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Marxist geographical theory

  • All my work has argued for the importance of space (territory, distance, scale) in the construction of the social world. It has also argued that this spatial-social world is best understood in terms of social relations as conceived by Marxism.
  • Three articles (Workers strategies to secure jobs, Changing scale as changing class relations, Workers competition, class relations and space) explore how space enters into the construction of capital-labour relations, and how workers’ actions construct spatial economies.
  • Two articles (The relevance of The Limits to Capital to contemporary spatial economics, Structure system and contradiction in the capitalist space economy) theorise the spatial construction of territorial economies.
  • Two articles (Interview with Jamie Gough, The difference between local and national capitalism) explore the spatial construction of society, spanning economy, social life and the state.
  • In ‘Workers strategies to secure jobs’ I argue that space is intrinsic to political strategy and to morality, as against idealist, Kantian and simple-materialist views.
  • Two articles (Marxist geography, Marxism) set out the importance of Marxism to human geography, and the importance of geography to Marxism.
  • All of this work focuses at an abstract (‘philosophical’) level on the relations between space and social relations. I argue that space constitutes social relations at high and medium levels of abstraction as well as contingently; this contrasts with the argument of Andrew Sayer that space enters social relations only at the concrete and contingent level.
  • ‘Social physics and local authority planning’ is a critique of positivist models of urban space.