Kean Birch

Evolution in Economic Geography: Institutions, Political Economy, and Adaptation

Abstract Economic geography has, over the past decade or so, drawn upon ideas from evolutionary economics in trying to understand processes of regional growth and change. Recently, some researchers have sought to delimit and develop an “evolutionary economic geography” (EEG), aiming to create a more systematic theoretical framework for research. This article provides a sympathetic critique and elaboration of this emergent EEG but takes issue with some aspects of its characterization in recent programmatic statements. While acknowledging that EEG is an evolving and pluralist project, we are concerned that the reliance on certain theoretical frameworks that are imported from evolutionary economics and complexity science threatens to isolate it from other approaches in economic geography, limiting the opportunities for cross-fertilization. In response, the article seeks to develop a social and pluralist conception of institutions and social agency in EEG, drawing upon the writings of leading institutional economists, and to link evolutionary concepts to political economy approaches, arguing that the evolution of the economic landscape must be related to processes of capital accumulation and uneven development. As such, we favor the use of evolutionary and institutional concepts within a geographical political economy approach, rather than the construction of some kind of theoretically separate EEG—evolution in economic geography, not an evolutionary economic geography.

Theorizing the Bioeconomy Biovalue, Biocapital, Bioeconomics or . . . What?

In the policy discourses of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and European Commission (EC), modern biotechnology and the life sciences are represented as an emerging “bioeconomy” in which the latent value underpinning biological materials and products offers the opportunity for sustainable economic growth. This articulation of modern biotechnology and economic development is an emerging scholarly field producing numerous “bio-concepts.” Over the last decade or so, there have been a number of attempts to theorize this relationship between biotechnologies and their capitalization. This article highlights some of the underlying ambiguities in these conceptualizations, especially in the fetishization of everything “bio.” We offer an alternative view of the bioeconomy by rethinking the theoretical importance of several key economic and financial processes.

Divergent Paradigms of European Agro-Food Innovation The Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy (KBBE) as an R&D Agenda

The Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy (KBBE) has gained prominence as an agricultural R&D agenda of the European Union. Specific research policies are justified as necessary to create a KBBE for societal progress. Playing the role of a master narrative, the KBBE attracts rival visions; each favours a different diagnosis of unsustainable agriculture and its remedies in agro-food innovation. Each vision links a technoscientific paradigm with a quality paradigm: the dominant life sciences vision combines converging technologies with decomposability, while a marginal one combines agro-ecology with integral product integrity. From these divergent visions, rival stakeholder networks contend for influence over research policies and priorities, especially within the Framework Programme 7 (FP7) on Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnology (FAFB), which has aimed to promote a Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy. Although the FAFB programme has favoured a life sciences vision, agro-ecological approaches have gained a presence, thus overcoming their general lock-out from agricultural research agendas. In their own way, each rival paradigm emphasises the need for collective systems to gather information for linking producers with users, as a rationale for the public sector to fund distinctive research priorities.

Rejoinder: a geographical political economy of evolution in economic geography

Abstract What does the economic in economic geography stand for? For much of the 1990s up to the more recent past, answers to this pertinent question frequently referred to the embeddedness-network paradigm of the new economic sociology. At the same time, economic geography more and more drew inspiration, metaphors, and practices from an increasingly diverse range of schools. In terms of the disciplinary orientation, economic geography, on the one hand, remains firmly engaged with sociology, although interest seems to expand from the Granovetterian paradigm to the poststructuralism of Latour and Callon. On the other hand, economic geography’s interest in heterodox economic geography is gaining new momentum. Above all, evolutionary approaches have attracted considerable attention that most recently culminated in a range of programmatic statements to develop a distinct evolutionary economic geography. It is these attempts to develop a collective agenda that Danny MacKinnon, Andrew Cumbers, Andy Pike, Kean Birch, and Robert McMaster take issue with. Subsequently, Ron Boschma and Koen Frenken, Jürgen Essletzbichler, and Geoffrey Hodgson comment on this “sympathetic critique.” A rejoinder by Andy Pike and his coauthors concludes this symposium.

