Uneven Geographical Development Research Articles

Introduction: Turbulent Circulation: Building a Critical Engagement with Logistics

Since the mid-20th century, logistics has evolved into a wide-ranging science of circulation involved in planning and managing flows of innumerable kinds. In this introductory essay, we take stock of the ascendancy and proliferation of logistics, proposing a critical engagement with the field. We argue that logistics is not limited to the management of supply chains, military or corporate. Rather, it is better understood as a calculative logic and spatial practice of circulation that is at the fore of the reorganization of capitalism and war. Viewed from this perspective, the rise of logistics has transformed not only the physical movement of materials but also the very rationality by which space is organized. It has remade economic and military space according to a universalizing logic of abstract flow, exacerbating existing patterns of uneven geographical development. Drawing on the articles that make up this themed issue, we propose that a critical approach to logistics is characterized by three core commitments: (1) a rejection of the field’s self-depiction as an apolitical science of management, along with a commitment to highlighting the relations of power and acts of violence that underpin it; (2) an interest in exposing the flaws, irrationalities, and vulnerabilities of logistical regimes; and (3) an orientation toward contestation and struggle within logistical networks.

Acumulación de viviendas por parte de los bancos a través de los desahucios: geografía de la desposesión de vivienda en Cataluña

The extension of evictions since 2008 is a manifestation of the consequences of the Spanish real estate and financial model, as well as a needed mechanism to maintain the logic of the model of accumulation by dispossession. The evictions due to foreclosures are fuelling a process of accumulation of housing in hands of bank entities. This paper studies the process of ownership concentration and the emergence of new grand landlords and, secondly, develops an analysis of the territorial logics of this process in Catalonia. We conclude by arguing that the so-called solutions to the crisis have led to the intensification of uneven geographical development through the appropriation of urban incomes through dispossession housing. In this sense, while bbva and Bankia are the entities that have concentrated most public funds, they are also the ones that have accumulated most empty housing units acquired by foreclosures. These housing units are concentrated in the most precarious neighborhoods.

University-led innovation in and for peripheral urban areas: new approaches in Naples, Italy and Newark, NJ, US

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on the spatial development problem of university-led innovation in peripheral urban areas. Highlighting issues of proximity, uneven geographic development, and multi-scalar urban governance as weaknesses of the regional innovation systems literature, we provide a novel synthesis of regional economics, innovation policy, and critical urban studies to assess the development roles of universities in concrete contexts. A comparative investigation of Naples and Newark, NJ captures the functional operation of regional innovation and urban development as a contested product of discourses, technologies (material and governance), and territorial arrangements. Our analysis demonstrates the significance of multi-scalar relationships in structuring innovation policy and practice in peripheral urban areas. The architecture of innovation is not simply rolled out into pre-determined spatial containers in places lacking established ‘institutional thickness’ or urban centrality. The spatial development of university-led innovation is a social product: material and governance infrastructures are essential components of the urban fabric and are essential to its co-constitution. Universities are shown to contribute differing resources dependent on their institutional strategic goals and the capacities and spatial imaginaries afforded to them by their situation in broader territorial governance regimes. We conclude by drawing comparative lessons and identifying directions for future research.

O lugar dos museus e o direito à cidade: um estudo sobre espaço, tempo e trabalho

This study deals with the relationship between the geographic location of museums and visitors. Analyze barriers to visitation of Brazilian museums by the working class and poor, considering the asymmetries between the location of museums and the production and spatial appropriation in major cities comprising this relationship from the geographer concept David Harvey, of uneven geographical development To this end, I will work in an interdisciplinary perspective combining elaborations of Sociology, Geography and Museology. I will use survey data from the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) on culture, urban mobility, work and free time and also the search Museums in numbers, the Brazilian Institute of Museums (IBRAM). Keywords: museums, cultural equipment, urban mobility, geopolitic, work.

