In this commentary on John Agnew’s article, the overarching issue is identified as the relationship between us (humans), our words, and our world. The commentary considers the specific question ‘what do we want our concepts to do?’ Drawing from recent work in political economy and geography—much of it undertaken by feminist scholars—the effects of words and ideas on our world are stressed and the emphasis is placed on considering words’ work in creating future worlds. The argument is made that we assess our keywords based on how they assist us in imagining what might become, rather than what really is.
AgnewJ (2014) By words alone shall we know: Is the history of ideas enough to understand the world to which our concepts refer?Dialogues in Human Geography4(3): 311–319.
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