EU agri-innovation policy: two contending visions of the bio-economy

The knowledge-based bio-economy has gained prominence as a research and innovation policy of the European Union. As a policy framework the knowledge-based bio-economy has attracted two contending visions, which can be analyzed as imaginaries – strategic discourses prefiguring a possible, desirable future. In the dominant vision, life sciences will enhance productivity for European competitive advantage in global value chains. A rival vision links agroecology and shorter food supply chains, as a means for farmers to gain more from the value that they add. Each vision favors a different diagnosis of unsustainable agriculture and eco-efficient remedies. Each extends a different paradigm of agri-innovation, foreseeing an economic community that can gain from future markets. These two contending visions give different meanings to the same key terms – knowledge, biological resources and economy. In the EUs research program for a knowledge-based bio-economy, a life sciences vision dominates the priorities, though agroecology has also gained a significant place in response to proposals from stakeholder networks. Through these efforts, research policy priorities have been opened up to more plural agri-innovation pathways.

The neoliberal underpinnings of the bioeconomy: The ideological discourses and practices of economic competitiveness

When we talk about ideology and new genetics we tend to think of concepts like geneticisation and genetic essentialism, which present genetics and biology in deterministic terms. However, the aim of this article is to consider how a particular economic ideology - neoliberalism - has affected the bioeconomy rather than assuming that it is the inherent qualities of biotechnology that determine market value. In order to do this, the paper focuses on the discourses and practices of economic competitiveness that pervade biotechnology policy-making in the UK, Europe and the USA. Finally it will consider how the manufacture of scarcity - in order to produce the bioeconomy - has led to a problematic focus on a specific innovation paradigm that may prove detrimental to the development and distribution of new biotechnologies.

A Geographical Political Economy of Evolution in Economic Geography

Abstract Key themes for evolution in economic geography are identified that clarify and further refine and reinforce our argument for broader conceptions of institutions, social agency, and power and for the situation of the plural and emerging field of evolutionary approaches more fully within geographical political economy. We address the following issues: conceptual and terminological clarity; evolution and institutions within and beyond the firm; agency, bounded determinacy, and power; and research method and design. Our central contention is that geographical political economy provides a coherent and well-structured conceptual and theoretical framework with which to broaden and deepen our understanding, exploration, and practice of evolutionary thinking in economic geography.

Neoliberalism and the geographies of marketization The entangling of state and markets

Increasingly, governments are experimenting with ways to provide public goods by involving the private sector in the planning, financing, building and operating of a range of services, facilities, infrastructure, etc. In the geographical literature on neoliberalism this entanglement of the state and markets has been loosely conceptualized as a process of marketization. This concept describes the insertion of markets or market forces into the state and public sector. In this paper we unpack this concept by highlighting the need to think about a range of marketization processes at play across a range of geographies.

Alliance‐Driven Governance: Applying a Global Commodity Chains Approach to the U.K. Biotechnology Industry

Abstract As the economy has globalized, it has also regionalized, which has led to the integration of different spaces across different scales. A number of theories contend that the endogenous assets of these locations provide them with the means to compete in this globalizing economy, especially in relation to knowledge-based sectors like biotechnology. Among these theories, the cluster concept stands out. However, there is little support for the arguments that local linkages are the central contributors to innovation. Extralocal linkages have also been highlighted, suggesting that other theories that account for these linkages may prove useful in the discussion of knowledge-based sectors, in general, and biotechnology, in particular. One such theory is the concept of global commodity chains, which explicitly concerns the interconnections within and across different geographic scales. As yet it has seldom been applied to the biotechnology industry. This article uses the approach to explore the U.K. biotechnology industry.

Rethinking Value in the Bio-economy Finance, Assetization, and the Management of Value

Current debates in science and technology studies emphasize that the bio-economy—or, the articulation of capitalism and biotechnology—is built on notions of commodity production, commodification, and materiality, emphasizing that it is possible to derive value from body parts, molecular and cellular tissues, biological processes, and so on. What is missing from these perspectives, however, is consideration of the political-economic actors, knowledges, and practices involved in the creation and management of value. As part of a rethinking of value in the bio-economy, this article analyzes three key political-economic processes: financialization, capitalization, and assetization. In doing so, it argues that value is managed as part of a series of valuation practices, it is not inherent in biological materialities.