What is a ‘person’ like you doing in a ‘place’ like that? Reflections on the business school migration from economic geography

Abstract

The decline of economic geography in British geography departments and schools is a cause for concern, given its historic importance as a seedbed for critical and alternative thinking. While there are attractions and opportunities for economic geographers such as myself in working in management departments and business schools, particularly those that have a critical social science culture, it is vital that geography itself, as a discipline, retains a commitment to heterodox economic enquiry and understanding. At a time of multiplying global political, economic and ecological crises, the disappearance of economic geography from the mainstream teaching curriculum and research agenda would be a regrettable loss for the broader academic project.