De la hipoteca al desahucio: ejecuciones hipotecarias y vulnerabilidad territorial en España

Foreclosures promoted by financial institutions which can lead to housing eviction have multiplied in Spain since the beginning of the economic crisis. The growth of the mortgage market in a context of deregulation is at the origin of a process that now thousands of families from their homes annually and reflects the dispossession associated with capitalist crises. The aim of this paper is to analyze the growth and spatial distribution of accorded mortgages and foreclosures filed by creditors in 2001-2014. It is based on data published by the “General Council of the Judiciary”, which allow its evolution over the period and prove the deepening of uneven geographical development. The results confirm its highest intensity in the territories that took greater risks for their real estate specialization and metropolitan peripheries where most vulnerable social groups live.

Fantastical materializations: Interoceanic infrastructures in the Ecuadorian Amazon

This paper explores the entanglement of dreams and reality in the production of economic infrastructures. It focuses on the Manta-Manaus multimodal transport corridor, which is currently being constructed between the Pacific coast of Ecuador and the Atlantic coast of Brazil, with the aim of integrating the Amazon into global production networks. Drawing on extensive field research conducted in Ecuador, we develop a fantastical materialism, as a theoretical and methodological approach to the intertwining of fantasy and materiality through which the spaces of capital are conceived, constructed, and brought to ruin. Manta-Manaus is revealed not only as a technocratic accumulation strategy, but also as a seductive dream of planetary integration and geographical freedom. This dream has become ensnarled in the material dynamics of uneven geographical development, and its infrastructures have been repurposed for the expansion of the oil frontier. The Real of Capital thus advances through the creative destruction of its own fantasies.

Zur Geographie der Abstiegsgesellschaft

Departing from a discussion of two books that were popular in the German academic left and beyond in 2016, Oliver Nachtwey’s “Die Abstiegsgesellschaft” [“Society of Downward Mobility”] and Didier Eribon’s “Returning to Reims”, both touching on the topic of how changes in class structure are related to the rise of parties of the extreme right in Germany and France respectively, the paper argues that we need to pay more attention to uneven geographic development within and between cities and regions. Following Lefebvre, Harvey and Massey, it insists that it is in everyday life that subjectification and the constitution of classes and other social groups occur, and that the multiple ways in which everyday life is structured and differentiated spatially can play a crucial role in how global political-economic processes are perceived and translated into political positions. It urges radicals who want to understand the ascent of the extreme right to have a closer look at the systematic geography of the society of downward mobility.

CT&I e desenvolvimento desigual no Brasil: é possível outro “modelo de desenvolvimento”?

O território brasileiro é marcado por desigualdades. Para promover a sua redução, o discurso dominante sugere maiores incentivos em Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação [CT&I]. O objetivo deste artigo é examinar a relação entre os investimentos em CT&I e suas repercussões no território brasileiro, especificamente, quanto à diminuição das desigualdades socioeconômicas e das disparidades inter-regionais. Temporalmente, considerou-se o período recente (2000 a 2013). Geograficamente, usou-se o recorte das macrorregiões brasileiras. Mobilizaram-se indicadores socioeconômicos e dados sobre investimentos em CT&I. Os resultados evidenciam que as políticas de CT&I não vêm contribuindo para a diminuição das desigualdades socioeconômicas e disparidades regionais. A persistência dessas últimas acaba consolidando uma paisagem marcada pelo desenvolvimento geográfico desigual, alimentado por processos históricos de acumulação de capital. Em vista disso, sugere-se outro modelo de desenvolvimento, mais democrático, feito para e com as pessoas, baseado noutra matriz de CT&I, em que a tecnologia social deverá ganhar maior relevância.

