List of Tables.

List of Boxes.

Preface.

Acknowledgements.

Part I: Conceptual Foundations:.

1. A Geographical Approach to the Economy.

Introduction.

Poverty and Economics: Explaining What Went Wrong.

Geographical Perspectives on the Economy.

A World of Difference: From Masochi to Manhattan.

Overview of the Book.

2. Economic Discourse: Does ‘the Economy’ Really Exist?.

Introduction.

The Taken-for-granted Economy.

A Brief History of ‘the Economy’.

Expanding the Economy beyond the Economic.

Representing Economic Processes.

Summary.

Part II: Dynamics of Economic Space:.

3. Uneven Development: Why is Economic Growth and Development so Uneven?.

Introduction.

Uneven Development – Naturally!.

Marxian Approaches: Conceptualizing Value and Structure.

The Fundamentals of Capitalism.

The Contradictions of Capitalism.

Placing and Scaling Capitalism.

Putting People in the System.

Going beyond Capitalism.

Summary.

4. Commodity Chains: Where Does Your Breakfast Come From?.

Introduction.

Capitalism, Commodities and Consumers.

Linking Producers and Consumers: The Commodity Chain Approach.

Re-regulating Commodity Chains: The World of Standards.

The Limits to Ethical Intervention?.

Summary.

5. Technology and Agglomeration: Does Technology Eradicate Distance?.

Introduction.

The Rise of ‘Placeless’ Production?.

Understanding Technological Changes and Their Geographical Impacts.

Proximity Matters: Traded and Untraded Interdependencies within Clusters.

Neither Here Nor There: Thinking Relationally.

Summary.

6. Environment/Economy: Can Nature Be a Commodity?.

Introduction.

How Is Nature Counted in Economic Thought?.

Incorporating Nature, Commodification, Ownership and Marketization.

Valuing Nature: The Commodification of Environmental Degradation.

Bringing Nature to Life.

Summary.

Part III: Actors in Economic Space:.

7. The State: Who Controls the Economy: Firms or Governments?.

Introduction.

The ‘Globalization Excuse’ and the End of the Nation-state?.

Functions of the State (in Relation to the Economy): Long Live the State!.

Types of States Today.

Reconfiguring the State.

Beyond the State?.

Summary.

8. The Transnational Corporation: How Does the Global Firm Keep It All Together?.

Introduction.

The Myth of Being Everywhere, Effortlessly.

Revisiting Chains and Networks: The Basic Building Blocks of TNCs.

Organizing Transnational Economic Activities 1: Intra-firm Relationships.

Organizing Transnational Economic Activities 2: Inter-firm Relationships.

The Limits to Global Reach?.

Summary.

9. Labour Power: Can Workers Shape Economic Geographies?.

Introduction.

Global Capital, Local Labour?.

Geographies of Labour: Working under Pressure.

Labour Geographies: Workers as an Agent of Change.

Beyond Capital versus Labour: Towards Alternative Ways of Working?.

Summary.

10. Consumption: Is the Customer Always Right?.

Introduction.

The Consumption Process.

The Changing Geographies of Retailing.

The Changing Spaces of Consumption.

Consumption, Place and Identity.

Summary.

Part IV: Socializing Economic Life:.

11. Culture and the Firm: Do Countries and Companies Have Economic Cultures?.

Introduction.

Firms Are the Same Everywhere, or Are They?.

Fragmenting the Firm: Corporate Cultures and Discourses.

National Business Systems.

Regional Cultures.

Multiple Cultures, Multiple Scales.

Summary.

12. Gendered Economic Geographies: Does Gender Shape Economic Lives?.

Introduction.

Seeing Gender in the Economy.

From Private to Public Space: Women Entering the Workforce.

Gendering Jobs and Workplaces.

Home, Work and Space in the Labour Market.

Towards a Feminist Economic Geography?.

Summary.

13. Ethnic Economies: Do Cultures Have Economies?.

Introduction.

‘Colour-blind’ Economics.

Ethnic Sorting in the Workforce.

Ethnic Businesses and Clusters.

The Economic Geographies of Transnationalism.

The Limits to Ethnicity.

Summary.

Index