On the waterfront

Abstract

By way of a response to commentaries on the paper, ‘Economic geography: Island life’ (Peck, 2012), three themes are briefly considered – concerning metaphor, markets, and method. Attention to ‘missing’ markets should not be seen as an invitation to market-centricity, but instead to explorations of ‘real’ and heterogeneous markets in a range of instituted contexts, positioned relationally among their others (that is, in relation both to other markets and other non-market forms of economic organization). This will call for creative methodological strategies, including a more explicit embrace of comparative approaches.