David Harvey’s theory of uneven geographical development: A Marxist critique

The Marxist geographer, David Harvey, has written extensively and influentially about the production of space under capitalism and, in particular, uneven geographical development. This article is a Marxist critique of Harvey’s theory of uneven geographical development. It presents his theory around six interconnected theses: spatial concentration thesis, spatial dispersal thesis, surplus absorption or spatial fix thesis, uneven geographical development-as-ideology thesis, the uneven geographical development and the state connection thesis, and uneven geographical development–associated political thesis. His theory has shed light on certain aspects of the internal relation between capitalist accumulation and uneven geographical development, giving due emphasis to uneven geographical development’s contradictory character. It is, however, problematic on multiple grounds. It under-stresses the class relation, including the value-relation, between capital and labour, and correlatively fetishizes the power of spatial relations. While Harvey connects uneven geographical development to capitalist crisis, his theory of crisis is deeply inadequate. His theory also fails to systematically integrate the insights of state theory into it, and to the extent that the state is present, its essential class character remains under-emphasized. Finally, Harvey draws some conclusions about anti-capitalist political practice from his theory of uneven geographical development which are problematic from a Marxist vantage point. In particular, his view of the concept of the proletariat in Marxism and his scepticism towards the role of the proletariat in the fight against capital are contestable.

Violencia y desigualdad socioespacial: consideraciones conceptuales en torno al desarrollo geográfico en Latinoamérica

Este artículo teórico desarrolla las bases conceptuales de la construcción socioespacial contemporánea del territorio en la región latinoamericana. En su fase inicial se reflexiona sobre cómo se instala la planificación estratégica en esta región del mundo. Según diversos investigadores, este modelo de intervención urbana transforma a la ciudad en una mercadería de lujo destinada a un grupo élite de potenciales compradores (Vainer, 2000, p. 83) que ha fortalecido la posición del capital especulativo (Ciccolella, 2005, p. 106). De manera conjunta se analiza el nuevo patrón urbano desigual, desarrollado en América del Norte desde los años sesenta del siglo pasado, expandiéndose por Europa y América del Sur durante las décadas posteriores. Además, para comprender las lógicas que definen el espacio urbano analizado y reforzar la tesis de Vainer y Ciccolella, se analizan las variables de competitividad y sociedad de consumo, fragmentación y segregación urbana, y, por último, racialización del espacio. La investigación examina estas variables con el fin de aportar luces en la construcción de un territorio socioespacial más equilibrado y que rivalice con la tendencia hegemónica que territorializa un desarrollo geográfico desigual, intención que cobra relevancia cuando se pone en consideración que la región latinoamericana posee los índices de desigualdad y violencia más altos del mundo. Sin embargo, los gobiernos siguen apelando a corregir estos hechos con más violencia y represión, sin considerar cuestiones estructurales como son el modelo económico subordinado y dependiente, agravando las condiciones sociales mediante acciones autoritarias que combaten las consecuencias y no las causas.

Rents, knowledge and neo-structuralism: transforming the productive matrix in Ecuador

This paper explores the relationship between ground rent, production and knowledge in Ecuador’s neo-structuralist, state-led project to transform the productive matrix. Based upon insights from the Marxian approach to the critique of political economy, we interrogate how neo-structuralism has conceptualised the relationship between ‘natural resource income’ and ‘knowledge-based’ economic development. The paper argues that a rent-theoretical perspective, which takes seriously the regional unfolding of uneven geographical development in Latin America, can highlight the limits of a national development plan conceived according to the logic of Schumpeterian efficiency. In doing so, the paper identifies the contradictory relationship between natural resource exports, state-led ‘knowledge’-based development and capital accumulation. On this basis the paper offers a historically and empirically informed critical analysis of selective import substitution industrialisation and vanguard science and technology strategies designed to transition Ecuador away from primary resource dependence.

