November 2021 – March 2022: University of Kiel, Germany Economic Geography and Sustainability, M.Sc. Sustainability, Society, and the Environment

1. Lecture 1 - Introduction: economic geography and its recent paradigms
Economic
Geography
and
Sustainability
WS 2021-2022
Lecture 1 – 27.10.2021

2. Today’s lecture
Module structure and background
• Teaching strategy
• Course goals
• Learning objectives
• Structure
• Key references for your work
• Details on the seminar
Economic Geography
• Defining it
• Current strands of reasoning in EG
• The cross-fertilization between EG & sustainability

3. Eduardo Oliveira
oliveira@geographie.uni-kiel.de
(office hours = send me an email)
Robert Hassink
hassink@geographie.uni-kiel.de
(office hours)
Economic Geography Working Group
• 6 lectures
• Seminar for M.Sc. SSE and
Erasmus students
• Seminar for M.Sc. SRE students

4. Housekeeping
• II Parts of 40 minutes (this will vary)
• 10 minutes break
• This is a co-created and interactive territory
• Everyone’s cooperation, mutual support
• Throw in some challenging questions
• Continue the debate beyond the lecture
(email)

5. Teaching approach
Real-life problems
involving the
economic landscape
and sustainability
Teaching as a
learning-
experience
Student-centred,
co-creative
and interdisciplinary
problem-based learning
Piaget's theory of constructivism
The Pedagogy of John Dewey
Bear in mind: social constructivism of the learning

6. Lecturer
Focused
Student
Focused

7. My teaching
approach or
Pedagogy in
practice means:
A relaxing
atmosphere is
the best way to
learn
Share your
thoughts >
constructive
debates
Informative
slides, including
several (useful)
hyperlinks
Think critically
and
independently
Lots of literature shared via
OpenOlat (for your guidance)

8. Oliveira (2015); Oliveira (2016)
EG and regional attractiveness / competitiveness
Economic Geography
N. Portugal-Galicia
Left-behind region, or
Low-income region (EU, 2017)

9. Hersperger, Oliveira et al (2019)
EG and strategic spatial planning – long-term
planning covering 20, 30 or more years
Economic
dimension of
planning our
cities and urban
regions

10. Overall Goal

11. Lectures
• Explaining how Economic
Geography (EG) concepts
articulate and contribute to
the operationalization of the
Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs);
• Understanding the role of EG
on governing sustainable
development/sustainability
transitions across spatial
scales;
• Addressing key
sustainability issues through
the lens of EG.
Seminar
• Applying EG concepts to
advance problem-solving
within sustainability across
spatial scales (e.g., global;
national; regional)
Course goals

12. You will learn to
• Prioritizing issues related to sustainability (Global South
– Global North conversation);
• Strengthening the EG–Sustainable development nexus;
• Expanding ongoing research within sustainability
transitions; planning for equitable futures;
• Addressing grand societal challenges through
evolutionary economic geography (i.e., time matters);
• Improving your writing skills, including synthesis of
important references; writing brief and punchy abstracts;
• Advancing your career prospects.

13. Structure of the
course
1. 27-10: Today’s lecture
2. 03-11: Making progress towards the
SDGs through the lens of economic
geography
3. 10-11: Governance of sustainability
transitions
4. 17-11: Slow innovation and circular
economy
Download the slides at OLAT

14. 4. 24-11: Corporate social
responsibility v.s. corporate
spatial responsibility and
the Greenwashing effect
5. 01-12: Mission-oriented
innovation policies and
sustainable economic
geography (e.g., degrowth;
EU Green Deal)
Download the recordings at
Google Drive
Structure of
the course

15. The quality of the material you are reading
https://scholar.google.com/ http://www.webofknowledge.com/ https://www.semanticscholar.org/
The Circular Economy in Cities and Regions
EU Science Hub

16. "economic geography" AND "sustainability"

17. Few
important
references
to keep in
mind
• Flor Avelino, Erasmus University of Rotterdam
• Anna Davis, The University of Dublin
• Julia Affolderbach, University of Trier
• Heike Mayer, University of Bern
• Simona Iammarino, London School of Economics and
Political Science
• Lars Coenen, Western Norway University of Applied
• Bernhard Truffer, Eawag
• Teis Hansen, Lund University
• Sebastian Fastenrath, Melbourne Sustainable Society
Institute
• Boris Braun, University of Cologne
• Ron Boschma, Utrecht University
• Koen Frenken, Utrecht University
• Christian Schulz, Heidelberg University
• David Gibbs, University of Hull
• James Murphy, Clark University
• Canfei He, Peking University
• Christian Binz, Eawag

18. Few
important
sources to
keep in
mind
Academic Journals:
• Sustainable Cities and Society, Impact Factor
(IF): 7.5
• Nature Sustainability
• Sustainability Science
• Research Policy, IF: 5.3
• Environmental Innovation and Societal
Transitions, IF 8.4
• Global Environmental Change, IF 10.4
• Regional Environmental Change, IF 3.4
• Economic Geography; IF 8.2
• Journal of Economic Geography, IF 3,2
• Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and
Society, IF 4.4
• Ecology & Society
• Papers in Economic Geography and Innovation
Studies
• Regional Studies, IF 3.3
• Regional Studies, Regional Science
• European Planning Studies, IF 2.2

19. Take the time to think
beyond the mainstream

20. Today’s lecture

21. regions
strategy
Sociotechnical systems
social-ecological system
governance
evolutionary
Power
relations
justice
industrial development
nature
Green- blue-
infrastructures
Climate change
growth
geographic inequalities
Supply chains Energy transition

22. Effective contribution for science and society
• Grand societal challenges
• Think local and how local solutions support
global sustainability challenges etc.

