Report to the IGU Secretariat on Commission C04.09:
‘The Dynamics of Economic Space’
Commission website
http://www.sges.auckland.ac.nz/conferences/igu_commission/
1. Membership
A
Chair:: Richard Le Heron, School of geography and Environmental Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Email:
Vice-Chair
Michael Taylor, Department of Geography, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Email:
Full Members (alphabetical order)
Gyorgyi Barta, Center for Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary
Email:
Montserrat Pallares Barbera, Department of Geography, Autonomous University, Barcelona, Spain
Email:
Ron Boschma, Department of Human Geography and Urban and Regional Planning, Universiteit Utrecht, Netherlands
Email:
Daniel Felsenstein, Department of Geography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Email:
Martina Fromhold-Eisebith, Department of Geography, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Email:
Roger Hayter, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver BC, Canada
Email:
James W. Harrington, Department of Geography, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
Email:
Joo-Seong Hwang, Senior Research Fellow, Korea Information Society Development Institute, Seoul (2005)
Email:
Jeong Hyop Lee, Science & Technology Policy Institute, 26Fl., Specialty Construction Center 395-70, Shindaebang-dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul 156-714, Korea (2006-2008)
Email:
Eike Schamp, Institute Wirtschats und Sozialgeog, Universitat Frankfurt/Main, Germany.
Email:
B
Members as at 31 December 2007
Total 115, plus 1000+ on electronic mailing list
Australia 6
Bangladesh 1
Brazil 2
Canada 5
Chile 1
China 5
Denmark 1
France 1
Germany 10
Hong Kong 1
Hungary 1
India 1
Ireland 1
Israel 3
Italy 2
Japan 3
Korea 5
Malaysia 1
Netherlands 3
New Zealand 9
Norway 3
Poland 2
Russia 2
Singapore 3
Slovakia 1
South Africa 2
Spain 5
Sweden 3
Taiwan 1
Turkey 2
UAE 1
UK 7
USA 22
2. Meetings
A
2005 Toledo, Ohio, USA
August 2-6
Theme: Enterprising Worlds: Entrepreneurship and Ethics for Sustainable Futures
Attendance: Residential conference, 35, from 10 countries
Number of papers presented: 24
Travel award recipients: 1
2006 Auckland, New Zealand
June 27- 1 July
Theme: Globalising worlds: Geographical perspectives on old and new value chains, commodity chains and supply chains
Attendance: Residential conference, 55, from 18 countries
Number of papers presented: 50
Travel award recipients: 2
2006 Brisbane, Australia
2-7 July
Theme: Economic spaces and economic systems
Attendance; part of IGU Regional Conference, Brisbane
Number of papers presented relating to Commission’s themes: 17
2007 Beijing, China
25-28 June
Theme: Global economic geography
Attendance: part of the Second Global Conference on Economic Geography
Number of papers presented relating to Commission’s themes: 37
2008 Oslo, Norway
14-15 May
Theme: Theoretical approaches in labour geographies
Attendance: Mini-residential conference, 28 registrations
Travel award support: 1
2008 Barcelona, Spain
5-8 August
Theme: Worlds of new work? Multi-scalar dynamics of new economic spaces
Attendance: Residential conference, anticipated 60+ registrants
Travel award support: 2
2008 Tunis, Tunisia
12-15 August
Theme: contributions to Tunis Congress theme, ‘Building together in our territories’
Attendance: anticipated 20+ participants
B
Toledo Conference
This meeting provided economic geographers present with the opportunity to explore the challenging tensions that have arisen as communities, regions and nations have sought to balance economic growth with the growing necessity to simultaneously promote ethical and sustainable regional development. The conference broke new ground in several important ways: canvassing the depth of issues arising from relating literatures from ethics, economics, environment and economic geography; disturbing a number of conventional theoretical claims in economic geography around enterprise and so opening new ground for the incorporation of ethical dimensions in analysis; and reconceptualising enterprise, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial processes with reference to sustainable futures. The vigorous debate that ensued was invaluable in developing the content of the book that emerged from the conference. The Toledo meeting sparked two important initiatives. First, a specialty research stream dealing with enterprise and local economic development (see the commentary on E4 below) and second a project focusing on extending theoretical frontiers relating to labour geographies (see the Oslo 2008 conference information)
Auckland Conference
