Practicing conjunctural methodologies: Engaging Chinese capitalism

Abstract

Conjunctural analysis is a rather enigmatic practice, observed mostly after the fact and in feats of exemplary execution, apparently somewhat resistant to codification, and maybe too modish for methodological rules. Predicated on the analysis of politically salient ‘situations’, conjunctural approaches combine reflexive theorizing with socially engaged inquiry and context-rich, historicized modes of analysis. Exploring the potential of conjunctural analysis in economic geography, the article moves first to tease out the methodological implications of this rather elusive approach, including: attention to complex states of causal codetermination, ‘in articulation’; an orientation to relational and ‘unbounded’ modes of inquiry; an emphasis on the stress-testing of received theory claims and conceptual categories, often in anomalous (as opposed to ‘typical’) situations; and a commitment to reflexivity, context-engaged analysis, and ‘thick’ theorization. Second, the article interrogates these methodological dispositions and propositions by placing them in dialogue, indicatively, with the case of Chinese capitalism. This is a case that routinely frustrates and confounds extant theoretical frameworks and conceptual categories, sometimes prompting theoretical defeatism. Although conjunctural analysis is not methodologically prescriptive, it implies distinctive criteria for problem formulation and research design; for ‘casing’, case selection, and specification; and for the exposition and (re)construction of contextualized theory claims.