Rethinking peripheral geographies of innovation: towards an ordinary periphery approach

Abstract

Thinking through and with the Caucasus, I provide reflections on the role of entrepreneurial innovation in peripheral regions. I distinguish between three approaches to investigate firms’ innovation practices in peripheral geographies: a) knowledge-centric approaches based on the geography of innovation literature, b) surplus value-centric world-systems approaches, and c) in acknowledgment and contradistinction to both, the contours of an ordinary periphery approach to innovation that this article develops. The article shows the strengths and weaknesses of the first two approaches and argues that future research on “peripheral” innovation would benefit from a broader conception of knowledge and re/production as central entry points of inquiry. This is paramount to evade the normative appeal of the capitalist Global North city as the yardstick of economic development, inherently present in the first two approaches. Such an ordinary periphery perspective calls for a research agenda putting the negotiation of surviving well together center stage, thus opening up more diverse perspectives on knowledge and re/production.