Political economy and human geography

Abstract

Since the publication of the original Models in geography some 20 years ago, human geography has changed dramatically. It has matured theoretically, it is more directly oriented to social problems, and it has achieved an awareness of politics without sacrificing its advance as a ‘science’. This transformation can be traced to the emergence, and the widespread acceptance, of a new set of models which have a common root in the notion that society is best understood as a political economy. This chapter traces the history of radical or critical geography. It considers the development of the structural Marxist conception of society in the 1970s and early 1980s which provided chief guiding theoretical influence over this development. The chapter notes some of the critical reactions to this conception in the discipline in the mid-1980s which have strongly influenced the current direction of the political-economy approach. Finally, it concludes with a statement of the present position of political-economic geography in late 1980s.

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