The Dictionary of Human Geography

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global increases in international trade outstrip-

ping growth in overall global GDP provide a

useful indication of the degree to which con-

temporary forms of capitalist development are

characterized by increasingly cross-border

flows(Dicken, 2003). Roughly 40 per cent

of international trade is actuallyintra-corporate

trade – that is, border-crossing trade that

nevertheless remains within the internal com-

modity chains of a particular TNC (Gabel

and Bruner, 2003) – revealing the corporate

control of these flows within the networks

of global corporations (seetransnational

corporations (tncs)). Meanwhile, maps

of import–export data (see figure) exhibit

the uneven economic integration and triadic

geographical structure of these economic

flows, in which over 80 per cent of trade

takes place between Europe, North America

and Asia. Yet while trade data can help us

better map global capitalism’s uneven

development, the contentious debates over

today’s terms of tradealso need to be

understood in relation to the profoundly pol-

iticized discoursessurrounding the asym-

metries and inequities of trade-mediated

interdependencies.

Many free market fundamentalists insist

that trade is always good without ever pausing

to consider such basic questions as: The trade

of what? For whom? And under what context-

ual conditions? The transatlantic slave trade

International trade shown as a

percentage of global bilateral trade

(data from ESPON)

1 per cent

2 per cent

5 per cent

trade Global import and export flows

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_T Final Proof page 765 31.3.2009 9:40pm Compositor Name: ARaju

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