Positionality and globalization in economic geography

Abstract

Economic geographers have devoted much effort in recent years to contesting the idea that under globalization a ubiquitous neoliberal capitalism entails the death of distance and the end of geography (Cairncross 1997). They have argued that territory and scale still matter, albeit in novel ways, challenging the belief that globalization is overriding the distinctive characteristics of places. A dominant metaphor here is that of “glocalization,” whereby transnational production systems require specific local place-based features (such as low wages), and seek to exploit differences between places in order to reduce the regulatory influence of territorial state institutions on capital mobility. Places with the right characteristics, such as the Third Italy, are seen as capable of “holding down the global” by creating attractive local conditions that are functional for the profitability of local and multilocational firms (Amin and Thrift 1994, 1995).