(Re)centring the geopolitical: A response to Henry Yeung's intervention on ‘troubling economic geography’

Abstract

In his thought-provoking commentary on the future of economic geography, Henry Yeung considers recent global economic transformations and their implications for ‘troubling’ the discipline of economic geography. He identifies four particular areas for further attention: (1) (geo)political dynamics; (2) new risks and uncertainties; (3) new geographies of labour; and (4) global environmental change. In this brief response, I focus on the first and fourth, which I see as closely connected. Specifically, I use Yeung's call as a launching point from which to elaborate on three potentially fruitful avenues for recentring geopolitics in economic geography, by: (1) focusing on not only new but also previous and ongoing geopolitical economic dynamics; (2) incorporating not only national and supra-national, but also transnational economic governance; and (3) foregrounding the intersection of geopolitics and environmental change. I conclude by considering why and how an economic geographic approach remains important to pursuing all three research directions, even as the current conjuncture demands that economic geography open itself further to new methods, topics and inter- and intra-disciplinary research collaborations.