De-centering in practice: Governance through coordination in Spanish economic geography

摘要

This commentary draws on the Spanish case to shed light on the three dimensions of de-centering in economic geography: epistemological, geographical, and idiomatic. Although the geography of contributors to the most influential Companions and Handbooks of economic geography shows hints of a timid de-centering from the UK and the USA to other English-speaking or English-fluent countries in America, Asia, Oceania, and Europe, Spain still remains outside this language-led process. However, reasons other than language must be taken into account for a proper understanding of this situation. Indeed, a small but engaged network of economic geographers has settled in Spain since the late 1980s. These scholars have developed a research agenda in close dialogue with some of the main concerns of Anglo-American economic geography. Such a development has followed a path of its own, contingent to the Spanish academic environment and to some specific traits of that network: a sustained reliance on coordinated research projects with several universities involved (the how); a shared definition of the core research topics (the what); and a process of internationalisation that does not equate to getting our papers published in English-speaking outlets (the where).