The Dictionary of Human Geography

emerge in the actual practice of everyday life
(Agrawal, 1995). For others, the idea of indi-
genous knowledge as a singular concept ig-
nores the multiplicity andpower relations
inherent in any community, and is particularly
problematic in terms ofgenderrelations. This
has led some to talk in terms oflocal know-
ledges(Briggs, 2005). Furthermore, a focus
on knowledge can turn attention away from
the material matters of development and ex-
ploitation, or the fact that while some might
have knowledge, it is not always possible for
them to act on it (Jewitt, 2002). Finally, some
commentators have suggested caution, be-
cause the recent adoption of indigenous know-
ledge by development agencies such as the
World Bank, while on the surface a positive
move, is most often uncritical and tokenistic.
In such cases, indigenous knowledge (often
reduced to the singular label ‘IK’) is expected
to be added to already existing knowledges
and practices, rather than being allowed to
offer a more fundamental challenge to the
epistemologies of conventional development
approaches (see Briggs and Sharp, 2004).jsh

Suggested reading
Agrawal (1995); Briggs (2005).

indistinction, zone of A space in which
nominally opposing categories not only be-
come blurred (‘indistinct’) but also actively
bleed into one another (cf.third space).
This topological figure animates key claims in
the political philosophy of Giorgio Agamben,
which have attracted considerable attention in
cultural,socialandpolitical geography.
Agamben’s formulation of the space of excep-
tion (seeexception, space of) identifies a
space in which exclusion and inclusion, out-
side and inside, violence and law ‘enter into a
zone of irreducible indistinction’ where each
passes over into the other (1998, pp. 9, 32).
The basis for this, he argues, is the process
through whichbare lifeis bothexcluded from
andcaptured withinthe political order and, in
its most radical form, the process through
whichsovereign poweruses the law to sus-
pend the legal (or juridical) order (1998,
pp. 18–19). Agamben argues that the excep-
tion has now become generalized to the point
at which it threatens to become the norm:
‘The ‘‘juridically empty’’ space of the state of
exception. .. [transgresses] its spatiotemporal
boundaries and now, overflowing outside
them, is starting to coincide with the normal
order in which everything again becomes pos-
sible’ (p. 38). Whatever one makes of such a

general claim, there is compelling evidence for

the multiplication of particular zones of indis-

tinction: thus, for example, Gregory (2004b,

pp. 122–36) traces the ways in which the

Israeli occupation of Palestine has involved

the calculated proliferation of zones of indis-

tinction, while Gandy (2006b) suggests that

zones of indistinction have become character-

istic of a late-modern ‘anti-biotic urbanism’

that is producing new modes of exclusion.dg

induction A form of reasoning that moves

from the specific to the general, usually

deploying information/knowledge from a

small number of (possible non-representative:

cf.sampling) cases to develop generallaws.

Inductive reasoning is usually contrasted

with deductive logics. (See alsoabduction;

deduction.) rj

Suggested reading

Harvey (1969).

industrial district A term developed to cap-

ture the local geography, institutional density

and interlinked connectivity of productive

(agro-industrial, manufacturing financial and

services) activities. The common reference

point is the foundational work of Alfred

Marshall in hisPrinciples of economics(1919),

in which he referred to industrial districts as

‘the concentration of specialized industries in

particular localities’ (seelocality). In its con-

temporary usage, the most telling property of

industrial districts turn on the dynamics of

close internal (intra-district) linkages based

on horizontal and vertical dis-integration

and the operations of particular customary

norms and taken-for-granted rules and rou-

tines that collectively bind together firms and

simultaneously provide the productive infra-

structure of the district.

Marshall coined the term in an account of

the Sheffield cutlery and specialized steel in-

dustry and the south-east Lancashire cotton

textiles sector. He noted distinctive character-

istics of the localities, what he called the

‘industrial atmosphere’, which collectively

provided a sort of industrial hothouse with a

highly competitive economic momentum.

Some of the key characteristics noted by

Marshall, and subsequently elaborated by

others (Scott, 1988c; Amin and Thrift, 1992)

included: a business structure dominated by

small, locally owned firms; limited scale eco-

nomies; intra-district trade among buyers and

suppliers; long-term contracts and commit-

ments between local buyers and suppliers;

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INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT