Space and Economies

This cluster comprises a group of researchers studying the geographies of economies past, present and future. Informed and inspired by Doreen Massey’s famous rallying cry that when it comes to studying the economy, ‘geography matters!’, the researchers in this cluster practice a broad and lively version of economic geography.

Interested especially in flows and circulations of commodities, people and ideas at a range of geographical scales, and in how these shape economic-geographic transformations large and small, the group is helping to advance social-scientific understandings of the evolution of places, regions and their economies across both the Global South and North. The group is theoretically eclectic, drawing on conceptual frameworks including feminist economics, institutional economics, political economy and regional science.

It is methodologically pluralist, deploying methods ranging from deep ethnography to cutting-edge spatial-econometric analysis. And it is concerned to contribute to policy and planning debates as much as scholarly ones, in Sweden and further afield.

Current research topics include:

• Climate change and transformations of financial risk
• Culture, creativity and economy
• Histories of housing provision in Sweden in times of economic crisis
• Intermediation, place and value creation: Exploring the processes and spaces of ‘curation’
• Land ownership and allocation strategies among Swedish municipalities
• Networking among self-employed women in a male-dominated cultural industry
• Regional economic resilience in the face of global and local shocks
• Struggles over mineral rights in south-central Sweden
• The formation of markets in ‘lively’ commodities
• The political economy of transportation crisis in Atlanta
• The role of finance capital in urban real estate development
• Urban livelihood strategies in Zambia