Financialisation, financial chains and uneven geographical development: Towards a research agenda

This paper examines a critical relationship between finance and uneven geographical development, using Europe as a point of reference. It argues that the existing economic geography literature fails to fully address the implications of financialisation for uneven geographical development. In particular, and despite recent renewed interest in geographies of finance, there does not seem to be a coherent theory of debt and its spatialities. The paper argues that the lack of a coherent theoretical framework on spatialities of credit–debt is a major shortcoming and highlights the need for a geographically-informed view of financialisation and its implications for uneven development. As a way forward, the paper proposes a new approach based on the concept of ‘financial chains’ understood both as channels of value transfer and as social relations that shape socio-economic processes over space and time.

Redressing inequality in South Africa: The spatial targeting of distressed areas

Uneven geographical development is deeply entrenched in South Africa with apartheid era spatial economic disparities persisting to the present day. This paper examines South Africa’s recent re-engagement with spatial economic interventions designed to help address the challenges faced by the country’s ‘lagging regions’ or what are designated as the ‘distressed areas’. Current moves to support such areas through infrastructural, manufacturing and tourism interventions are detailed and critiqued in this paper.

Thinking Geographically: Globalizing Capitalism and Beyond

In the spirit of strengthening its intellectual foundations and clarifying its contributions to making sense of Earth, we should resist any inclination to treat geography as a club—a discipline with boundaries to be policed and defended. I advocate for the strengths of thinking geographically, a way of being in the world open to all. This means attending to the geography of knowledge production; how spatiotemporalities shape and are shaped by socionatural processes; the emergent more-than-human world; the variety of ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies underlying knowledge claims; and the world not only as it is but also as it should be. Thinking geographically about globalizing capitalism can problematize the particular sociospatial positionalities from which commonsense understandings of capitalism have metastasized. Europe did not invent capitalist practices but became globalizing capitalism's center of calculation, catalyzed by the spatial dynamics of colonialism elevating Europe relative to its predecessors. Thinking geographically undermines the mainstream account of globalizing capitalism emanating from Europe, that of a rising tide capable of lifting all boats and bringing prosperity to all hard-working and responsible individuals and well-governed territories. Indeed, such body- and place-based accounts obscure how asymmetric connectivities between places and interscalar dynamics, coevolving with uneven geographical development, coproduce unequal sociospatial positionality and conditions of possibility for those propagating and encountering globalizing capitalism. Capitalism also cannot be understood, or practiced, simply as an economic process; its economic aspects are co-implicated with political, cultural (gendered, raced, etc.), social, and biophysical processes, in ways that repeatedly exceed and undermine any “laws of economics.” Thinking geographically necessitates acknowledging space for alternative, more-than-capitalist experiments and trajectories, enriched by peripheral experiences of and encounters with globalizing capitalism.

Imagineering Uneven Geographical Development in Central Florida

In an era when it is proclaimed that, through globalization, the world has become flat, the unevenness of economic and social development is often overlooked or suppressed. This case study explores the conditions of uneven geographical development in the urban space of central Florida. Focusing primarily on the Reedy Creek Improvement District (), better known to much of the world as Walt Disney World, and on Celebration, the community developed by the Disney Corporation in the 1990s, the relationship between tourism, the defining economic sector in the region, and uneven geographical development is explored. This study shows that the theory of uneven geographical development applies well to a region that is heavily dependent upon the tourist sector for its economy, and thereby works to control the narrative of that space to continue attracting consumers.

A desolate place for a defiant people: the archaeology of Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and enslaved laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp

In the 250 years before the Civil War, the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia and North Carolina was a brutal landscape--2,000 square miles of undeveloped and unforgiving wetlands, peat bogs, impenetrable foliage, and dangerous creatures. It was also a protective refuge for marginalized communities, including Native Americans, African-American maroons, free African Americans, and outcast Europeans. Here they created their own way of life, free of the exploitation and alienation they had escaped. In the first thorough examination of this vital site, Daniel Sayers examines the area's archaeological record, exposing and unraveling the complex social and economic systems developed by these defiant communities that thrived on the periphery. He develops an analytical framework based on the complex interplay between alienation, diasporic exile, uneven geographical development, and modes of production to argue that colonialism and slavery inevitably created sustained critiques of American capitalism. Published in cooperation with the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Exploring the ‘localisation’ dimension of food sovereignty

