, despite having accessed private farms, remain effectively subsistence farmers; a smaller group of small/medium‐scale commercial producers who have communal farming origins and most closely approximate to ‘emergent’ farmers; and an elite group of large‐scale, fully commercialized farmers, whose emergence has been facilitated primarily by access to capital and a desire to invest in alternative business ventures. On this basis the authors suggest that current agrarian reform policies need considerable refocusing if they are to effectively facilitate the emergence of a ‘middle’ group of smallholder commercial farmers from communal systems.     

对城市社会-生活空间的本体解构

根据国外著名学者的观点与权威性文献总结国外地理学社会论(学派)形成与发展的思维观,重点探讨城市社会-生活空间理论的思想与方法论,并力图用概念化结构模式(图)表示出来,作为理解城市社会-生活空间本体构成,以及进一步对其研究的解构理念。全文从地理学社会论创立解剖社会空间的思想观逻辑,预示城市社会-生活空间规律的研究代表了当今人文地理学前沿理论水平的重要方面。     

Reset redux: possible evolutionary pathways towards the transformation of tourism in a COVID-19 world

Abstract

With international arrivals surpassing 1.5 billion for the first time in 2019 the long-term evolution of tourism demonstrates prolific path dependence with a decade of growth since the global financial crisis. This latest period of unfettered international tourism development has come to an abrupt end as the impact of COVID-19 has brought the sector to a near standstill. As the world grapples with the realities of the global pandemic there is an opportunity to rethink exactly what tourism will look like for the decades ahead. Key concepts in evolutionary economic geography, especially path dependence/creation and institutional inertia/innovation, show variations in pathways for travel and tourism in a COVID-19 world. A path that leads to transformation in tourism can be realized if sufficient institutional innovation occurs on both the demand and supply side of tourism that can foster the emergence of new paths. COVID-19 presents a once in a generation opportunity where the institutional pump is primed for transformation. Whether that leads to a radical transformation of the tourism sector remains to be seen, but the imprint it will leave on both the demand and supply of tourism will have long-term, incremental impacts for years to come and ultimately move us closer towards the transformation of tourism.     

Evolutionary Perspectives on Rural Australia

An enduring concern within Australian rural geography has been to understand the nature and implications of change. Much of the intellectual effort has been focused on interpreting how rural economies, populations, social institutions, cultures, and land uses have been transformed through processes operating across a range of spatial and temporal scales. This paper offers a critical appraisal of recent rural research in Australia and how this body of work has attempted to make sense of change. It argues that despite an ongoing focus on the nature of change, it is often reduced to a relatively simple historical narrative. We suggest that some of the emerging ideas in ‘evolutionary economic geography’ might offer an alternative means of conceptualising the trajectories of rural economies, institutions, and communities. The paper outlines the contours of evolutionary economic geography and the ways in which some of its key conceptual foundations might offer a means of understanding not only rural change, but also continuity.     

The Multifunctional Transition in Australia's Tropical Savannas: the Emergence of Consumption,Protection and Indigenous Values

As elsewhere in affluent, western nations, the direction, complexity and pace of rural change in Australia can be conceptualised as a multifunctional transition in which a variable mix of consumption and protection values has emerged, contesting the former dominance of production values, and leading to greater complexity and heterogeneity in rural occupance at all scales. This transition has been explored in accessible, high-amenity landscapes driven by enhanced consumption values. Less attention has been directed to remote, marginal lands where a flimsy mode of productivist occupance can, in part, be displaced by alternative modes with the transitions being facilitated by low transfer costs. Such is the case in Australia's northern tropical savannas where an extensive mode of pastoral occupance is selectively displaced by alternative consumption, protection and Indigenous values. This transition towards multifunctional occupance is most readily documented by mapping changes in land tenure and ownership over the last three decades. Tenure changes have been accompanied by new regimes of property rights and land ownership, including: native titles derived from common law; non-transferable, common-property Aboriginal freehold tenures; transfers of pastoral leases to Indigenous and conservation interests; expansion of conservation lands under public tenures; and revisions of the rights and duties of pastoral lessees. Future occupance scenarios remain unclear, given the sensitivity of this frontier zone to national and global driving forces.     

