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Journal of Economic Geography Advance Access originally published online on April 11, 2006
Journal of Economic Geography 2006 6(5):619-637; doi:10.1093/jeg/lbl005
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© The Author (2006). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Geography matters: agency, structures and dynamics at the intersection of economics and geography

Paul Plummer* and Eric Sheppard**

* School of Geographical Sciences, Bristol University, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK. email <paul.plummer{at}bristol.ac.uk>
** Department of Geography, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. email <shepp001{at}umn.edu>

Contemporary debates in economic geography are characterized by a lack of agreement with respect to both those aspects of the evolving economic landscape that call for explanation and what constitutes an adequate explanation of geographical reality. We articulate a distinctively geographical approach to modeling processes of regional growth and change. The evolving economic landscape is conceptualized as a ‘going concern’, characterized by complex dynamic interdependencies between the agents and structures that constitute spatial economic systems. At any moment in time, interdependencies between agents are constrained by social and spatial structure, but over time structure and agency are mutually constituted: a socio-spatial dialectic. We contend that the complex interdependence between agents, structures and dynamics increases the likelihood of persistent non-equilibrium space-time trajectories. We conclude that questions of conceptual and epistemological adequacy in economic geography cannot be resolved in favor of any single ‘best’ approach, and argue that debates should move away from competing monist accounts, towards critically engaged pluralism.

Keywords: regional political economy, complexity, space-time dynamics, pluralism,
JEL classifications: A12, C63, E11, R11
Date submitted: 26 June 2005     Date accepted: 14 March 2006


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