The ‘localisation’ narrative is at the heart of food sovereignty in theory and practice, in reaction to the ‘distance’ dimension in the dominant industrial food system. But while it is a central element in food sovereignty, it is under-theorised and largely unproblematised. Using the theoretical concepts of food regime analysis, uneven geographical development and metabolic rift, the author presents an exploratory discussion on the localisation dimension of food sovereignty, arguing that not all local food systems are a manifestation of food sovereignty nor do they all help build the alternative model that food sovereignty proposes. The paper differentiates local food systems by examining character, method and scale and illustrates how local food systems rarely meet the ideal type of either food sovereignty or the capitalist industrial model. In order to address five forms of distance inherent in the global industrial food system, localisation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for food sovereignty. A more comprehensive food sovereignty needs to be constructed and may still be constrained by the context of capitalism and mediated by the social movements whence it comes.

Vulnerability and resistance to neoliberal environmental changes: An assessment of agriculture and forestry in the Biobio region of Chile (1974–2014)

This article examines the dynamics of double exposure, vulnerability, and resistance to neoliberal globalization and environmental change in the Chilean agricultural region of Biobio. By using climatic models and secondary Agricultural Census data from 1997 and 2007, we assess how Chilean neoliberal reforms have, since 1974, facilitated land use changes and forestry investments. We demonstrate that policy changes which incentivize forestry investments have reduced cultivated agricultural lands and native forest, and concentrated land in the hands of global agribusiness corporations. Compounding these issues, Biobio shows a climatic trend towards aridity coupled with an increasing demand for irrigation. Analyzing these conditions, we argue that the neoliberal globalization of regional agriculture under the context of climatic changes has produced a regional space of increasing vulnerabilities and uneven geographical development in Biobio. We particularly demonstrate that the Chilean mode of agricultural neoliberalization has been conducive to land dispossession—to the detriment of traditional agriculture —and has homogenized the biophysical landscape, replacing traditional crops and native forests with exotic species like pines and eucalyptus. We also examine how local producers are using resistance movements to cope with and contest neoliberal environmental changes. We conclude by evaluating the implications of these spaces of agricultural vulnerabilities and local resistances in the context of uneven geographical development at a regional and global scale.

Desequilibrios regionales en el transporte eléctrico argentino (1992-2013): el retraso relativo del área atlántica bonaerense

The construction of large scale infrastructure is conditioned by the mechanisms of uneven geographical development of capital. Depending on the geo-historical characteristics of the accumulation regime, these forces that form regional imbalances in the production of space are relatively controlled or promoted. The reform of the argentine electricity sector undertaken since 1992 as part of the structural transformations that gave life to the Convertibility regime stimulated the uneven development of the high voltage transmission grid. Since 2004, a sectorial policy that attempts to solve transportation infrastructure deficits in various critical points in the country’s power supply has been executed However, some geographical areas still remain outside of these developments. The article analyzes the case of the relative backwardness of the Atlantic area of the province of Buenos Aires.

Re-Spatializing development: Reflections from South Africa’s recent re-engagement with planning for Special Economic Zones

In 2014 the South African government formally sanctioned the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in that country. The importance attached to SEZs reflects a clear return to spatially-based economic interventions following the recognition of the persistence of deep-rooted structural and spatial inequalities in the country. This paper discusses South Africa’s past and present involvement in processes of spatial economic development and how the SEZ concept has emerged. The potential of SEZs is assessed relative to local experience with the lacklustre performance of what were termed Industrial Development Zones (IDZs) since 2001. While re-engagement with issues of how to address ‘uneven geographical development’ is clearly significant, it would be difficult to argue that SEZs will achieve guaranteed success.