This conference theme attracted a great deal of support in two areas; networking in the agri-food sphere and the continuing emergence of new economic configurations. These cross-cutting foci led to intense and sustained discussion throughout the meeting. The meeting was unanimous that the breadth and depth of discussion was such that two books should be prepared. Agri-Food Commodity Chains and Globalising Networks makes specific contributions on several contemporary theoretical and empirical frontiers. These are: (1) the established notions of network and commodity chain that are being revisited by way of critical engagement informed by the insights of in depth empirical work, (2) the metrics of calculation and institutional embedding that underpin the rise and functionality of governance technologies, (3) the place of regional networking in creating conditions that make possible agri-food producer participation in local provisioning and supply, and (4) the geo-historical dimensions of interconnection and interdependency in the agri-food sphere. Globalising Worlds: Geographical Perspectives on New Economic Configurations offers new critical work on the nature of economic globalisation from
geographical perspectives. It is organised into seven closely related, but distinct, parts:
Part 1: Cross-border Industry Development; Part 2: Geographical Perspectives on
Investment; Part 3: Automobile Industry and Globalising Networks; Part 4: Cluster
Developments in Globalising Worlds; Part 5: Labour, Knowledge and
Entrepreneurship; Part 6: Industries, Events and Disasters; and Part 7: Competing
from the Edge of the Global Economy.
Brisbane Conference
The four sessions organised within the Regional IGU Brisbane conference framework were designed to allow exploration of empirical findings from a number of national and regional contexts and the exploration of methodological frontiers, including mixed methods. One session was devoted to the investigation of the globalising wine industry. Interest generated in this session has resulted in additional research that is to be reported at the forthcoming Barcelona meeting in August 2008. Commission members were also very active in supporting the development of the wider conference programme.
Commission participation in the Beijing Second Global Conference on Economic Geography
This conference was conceived originally by its organisers as a contribution by economic geographers to the as yet hesitant dialogue between economists and economic geographers. Expressions of interest indicated, however, that the conference should be refocused upon the constitutive processes of new economic and institutional spaces. Papers explored themes around the emergence of new economic processes and spaces and the development of new approaches to study these phenomena. The Commission on the Dynamics of Economic Spaces was a co-sponsor of the conference and elected to contribute to the wider programme by offering sessions on the organisation of economic and industrial spaces.
C 2008 events
Oslo conference
While the analysis of labour and its geographies has gained momentum in recent years, there remains a need to refine theories on both labour in general and the organisations of the labour movement. The meeting will be addressing understandings of how the dynamics of labour regimes are changed or activated when the regimes are stretched or contracted across space. This will include consideration of the negotiation on the part of labour between place and space, the mobility-fixity nexus between labour and capital, the relations between economy and politics, and issues of agency, power and collective mobilisations. The latter may also occur at diverse geographical scales and may involve a variety of agents preoccupied with labour, such as trade unions, non-governmental organisations and other civil society organisations.
Barcelona conference
Recent Commission meetings suggest that depending upon where in the world economic geographers are living, working and undertaking research, makes a considerable difference to the issues being addressed, the literatures regarded as especially relevant and approaches selected to disclose understandings of new economic geographies. The meeting involves collaboration with the IGU Commission on Gender and Geography.
Participation in Tunis international Geographical Congress:
Special sessions dedicated to four themes -
· Climate change and new economic spaces
· Relational economic geographies
· Spatial perspectives on economic change and development
· Economic geographies yet to be written
Planning for IGU Congress, Israel 2010
A member of the present and proposed Steering Committee is a very active economic geographer from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
3. Networking
A
2005
E4 Network
Economy, Enterprise, Employment and Environment
The genesis of the E4 Network was the annual meeting of the International Geographical Union's Commission on the Dynamics of Economic Space (IGU-CDES) that was held in Toledo, Ohio in the summer of 2005. The E4 Network focuses on the interplay between Economy, Enterprise, Employment, and Environment in the local economic development process. E4's goals are to identify and share best practices in the field of local economic development, contribute to theoretical, methodological, and policy literatures on local economic development, help local economic developers understand and implement economic development best practices, and engage students in cutting edge debates and research in the field of local economic development.
