Priorities in Teaching Economic Geography: Placing the Economy, Sense of Geographies, Intellectual Bridging

Abstract

This paper identifies some personal priorities in teaching economic geography. The author places the economy relationally regarding social, cultural and political dimensions of life; she clarifies different modes of geographic inquiry-geographies; and she taps the breadth of economic geography by including a wide range of substantive topics. She discusses internal differentiation regarding substantive topics and modes of geographic inquiry as an asset, offering ground for cross-fertilization of ideas. The course is demanding, and this is appreciated by most, but not all, students. From the author's vantage point, the course both informs and is informed by her research-stimulating experience.

Keywords:

• Relational
• non-essentialism
• geographies
• diversity
• complementarity

Acknowledgements

I thank Neil Coe and Henry Yeung for comments on this paper as well as their foresight in organizing pedagogical panels on economic geography at the 2005 AAG meeting in Denver and following through with an editorial enterprise. A number of students who took my course in economic geography also read and offered thoughtful and useful comments on this paper. I thank Veronica Crossa, Alistair Fraser, Kevin Grove, Suzanna Klaf, Christy Rogers and Hoda Shawki for their contributions to this paper and, more generally, to my development as a teacher and researcher.

Notes

¹ Electronic reserve has several advantages. At least at Ohio State University, the turnaround time between giving materials to the librarian and seeing them online is quick; this is helpful for course revisions—i.e. I do not have to lock into a particular set of readings. Also, this is perhaps the lowest cost avenue for students.

² Undergraduates have the option of a research project or critical review of two articles assigned for class if they are interested in pursuing particular interests and/or want to disperse their grade around more assignments.

³ Readers interested in seeing the full syllabus and course readings are welcome to email the author at [email protected] to receive an electronic copy.

⁴ Each of the questions is constituted by a number of sub-questions to help students with structuring a wide range of material.

⁵ I have been trying to change the title to something more interesting, such as ‘Economies, Space and Society’. I imagine I am not alone in dealing with problems of institutional inertia.