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| CHANGE AND PROGRESS OF STUDY PERSPECTIVES IN ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY |
| AI Shao-wei, MIAO Chang-hong |
| Center for Yellow River Civilization & Sustainable Development, Henan University, Kaifeng 475001, China |
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Abstract Since the naissance of economic geography, the varieties of "study perspectives" have been formed in different stages of economic geography. Objectively, the development history of economic geography is the one of changing "study perspectives", and the different study perspectives imply the extension of the research scopes and the diversification of research methods. The multi-dimensional study perspectives have brought the new research topics, new research point of views, and new research methods as well. The changing perspectives derive from the plight of explaining the complex economic geography phenomena resulted from the progress of science, technology and social development. Economic geography enriches and presents their subject characteristics, expanding their scopes and fields of the study through diversified perspectives. This paper summarizes the history and characteristics of these perspectives, finding that "multi-dimensional approaches" play a key role in the course of the development of economic geography. Also, the paper sorts out the change of "study perspectives" in some important stages of its development by reviewing the relations among economic geography and economics, the leading content, methods and ways of thinking, and the mainstream theories. Multi-dimensional turns, including institutional, cultural, relational and scalar turn,are very important in the making and progress of new economic geographies, make different theoretical schools and diversified perspectives come into being and take economic geography into a new stage of prosperity. While institutional perspective is of great significance and advances the unprecedented movement of theoretical construction, cultural perspective has a more far-reaching impact on expanding fields of economic geography. Comparatively, relational perspective makes the relations and networks become the core of economic geography theories. In particular, scalar perspective is of revolutionary significance by providing the lens of interaction between "scale" and "space" for understanding economic lives. Interestingly, the different perspectives not only bring the debates and puzzles but also make economic geography a discipline full of novelty. All kinds of perspectives are intertwined in the making and development of new economic geographies, therefore, the emergence of new perspectives and new ideas makes the future development of economic geography full of great expectations.
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Received: 20 December 2007
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2009, Vol. 24 
