Retheorizing Economic Geography: From the Quantitative Revolution to the “Cultural Turn”

In this article, I reflect upon and attempt to understand the changing theoretical nature of post–World War II Anglo-American economic geography. In particular, I contrast the kind of theorizing that first occurred in the discipline during the 1950s with the very different kind now carried out under what has been called the “cultural turn” or the “new economic geography.” I argue that, during this transition, not only did the use of specific theories alter, but the very idea and practice of theorization also changed. I characterize the phases of this movement by using the terms “epistemological” and “hermeneutic theorizing,” defined on the basis of works by pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty and science studies writer Donna Haraway. I argue that “epistemological theorizing” best describes the first period of theorization in the discipline around the quantitative revolution of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and that it is bound by the quest for accurate (mirror) representation. In contrast, hermeneutic theorizing describes the kind of theorizing found in the new economic geography, marked by an interpretive mode of inquiry that is reflexive, open-ended, and catholic in its theoretical sources.