Smells like politics: planning and the inconvenient politics of intensive peri‐urban agriculture

Intensive farming is an increasing part of Australian agriculture, including in the multi‐functional landscapes at the edges of Australian cities. The example of intensive “broiler” poultry production reveals the tensions that arise when sites of hyper‐productivity conflict with social change in rural areas. Planning processes for intensive farming in the Australian state of Victoria are predicated on stability and consensus: on assumed static and uncontroversial ideas of agriculture, its place, and the primacy of agricultural productivity. Yet concerns about the industrialisation of agriculture are live political issues at the local level, especially in dynamic peri‐urban locations. This paper explores the emergence of a politics of place outside the bounds of planning consensus through an analysis of planning appeals and associated media relating to planning permits for intensive poultry developments in Victoria over 2011–2016. We highlight tensions that exist in relation to technical planning assessments and categorisations used to assert farming as the orthodox use of rural land, especially when new forms of farming look and feel demonstrably different. Using Mouffe's problematising of the negation of antagonism and Rancière's notion of the risks of a false consensus democracy, we argue that planning processes for intensive farming illustrate critical issues in participatory planning. While ostensibly post‐political decision‐making narrows the politics of place and food systems to decisions about policing the boundaries and buffer distances placed around intensive poultry developments, alternative representations of rural life persist. The certainty offered by code‐based planning does not negate the ongoing (if inconvenient) politics of intensive peri‐urban agriculture.     

A spatial analysis of human fertility in Scotland: Reappraisal and extension

In an earlier study of Scottish fertility (Jones, 1975) it was concluded that a substantial part of the areal variability in county and major city Crude Birth Rates could be attributed to variations in age structure and, to a lesser extent, socio‐economic composition. Because Crude Birth Rate levels are affected by population composition this study seeks to determine the extent to which areal variations in reproduction can be attributed to behavioural rather than structural effects. It is suggested that areal differences in Scottish reproductive behaviour reflect well defined, deeply ingrained and temporally persistent differences within Scottish society.     

PATH DEPENDENCE AND LANDSCAPE: INITIAL CONDITIONS,CONTINGENCY AND SEQUENCES OF EVENTS IN LATGALE,LATVIA

The notion of path dependence has not yet been well explored as a tool for analysing landscape change. Within geography it is primarily economic geographers who have, up until now, shown a keen interest in this concept which stresses the role of social agency and institutions in understanding the development trajectories of regions. Further, the notion of path dependence usefully captures the idea of contingency in historical sequences. This article presents such a perspective on landscape change analysis, discussing two dominant types of sequences in path‐dependent systems. Self‐reinforcing sequences characterize the formation and long‐term reproduction of a given institutional pattern, while reactive sequences describe chains of temporally ordered and causally connected events. From a landscape point of view, by the former we can describe the fixity of practices, by the latter the particular development of (or changes in) landscapes. Within such a framework of path dependence analysis, examples from south‐eastern Latvia, the historical region of Latgale, are used to account for the institution of partible inheritance and to explain its impact on landscapes. The landscape biographies of two villages are studied in order to understand the particular key breaking points and the (series of) reactions that follow from these events. The challenge of using the tool of path dependence analysis lies in its openness for various interpretations, suggesting the need for supplementary theory.     

SITUATED KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS: A CASE STUDY OF INDUSTRY SPECIFICITY IN URBAN KNOWLEDGE SOURCING

Theorizing within the umbrella of evolutionary economic geography (EEG) has improved the understanding of how inter‐firm relatedness conditions knowledge spillovers, and how this affects the long‐term evolution of regions. Still, there are shortcomings in this approach associated with a quantitative and generic methodology, a static notion of relatedness, and a weakly developed policy and institutional perspective. In particular, there is a need for a better understanding of the mechanisms through which relatedness is developed and how policy affects existing and emerging relatedness. Certain mechanisms for knowledge transfer have been suggested, such as labour mobility, firm diversification, spin‐offs and social networks. But do the same mechanisms apply to all industries and in all territories, or are there specific mechanisms of knowledge sourcing at work in different contexts? To shed light on these questions, the article reports on a comparative case study of two knowledge‐intensive industries (life science and publishing) located in the Oslo metropolitan region. Based on a case study, the article suggests that both industries source knowledge through similar types of channels. However, despite similarities in how knowledge is accessed and absorbed in this diverse urban context, knowledge sourcing also seems to be conditioned by industry‐specific dynamics, policies and institutions.     