2006
The IGU Regional conference framework gave the opportunity for individual members of the Commission participating in the regional conference to engage with delegates from several other Commissions e.g. Tourism, Rural Systems
2007
Collaboration amongst members of the Commission at the Beijing conference with delegates from the Commission on Local Development
2008
Barcelona: Collaboration with IGU Commission on Gender and Geography.
Tunis: Collaboration with IGU Commission on Climatology
4. Publications
The publication strategy of the Commission has been to publish the theoretical and practical findings of the conferences in either book or journal form. A longstanding relationship with Ashgate has enabled the Commission to raise the awareness in the international scientific community of the research of economic geographers from many countries and widely disseminate the work of these scholars and researchers. The Commission has been particularly successful in facilitating the publication, through the Ashgate series, of the work of young and emerging researchers from developing countries.
Published
.
· Le Heron, R. And Harrington, J .W., (eds) 2005, New Economic Geography and New Economic Spaces, Ashgate, Aldershot
· Gatrell, J. and Reid, N.(eds) 2006, Enterprising Worlds. A geographical perspective on economics, environments and ethics. Springer, Dortrecht
· Harrington, JW and Daniels, P. (eds) 2006, Knowledge-based services: Internationalisation and Regional Development, Ashgate, Aldershot
· Daniels, P. and Harrington, JW (eds) 2007, Services and economic development in the Asia-Pacific, Ashgate, Aldershot
· Stringer, C. and Le Heron, R. (eds), 2008, Agri-Food Commodity Chains and Globalising Networks, Ashgate, Aldershot
· Tamasy, C. and Taylor, M. (eds) Globalising Worlds: Geographical Perspectives on New Economic Configurations, Ashgate, Aldershot, in press
Contracted
· Bryson, J. Carroll, M. Le Heron, R. Plummer, P. Reid, N. Smith, B. Tamasy, C. and Taylor, M. Creating Enterprise: Repositioning Local Economic Development, Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Concept stage
Knutsen, H. et al. (eds) Theoretical Approaches in Labour Geography
Palleres-Barbera, M. et al. (eds) Changing Worlds of Work: Geographical Explorations
Recent review of a Commission book
Yamamoto, D. 2007 Review of New Economic Spaces: New Economic Geographies. In Economic Geography, 83, 3, 335-337
Commission Bulletins
These review work of the Commission and can be found at
http://www.sges.auckland.ac.nz/conferences/igu_commission/
5. Archival Contributions
A set of Bulletins and a copy of each publication have been sent to Villa Celimontana, Rome.
6. Continuation
A
Continuation of present name
B
Mission
To extend international research and scholarship in economic geography through
- the development and dissemination of critical theoretical, conceptual and methodological frameworks
- the conduct of rigorous empirical and policy analyses
- and the building of research capacity in economic geography in different national and institutional contexts
To promote international collaboration in research activity and the dissemination of research findings.
To facilitate knowledge transfer about economic geography and associated policy-related issues between countries and institutions.
C
Steering Committee
Chair: Michael Taylor, Department of Geography, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Email:
Vice-Chair: Neil Reid, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606 USA
Email:
Montserrat Pallares Barbera, Department of Geography, Autonomous University, Barcelona, Spain
Email:
Daniel Felsenstein, Department of Geography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Email:
IGU Congress Liaison 2010 Congress, Israel
Martina Fromhold-Eisebith, Department of Geography, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Email:
Hege Knutsen, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1096 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway
Email:
Jeong Hyop Lee, Science & Technology Policy Institute, 26Fl., Specialty Construction Center 395-70, Shindaebang-dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul 156-714, Korea (2006-2008)
Email:
Charles Mather, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3,Wits 2050, South Africa
Email:
Paul Plummer, Department of Geography, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Email:
Bill Pritchard, School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia.
Email:
Henry Wai-chung Yeung, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, 1 Arts Link, Singapore 117570
Email:
Jici Wang, Geographic Science Research Centre, Peking University, Beijing, China
Email:
Mentor Panel
The Steering Committee will be supported by a Mentor Panel which draws on the experience of senior economic geographers in different countries who have been active in the Commission’s work.
Claes G. Alvstam, Department of Human and Economic Geography, School of Economics, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Email:
Roger Hayter, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Email:
James W. Harrington, Department of Geography, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
Email:
Baruch Kipnis, Department of Geography, University of Haifa, Israel
Email:
Richard Le Heron, School of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Email:
Sam Ock Park, Department of Geography, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-742, Korea