Article,
Where is the value added in the cluster approach? Hermeneutic theorising, economic geography and clusters as a multiperspectival approach
URBAN STUDIES, 41 (5-6): 1011-1023 (May 2004)
DOI: {10.1080/00420980410001675869}
Abstract
Barnes has argued that (new) economic geography has moved in to a phase
of theory development that he describes as `hermeneutic' theorising.
This epistemological position is characterised by an interpretive,
reflexive and open-ended mode of inquiry that recognises the diversity
of sources available for theorising and the subsequent conversations
that will ensue from such diversity. In a recent deconstruction of the
clusters concept in economic geography, and especially that version (or
brand) expounded by Michael Porter, Martin and Sunley ask the question
as to what added value is delivered by the concept's gatecrashing of
academic and policy debates. This paper argues that clusters should not
be overendowed as a singular `brand', but recognised as an emergent set
of multiple perspectives in dialogue. From a position of hermeneutic
theorising, `clusters' have the potential to add value by allowing
theoretical debate across a wide range of (overlapping and competing)
perspectives whose partiality and situatedness are made explicit. The
possibilities for theoretical, empirical and policy cross-fertilisation
from the difficult act of holding together these threads is one
potential drawn from the conversations engendered through hermeneutic
theorising in economic geography. Nevertheless, this `work in progress'
must be deepened and extended if the potential of clusters is to be
realised.
