In unpacking the geographical character of
post-Fordism during the 1990s, industrial
geographers rediscovered the idea of anindus-
trial district, the propensity of firms in the
same sector to cluster spatially, and to be
tightly interlinked (and first recognized by
the early-twentieth-century English economist
Alfred Marshall). In turn, that idea was joined
to ‘embeddedness’, a concept associated with
the economic anthropologist Karl Polanyi, im-
plying an inseparable relation between the
economic and the sociocultural. It was pre-
cisely this inseparability, argued industrial
geographers, that characterized and accounted
for the success of post-Fordist industrial dis-
tricts such as Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the
Third Italy and Baden-Wu ̈rttemberg. They
flourished because their firms were so closely
embedded within the cultural institutions, re-
lations and forms of life found in those places
(Amin, 2000: see alsocultural economy).
An interest inglobalizationhas recently
defined the field, with investigations into
both new geographical patterns of production
and new forms of industrial organization that
make them possible. Peter Dicken’sGlobal
shift(2007) is the exemplary text (first pub-
lished in 1988, and now in its fifth edition).
The reverse side of deindustrialization has
been, and continues to be ever more so, ram-
pant industrialization in the global South: cer-
tainly the post-1979 market reforms in China,
but also in India, South East Asia, Central and
South America and Mexico (Dicken, 2007).
Industrial geography is conceptually still
coming to grips with the enormous task of
representing, analysing and explaining the
fundamental industrial spatial transformation
that is occurring. A novel conceptual vocabu-
lary and theoretical framework is being forged,
as well as new methods, which have included
commodity chainanalysis, global networks,
actor-network theory, the analytics of
transnational corporationsand globaleth-
nography. All have contributed, but indus-
trial geography remains a work in progress, as
is its object of enquiry. tb
Suggested reading
Dicken (2007).
industrial organization Do a small number
of large firms (oligopoly) or a large number
of small firms dominate an industry? Why is
this and what difference does it make for in-
dustrial geography, corporate behaviour, and
economic and social outcomes? These are the
questions of industrial organization. Oligopoly
may arise from such factors aseconomies of
scaleor collusion. The result may be spatial
concentration, high profits and high wages.
Competitive industries may be geographically
dispersed, labour-intensive, low-margin and
low-waged. Industrial organization may
change due, for example, to technological
shifts or the internationalization of markets.
Understanding its causes and consequences
illuminates the economic landscape. eschindustrial revolution A transformation in
the forces of production, centring on but not
confined to the circuit of industrial capital (see
capitalism). Generally attributed to Blanqui
(1837), but popularized in Britain by Arnold
Toynbee, the term originally applied to a set of
dramatic changes occurring in the British
economy c.1760–1840, when the old eco-
nomic order was ‘suddenly broken to pieces
by the mighty blows of the steam engine and
the power loom’ (Toynbee, 1884).
Subsequent analyses identified British ‘indus-
trial revolutions’ both earlier (in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries) and later (towards
the end of the nineteenth century), while the
term has also been invoked to describe
changes taking place across Western Europe
and North America in the nineteenth century.
This questions the unique nature of the classic
industrial revolution, portraying it as simply
another peak on the long-term waves of innov-
ation and development (see Hudson, 1992:
cf. kondratieff cycles). The gradualist
perspective is reinforced by ideas ofproto-
industrializationand by econometric stud-
ies. The former emphasize the continuities
between modern factory-based manufacturing
and earlier systems of domestic production;
while the latter highlight the growth of industry
earlier in the eighteenth century, and question
the extent and pace of structural change in the
British economy before 1840. On top of these,
models of dual economies – which counter-
poise a small technologically dynamic sector
with a much larger traditional sector – have
further qualified the revolutionary nature of
change.
As with other aspects ofmodernization,
industrialization was temporally and spatially
uneven: there were periodic crises of capital
accumulation and circulation, and an increas-
ingly heterogeneousspace-economy. Differ-
ent products and production systems were
increasingly associated with particular parts
of the country, creating a newregional geog-
raphythat was based on industrial specializa-
tion (see Langton, 1984; Langton and Morris,Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_I Final Proof page 378 31.3.2009 7:05pmINDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION