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ABSTRACT
In dialogue with Ray Hudson’s paper on ‘rising powers’ in globalizing capitalism, this review article reflects on the position and priority of these macroscopic questions in the field of economic geography, focusing in particular on the prospects for a reanimated political economy of uneven spatial development. Two themes are explored. First, the paper asks what it means to confront the problematic of rising (and falling) capitalisms, and why it is that the vocabulary for this discussion has to be imported, if not improvised. Second, it explores what it might mean not just to revisit and re(in)state, but to reconstruct notions of uneven spatial development, which despite their virtually uncontestable status in the field of economic geography have in practice often been allowed recede into the explanatory background, either as an implicit ontological precondition or as little more than an ambient sensibility.
摘要
宏观经济地理. Area Development and Policy. 雷·哈德森（Ray Hudson）对“新兴国家”在资本主义全球化过程中的表现进行了探讨，与之相呼应，这篇评论文章反思了这些宏观问题在经济地理领域中的地位，特别着重讨论了不均衡空间发展的政治经济态势卷土重来的前景。主要探讨了两个主题。首先，本文提出遭遇资本主义的兴起（和衰落）意味着什么，而在作这方面的讨论时，又为什么只能借用其他领域的专业词汇，或是造新的词？其次，本文还讨论了对不均衡空间发展的理念不仅要重提和重述（或恢复），而且还要重建的意义，尽管这一点在经济地理领域中应该有着无可争辩的地位，但实际上却往往被作为隐含的本体论前提或基于经验的感觉，而被迫退居到解释性的背景内容中了。
RESUMEN
Geografías macroeconómicas. Area Development and Policy. En concertación con el artículo de Ray Hudson sobre las ‘potencias emergentes’ en el capitalismo mundializador, en este artículo se reflexiona sobre la posición y prioridad de estas cuestiones macroscópicas en el campo de la geografía económica, prestando atención sobre todo a las perspectivas de una economía política reanimada de desarrollo espacial desequilibrado. Se examinan dos temas. En primer lugar, se cuestiona qué significa confrontar la problemática de los capitalismos emergentes (y decrecientes), y por qué hay que importar o incluso improvisar el vocabulario para este debate. En segundo lugar, se analiza lo que puede significar no simplemente revisar, replantear y rehabilitar, sino también reconstruir las nociones de desarrollo espacial desequilibrado, que pese a su estatus prácticamente indiscutible en el campo de la geografía económica, en la práctica con frecuencia se ha permitido retroceder en un contexto explicativo, ya sea como una precondición ontológica implícita o poco más que una sensibilidad ambiental.
АННОТАЦИЯ
Макроэкономическая география. Area Development and Policy. В диалоге со статьей Рэя Хадсона о ‘восходящих державах’ в условиях глобализации капитализма, эта обзорная статья посвящена позиции и приоритету этих макровопросов в экономической географии и, в частности, перспективам возвращения политэкономии неравномерного пространственного развития. В статье рассматриваются 2 вопроса. Во-первых, что значит обращаться к проблематике роста (и падения) капиталистических систем, и почему терминологию для этого обсуждения приходиться импортировать, если не изобретать на месте. Во-вторых, что значит не просто вернуться и вновь озвучить, но реконструировать идеи о неравномерности пространственного развития, которые, несмотря на практически неоспоримый статус в области экономической географии на практике часто отступают на второй план либо в качестве неявных онтологических предпосылок, либо в качестве общей риторики.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author is grateful to Neil Coe and Marion Werner for conversations and suggestions that shaped the arguments presented herein, to Mick Dunford and Weidong Liu for the invitation to respond to the inaugural Area Development and Policy lecture, and not least to Ray Hudson for his generative contribution.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The mention of a few exceptions can perhaps illustrate the point: see Dixon (Citation2014), Werner (Citation2016a), Christophers (Citation2016) and Sheppard (Citation2016).
2 Reflecting on the two decades that had passed since the publication of The Limits to Capital, where so much of the foundational work on uneven geographical development was originally elaborated, Harvey has revealingly observed that ‘a decent theoretical understanding of uneven geographical development still remains to be written’, since this would require the concept to be frontloaded into the conceptual framework rather than coming in ‘at the end of the analysis’ (Harvey, Citation2004, p. 545).
3 A couple of exceptional treatments can once again illustrate the point: see Rosenberg (Citation2013) and Makki (Citation2015).
4 ‘England is used as the chief illustration of the theoretical developments I make,’ Marx explained, ‘If, however, the German reader pharisaically shrugs his [sic] shoulders at the condition of the English industrial and agricultural workers, or optimistically comforts himself with the thought that in Germany things are not nearly so bad, I must plainly tell him: “De te fabula narratur!” [‘The tale is told of you’]’ (Marx, Citation1976, pp. 90–91). The grounds from which Leon Trotsky developed his concept of combined and uneven development, in contrast, was prerevolutionary Russia, an illustration of the way in which situated theorizing can be acutely sensitive to questions of historical and geographical positionality (Dunford, Citation2016; Peck, in press-b; Rosenberg, Citation2013).