A vast and continually expanding literature on economic globalization continues to generate a miasma of conflicting viewpoints and alternative discourses. This article argues that any understanding of the global economy must be sensitive to four considerations: (a) conceptual categories and labels carry with them the discursive power to shape material processes; (b) multiple scales of analysis must be incorporated in recognition of the contemporary 'relativization of scale'; (c) no single institutional or organizational locus of analysis should be privileged; and (d) extrapolations from specific case studies and instances must be treated with caution, but this should not preclude the option of discussing the global economy, and power relations within it, as a structural whole. This paper advocates a network methodology as a potential framework to incorporate these concerns. Such a methodology requires us to identify actors in networks, their ongoing relations and the structural outcomes of these relations. Networks thus become the foundational unit of analysis for our understanding of the global economy, rather than individuals, firms or nation states. In presenting this argument we critically examine two examples of network methodology that have been used to provide frameworks for analysing the global economy: global commodity chains and actor-network theory. We suggest that while they fall short of fulfilling the promise of a network methodology in some respects, they do provide indications of the utility of such a methodology as a basis for understanding the global economy.Despite -or perhaps because of -the immense and fast-growing literature on globalization, we remain a long way from really understanding what is happening in the global economy. As Storper (1997b: 20) rightly points out, 'the theoretical meaning and practical impact of economic globalization remains obscure'. The literature on economic globalization continues to generate a miasma of conflicting viewpoints and alternative discourses (see Hirst

Immigrants have been extensively studied, but the ways in which immigrants themselves make sense of their lifeworlds has not always been at the top of the agenda. Researchers are frequently interested in understanding the experiences of`the immigrant', as an objective analytical category, rather than the experiences of`an immigrant'. With this paper we do not claim to change that situation, but we do believe there are analytical tools available that would allow greater sensitivity to the lifeworlds of`an immigrant'. In particular, we need ways of understanding immigrant experiences when these deviate from statistical norms and when they fail to adhere to categories or theoretical expectations. The literature on transnationalism has helped enormously in this respect. Individual immigrant stories are now frequently used to highlight experiences which confound expectationsöregarding, for example, the nature of cultural assimilation and economic integration into host societies (for example, Mountz and Wright, 1996; for a review, see McHugh, 2000). It is now understood that immigrants do not simply start new lives as`the immigrant': instead, they frequently maintain strong linkages with their place of origin. These linkages are varied öeconomic, social, cultural, political, institutional, emotional öbut out of this complexity, research often tends to pick one or two of these strands without fully acknowledging that they merge seamlessly in lived experiences.In understanding the integration of these forms of transnationalism, we suggest that Pierre Boudieu's notion of habitus, as a framework for understanding the value assigned to economic, social, and cultural forms of capital, may prove useful. Although couched in economic terminologies of capital, exchange, accumulation, etc, Bourdieu's conceptual vocabulary is explicit in its attempt to go beyond economism and`rational choice' in order to understand the connections (and to transcend the arbitrary analytical distinctions) between economic, cultural, and social processes. At a still higher level of abstraction, Bourdieu's purpose is to transcend the divide between structure and agency by exploring a theory of`practice' in which actions are both constrained by,

Recent debates on globalization have tended to be polarized between those wishing to 'unthink' the broad set of economic, political and cultural processes it encompasses and those who enthusiastically embrace them. This article maps out the recent geographical literature on the politics of globalization as an idea, and suggests some of the directions in which less polarized and more sophisticated interpretations of globalization are heading. The focus of the article is on globalization as a political discourse, which is addressed through ideas on the production of scale. The problematic association of globalization with neoliberalism is also explored. Five 'counterdiscourses' of globalization are then identified which attempt to rethink the political orthodoxy of neoliberal globalization. The article concludes by arguing for a Irelational' view of scale and suggesting some of the promises, and pitfalls, of rethinking the global scale.

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This paper seeks to identify the spatialized dimensions of labour control in sites of rapid and recent industrialization in Southeast Asia. Using a comparative analysis of locations in Penang (Malaysia), Batam (Indonesia) and Cavite/Laguna (the Philippines), it is argued that the construction and control of space has been used to enhance control over the working body, and, in particular, to contain labour organization, unionization and collective bargaining. Three broader arguments are made. First, that labour geographies need to be cognizant of the spatialized politics of labour beyond a narrow focus on the trade union movement. Second, that space is a potent tool in labour control and must be explicitly considered alongside the identity-based control strategies and institutional structures that have usually informed studies of labour regimes in newly industrializing contexts. Finally, a comparative perspective on local labour markets, and control regimes in particular, shows that the ways in which space is constructed and controlled differs between contexts, implying that universal judgements on the relevance or importance of particular arenas or spaces for labour politics should be reserved. key words Southeast Asia labour control space comparative method