The Dictionary of Human Geography

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1986). Critics have pointed out that even

standardized and mature products can be reju-

venated through innovation in the later stages

of a product’s life cycle. A case in point is the

automobile which, while hardly a new product,

has been continuously modified and improved

over time. It has also been argued that many

commoditiesnever achieve the status of cheap,

standardized, mass-produced goods – especially

those that, under a regime ofpost-fordism,

exhibit a high degree of variability, customiza-

tion and qualitative differentiation. msg

Suggested reading

Malecki (1991).

production complex A spatial cluster of spe-

cialized, interrelated economic activities bound

together by the creation and exploitation of

external economies(Scott, 1988b). Such

clustersoffer producers the ability to estab-

lish, and easily realign, transactionallinkages

with other local buyers and suppliers, thereby

encouraging the development and mainten-

ance of a social division of labour (seejust-in-

time production;transaction costs;trans-

actional analysis). They also provide a local

labour marketspecialized to match the needs

of local producers. They are further sustained

by the existence of public and quasi-public

institutions developed to support specialized

local economic activity and to foster non-mar-

ketforms of interaction and interdependencies

between local economic actors. (Seeagglom-

eration;commodity chain/filiE`re;indus-

trial district.) msg

production of nature This rather strikingly

counter-intuitive phrase comes from Neil

Smith, originally in his bookUneven develop-

ment(1984). Despite its critics, perhaps noth-

ing attests to the power of the idea more than

the fact that the phrase becomes less counter-

intuitive with time.

At the simplest level, and clearly influenced

by Lefebvre’s understanding of theproduc-

tion of space, Smith conveys by this phrase

thatnatureis socially produced and, more

specifically, that nature is increasingly an arte-

fact ofcapitalismin the contemporary world.

At one level, this is not so counter-intuitive at

all. Increasingly, atscalesfrom the atmos-

pheric to the genetic, the material natures of

everyday lifeare increasingly transformed

either by intentional manipulation for the pur-

poses ofcommodityproduction (e.g. genetic-

ally modified crops), or by the myriad

ecological impacts of industrial, capitalist

activities and related processes (e.g. the depos-

ition of persistent organic pollutants in Arctic

and Antarctic ecosystems). Since Smith’s

book, empirical processes that confirm the

material production of nature to suit economic

purposes have proliferated, including the

onset of commercial aquaculture and the con-

tinuedglobalizationof plantationforestry.

Moreover, empirical research has elaborated

Smith’s thesis, indicating that the capitalist

production of nature, often in shifting and

complex institutional configurations, has been

ongoing for some time (Prudham, 2003).

While agriculture would be the most obvious

example to draw on here, under which the

intentional transformation of crops andani-

malsis probably in excess of 10,000 years

old, Smith is at pains to differentiate the cap-

italist production of nature from all that has

come before it. This is not, as he argues,

because widespread anthropogenic change is

unique to capitalism (quite the opposite).

Rather, it is because the particular ways that

nature is transformed under capitalism are

unique. This includes, for instance, the appro-

priation and transformation of biophysical

processes as a constitutive facet ofuneven

developmentunder capitalism. An elabor-

ation of this, with some qualification, can be

found in Robbins and Fraser (2003), who note

‘... if the state can put non-commercial Scots

pine woodland in the place of industrial for-

ests, it is only, after all, because increased

extraction is occurring in the Baltic states,

Indonesia, and Ghana .. .’ (p. 113). Here,

produced nature is worked through as a com-

plex set of spatial and scalar logics that link

far-flung places, not least throughmarket

relations andexchange, as well as in the realm

of productionper se.

However, Smith’s thesis is not only about

the material transformation of nature under

capitalism. Rather, he also posits that a unique

feature of what might be called ‘capitalist

nature’ is the ways in which ideas about nature

are also produced in and through capitalist

production, commodity circulation, and cap-

italist social relations and institutions. This is a

complex and controversial thesis. Yet, at one

level, Smith’s observation is no different than

those who have long recognized the rise of

instrumental, utilitarian thinking alongside

industrial capitalism. Smith’s argument is that

such an instrumentalist disposition specifically

towards nature is reinforced by capitalist social

relations and processes of valuation, and that

these ideas become increasingly influential in

the construction of meaning around nature in

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PRODUCTION OF NATURE