23. Addressing grand societal challenges through a
relational, evolutionary and strategic perspective

24. Nexus approaches to sustainable development
Trade-offs
• progress in one goal hinders
progress in another
Synergies
• progress in one goal favours
progress in another
Progress in SDG 8
favors progress in
SDG 1
Economic Growth > ++
investment can increase the
exposure and vulnerability
to climate-related extreme
events and other economic
and social shocks

25. Economic
Geography
• Defining economic geography (EG)
• The history of EG
• Current strands of reasoning in EG
• The cross-fertilization between EG & sustainability

26. In EG and
Sustainability
we merge EG
• Geography can be defined as the why and
so what of where.
• In economic geography the where, why, and
so what questions are focused on
understanding economy in territories or the
organization of the economic landscape (Clark
et al, 2017)

27. Where, why, and so what

28. You'll find the latest publications of the Working Group Economic Geography here
Our understanding of Economic Geography
Economic dynamics
across scales
Involving players

29. Economic players
Geographical context
Governance context
Our understanding of Economic Geography
Evolve through time
Embedded in institutional settings

30. A relational perspective,
because economic actors do
not act in isolation.
An evolutionary
perspective, because
economic actors do not act
without a history.
An institutional perspective,
because institutions affect
decisions of economic actors.
Theoretical perspectives

31. With sustainable principles
(Our Common Future, 1987)
Securing
sources
of
livelihood
Restoring
earth’s
environmental
systems
Ensuring
personal,
labor and
cultural
rights are
respected
geographic
inequalities

32. Our understanding of Economic Geography
(Sheppard and Barnes, 2017)
(Bathelt and Glückler, 2003)
Relational economic geography
A call for higher
engagement
‘economic
geographers
have paid too
little attention to
sustainability’

33. Practice oriented perspective
Because economic players constitute, reproduce and transform the economy.
Sustainability
Economic

34. Defining economic geography
Research that examines how economic processes
intersect with the geographical organization of society.
(Sheppard & Barnes 2017)
The study of geographically specific factors that shape
economic processes and identify key agents (firms, labour,
state) and drivers (such as innovation, institutions and
entrepreneurs) that prompt uneven territorial
development and enable change (Aoyama et al. 2011)
As such, it involves the processes of production,
consumption, distribution, and exchange, in the formal
and informal economy (Clark et al, 2017).

35. Territorial
governance Strategic
spatial planning
Economic
geography
Sustainability
principles
Regional
development
At the intersection of various disciplines
Defining economic geography

36. What explains persistent poverty in specific global cities
such as New York, London and Tokyo, and what prompted the
emergence of vast urban slums across Southeast Asia?
What are the impacts of globalization on people’s jobs and
livelihoods across the world, in high- and low-income countries?
Defining economic geography

37. Explaining the causes and consequences of uneven
development, inequalities manifested across territories (local;
regional…) is a central concern for economic geographers.
Central to the work of E. Geographers
Defining economic geography

38. Envisioning Real Utopias

39. Envisioning Real Utopias
Source
The purpose of this evaluation is to show the impact of
corporate activities on the common good.

40. Three fundamental geographical concepts
Space Place Scale
There are a whole series of philosophical discussions around them!
• Harvey (1969)
• Massey (2005)
• Jones (2009)
• Lefebvre (1974)
• Harrison and
Dourish (1996)
• Herod (2007)
• MacKinnon (2011)
• Lloyd (2014)
Defining economic geography

41. Three fundamental geographical concepts
Explanations from an EG lens
Space Place Scale

42. Three fundamental geographical concepts
• Space: anything absolute, relative, or relational, since
it depends largely on the nature of the phenomena
under investigation.
• Place: location (clusters, industrial districts) but within
a sense of place i.e., emotional attachment/bond.
• Scale: both as an object of inquiry and epistemological
construct (from global to local scales).
The evolutionary and relational approaches assume
spatial structures to be created by social processes
(Hassink and Gong, 2017)

43. Understanding the economic landscape
• Economic geographers emphasize that identifying
and analyzing the various networks of linkages and
flows across space is essential….
(Hassink and Gong, 2017)