‘Romanian Peasants’ into ‘European Farmers’? Using Statistics to Standardize Agriculture

In this article, the agricultural sector in Romania provides the basis of a sociological enquiry into the contribution of statistics to the definition of legitimate economic organization. Using the analytical tools developed by James C. Scott, the emphasis is laid on the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) developed by the European Commission to define ‘economically viable’ farms. The measurement units which the FADN provides are applied at national level to determine legitimate agricultural practices. This imposes a productivist definition of the agricultural economy which diverges from the modes of social and economic organization observed in rural areas in Romania. Four million Romanian citizens make their living directly from working the land. The majority own smallholdings received during decollectivization and practise subsistence farming at the fringes of the legal economy. Instead of employing a definition of agriculture consistent with their practices and developing local distribution channels, quantification instruments provided by the European Commission form the basis of a selection procedure among these smallholders. These instruments have enabled the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture to set a threshold of ‘economic viability’ below which producers are deemed unable to develop a commercial approach to their activities. The objective is to help those who just about reach the required level to consolidate their agricultural holdings and take up intensive farming. The remainder are disqualified and encouraged to leave the sector. To further this objective, the category ‘semi‐subsistence’ agriculture has been created and takes centre stage in all measures implemented. Nevertheless, the statistical dividing lines on which this category is based have no substance and the structure of agriculture is manifesting high levels of inertia.     

Advanced manufacturing as an online case study for global geography education

Advanced manufacturing continues to be an important sector for emerging and industrialized economies, therefore, remaining an important topic for economic geography education. This article describes a case study created for the Association of American Geographer's Center for Global Geography Education and its implementation. The international machine tool industry is particularly useful for introducing students to the regional impacts of broader economic processes.     

The nonprofit arts organization concept and its transformation in Korea

ABSTRACT

After the Korean War, both the autocratic and later democratic South Korean governments actively fostered the development of Korea’s arts sector, in part by emulating the organizational and legal structures of U.S. nonprofits. Yet, in this policy transfer, Korea has taken a different path, notably rearticulating the U.S.-style hands-off facilitation model to reflect and accommodate Korean political, institutional, and cultural exigencies. We analyze the effects of the resulting cultural policy on Korean public arts institutions, using documentary evidence and narratives from our case studies of two national arts organizations restructured by the government: The National Theater Company of Korea and the Seoul Arts Center. We employ the concept of cultural statism, conditioned by "culture as glorification," resource dependence, and path dependence, to understand the development of Korea’s public arts sector. Specifically, we consider: the government’s desire to use the arts to enhance its image on an international stage shaped by western liberal democratic values; arts leaders’ desire for reliable support (resource dependence); and the tendancy of Koreans to want to be associated with the stability and prestige of the government (path dependence).     

Status,scale and secret ingredients: the retrospective invention of London porter

Porter, a dark style of beer that was the staple of London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is conventionally addressed as a discrete invention, suited to large‐scale production, whose appearance led rapidly to enclosure of the trade by a few industrial‐scale producers. This paper by contrast presents the capitalist industrialization of brewing as co‐extensive with, and reinforced by, the long‐term emergence of a consensus definition of porter; the invention story is a retrospective construct that telescopes a century or more of technical change. Balancing established economic accounts, I address the role of product identity as a rhetorical device. London’s greatest brewers were in part assisted in capturing smaller competitors’ trade by the enshrining of large‐scale production as a ‘secret ingredient’ in its own right, essential to the nature of the ‘true’ product.