Economic Sociologies in Space

Abstract

How might economic geography (re)position itself within the interdisciplinary field of heterodox economics? Reflecting on this question, this article offers a critical assessment of the “New Economic Sociology,” making the case for moving beyond the limited confines of the networks-and-embeddedness paradigm. More specifically, it argues for a more broadly based and purposive conversation with various currents within social-constructivist and macroeconomic sociology, which, in turn, calls for a more full-blooded critique of market relations and analytics and a more militant attitude toward economic orthodoxies. The promise of such a conversation, strategically focused on the simultaneously social and geographic constitution of economic relations, is an emboldened economic geography with a more persuasive voice in the field of heterodox economic studies.

Keywords:

• economic sociology
• economic geography
• markets
• embeddedness
• social construction
• varieties of capitalism