44. The history of EG: a genealogy
(Sheppard & Barnes 2017)
• From commercial to regional geography: from mid 19th century
to mid 20th century > to accomplish practical/pragmatic goals
• Spatial science and the turn to theory (in the mid 1950s)–
quantitative revolution
• Post-spatial science approaches: 1970s classical Marxism and
political economy; 1990s post-prefixed approaches; early 2000s,
relational turn, institutional turn, etc. --
Critique > not a rigorous science
Critique > understand space in absolute terms
Critique > everything fitting in (pluralism)

45. The history of EG
(Sheppard & Barnes 2017; Hassink, et al, 2014; Barnes & Sheppard, 2010)
Engaged pluralism Fragmented pluralism
A way to bring together different perspectives and methods that
enrich EG > and are necessary to advance theories and to
overcome limitations > produce mutual-supportive conversations

46. The history of EG: Engaged pluralism
Europe
• Evolutionary economic geography
• Relational economic geography (Germany)
• Institutional economic geography
• Geographical political economy (UK)
• Global production networks (UK)
North America Asia
• Global production networks (UK)
• Feminist geography
• Labour geography
• Postcolonialism
• Poststructuralism
• Postmodernism
• Poststructuralism
• Postmarxism
EG

47. Current strands of reasoning in EG
Commodity production:
• Evolutionary approach (firm;
enterprises; entrepreneurship)
• Relational approach (regional scale)
• Place-based approaches
Global production networks:
• Green industry development in space
• Global innovation systems of green
industries
• Green diversification / green clusters
• Eco-innovation systems
Consumption:
• Public procurements
• User-driven sustainability
• Place branding
• Circular economy
• Slow innovation & consumption

48. Current strands of reasoning in EG
• Territorial governance dimension:
• The role of institutions, of the nation state on sustainability
transitions, power/agency
• Jurisdictional approach > sharing of responsibilities
• Material worlds:
• Global commodity chains—deconstructing green-technologies
and the geographies of global supply chains
• Corporate social v.s. spatial responsibility
• Globalization and development patterns:
• Sustainability transition in the Global South
• Sustainable development - secure livelihoods nexus
• More-than-capitalist economies:
• Community-driven development processes
• Diversification of economies > place-based innovation

49. The cross-fertilization between EG &
sustainability
• How are sustainability patterns present
globally from a geographical perspective?
• Which or how relations and evolution of
geographically specific factors shape
economic processes and practices of
different actors (firms, states,…) in
transforming to sustainability?
• How sustainability aspects influence
industrial development and regional
economies?
• How to secure endogenous development
in the global production networks?

50. EG & sustainability: Example

51. • How are certain emerging green technologies and related
industries organized in space, and thus contributing to
distinct regional/national competitive advantages based on
capitalist/non-capitalist logics?
• How could strategic spatial planning be better designed at
different levels by taking into account the sustainability
aspects?
The cross-fertilization between EG &
sustainability

52. Seminar

53. Lecture 1 - Introduction: economic geography and its recent paradigms
• Until 14 - January 2022: compulsory talk with Robert Hassink
about topic of reading list (during office hours)
hassink@geographie.uni-kiel.de
• Until 24 - January 2022: Submission of reading list with number
of pages
• Until 3 - February 2022: Essay question sent by e-mail
• Until 5 - February 2022: Submission of essay with max. 3,000
words
• 11, 12, 13 - February 2022: Short (max. 10 minutes)
presentations of essays, reaction by discussant and discussion
• 16 - February 2022: Submission of revised essay
Time Table Take-Home Seminar SRE
(Robert Hassink) 15:25

54. Seminar (Classic essay/Eduardo Oliveira, English)
Goes from today until 13 of February 2022
Online presentation on 27, 28 and/or 29 January 2022
1. Select a topic
2. Discuss it with me
3. Literature selection
4. Intensive reading of the literature
5. Drawing connections
6. Exploring contradictory arguments
7. Elaborating research questions
8. Writing a draft essay including an abstract
9. Presenting insights + discussion
10. Final submission

55. Seminar > Timetable
Master
"Sustainability, Society and
the Environment"

56. December 2021
Until 08 > Send me
your topic idea via
email (tentative title
+ research question);
Until 15 > You will
receive my feedback
in response

57. January 2022
Until 05 > 2 pages of
reading material
Until 12 > Submission
of draft essay with
max. 2,000 words
excluding references
but with a 150
words abstract

60. January 2022
Collective
presentation 5m.
• 5 slides
• 5 key take-
home
messages
• + discussion
January 2022
• Thursday 27
• 09:00-16:00
• Friday 28
• 09:00-16:00
• Saturday 29
• 09:00:-14:00
Details
will follow

61. • Be brief, straight to the core message, use a
persuasive speech that you use to spark
interest in what your work is about and why it
matters
• Ideal: 5 slides = 5 take-home messages
• Use Plain Language
• Keep It Simple and Short
• This is a learning experience
Collective
presentation

62. Submission of
final essay via
email as PDF
max. 4000 words
(excluding
reference list)
13 of February
2022
150 words
Abstract
Introduction
Development
Conclusion
References used

63. https://regions.regionalstudies.org/

64. Link

65. Link
Link

66. Lecture 1 - Introduction: economic geography and its recent paradigms