** With apologies for cross-posting**
Interested in the overall state of the art of the discipline of economic geography and what world leading scholars in the field think about it? Then you shouldn't miss this panel discussion at the Global Conference on Economic Geography this week in Cologne: Economic Geography: From Fragmented Pluralism to an Integrative Paradigm? Thursday July 26, 11:50 - 13:10, H80, Philosophikum (1) Panel Organizers: Robert Hassink (Kiel University) and Huiwen Gong (Kiel University) Panelists: Kendra Strauss (Simon Fraser University) Henry Yeung (National University of Singapore) Michael Storper (LSE, UCLA, Sciences Po Paris) Ron Boschma (Utrecht University) Over the last twenty years, modern economic geography has been increasingly fragmented concerning its themes, on the one hand, and its schools of thought, perspectives and paradigms, on the other. Concerning the latter, we have currently no fewer than four paradigms in the relatively small sub-discipline: Evolutionary Economic Geography, Relational Economic Geography, Institutional Economic Geography and Geographical Political Economy. Most of these paradigms are highly influenced by economics, in particular by heterodox economics, a fuzzy and heterogeneous group of approaches that mainly shares a critical stance to mainstream economics. Although there have been arguments in favor of engaged pluralism, what we see in reality is mainly fragmented pluralism. Fragmented pluralism can be problematic for the identification with the sub-discipline and the exchange with neighboring social disciplines. The panel session aims at discussing, first the reasons of fragmented pluralism, and secondly, potential solutions to solve this problem. These potential solutions include engaged pluralism, the domination of one of the existing paradigms, such as geographical political economy or the launching of an integrative paradigm of economic geography. By approaching both representatives of the different paradigms as well as some observers of the overall sub-discipline, we expect a lively, relevant and badly needed debate about economic geography's state of the art, core and identity. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- Robert Hassink Professor of Economic Geography Dept. of Geography, Kiel University Hermann-Rodewald-Str. 9 24098 Kiel, Germany tel. 0049-431-880-2951 fax 0049-431-880-5290 e-mail: <mailto:hass...@geographie.uni-kiel.de> hass...@geographie.uni-kiel.de <http://www.wigeo.uni-kiel.de/en/People/robert-hassink> http://www.wigeo.uni-kiel.de/en/People/robert-hassink Visiting Professor in the School of Geography, Politics & Sociology (Centre for Urban & Regional Development Studies (CURDS)), Newcastle University, UK <http://www.ncl.ac.uk/curds/people/visiting.htm> http://www.ncl.ac.uk/curds/people/visiting.htm ResearchGate Profile: Robert Hassink <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Hassink> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Hassink Google Scholar Profile: Robert Hassink <http://scholar.google.de/citations?user=FtyhWG0AAAAJ&hl=de&oi=ao> http://scholar.google.de/citations?user=FtyhWG0AAAAJ&hl=de&oi=ao Publons Profile: Robert Hassink https://publons.com/author/1231174/robert-hassink#profile P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
