Relational and Dialectical Spaces of Knowing: Knowledge, Practice, and Work in Economic Geography

Abstract

Recent work in economic geography suggests the emergence of a distinctive relational and practice-centred set of perspectives on knowledge, based around concepts including communities of practice and relational proximity. This paper will argue that, despite the significant advances in understanding this work contributes, it does not yet provide a complete account of knowing-in-practice, and proposes a stronger focus on work activity as a first step in addressing this gap. The first half critically reviews this economic geography literature, focusing on how it articulates a view of practice in relation to knowledge, organisation, and space. The second half develops an alternative conceptualisation of knowing as work practice, particularly drawing on cultural–historical activity theory. This is organised around the dual spatially inflected concepts of situated and distributed knowledge. The paper concludes by arguing that, far from being mutually exclusive, the situated and distributed parts of knowing coexist in a dialectical relationship, and their interaction in work practice leads to the production of spaces of collective knowing.