Reconsidering path creation in economic geography: aspects of agency, temporality and methods

Abstract

The emergence of new industrial development paths is an important topic in economic geography. However, current perspectives emphasizing the constraining forces of historical trajectories on innovation and change have shortcomings in accounting for how and where new industries arise. This article argues that more attention needs to be paid to agency, and that agency must be seen as intertemporal in the sense that actors' activities and strategies are framed by combinations of experiences and expectations. As such, the article combines insights from economic geography, transitions studies and the sociology of expectations literature to expand extant theory on path creation. A brief analysis of the emerging Norwegian offshore wind power sector serves to illustrate how experience (the past) and different types of expectations (the future) have tangible effects on agency, and in effect on path creation processes. These insights have methodological implications, essentially favouring qualitative approaches over quantitative ones to understand formative phases in industrial development.

Understanding regional innovation policy dynamics: Actors, agency and learning

“…Recent literature has stressed the role of agency in the creation of new institutional arrangements shaping path creation (Simmie, 2012;Sotarauta and Mustikkama¨ki, 2015;Steen, 2015), including processes of 'displacement', 'layering' and 'conversion' of institutions (Streeck and Thelen, 2005). For instance, Karnøe and Garud (2012: 734) argue that views of the role of institutions and policy in shaping regional path dependence have tended to 'miss out on critical micro-dynamics that have to do with learning and agency'.…”

Negotiating Water and Technology—Competing Expectations and Confronting Knowledges in the Case of the Coca Codo Sinclair in Ecuador

“…Another key aspect is that expectations and socio-technical imaginaries are actively produced [13,23] and performative [10] because they create actions, define roles and responsibilities and shape political agendas [2,12,13]. This ties the sociology of expectations to transition studies [1,2,9,10,[12][13][14] wherein socio-technical transitions are seen as enabled and/or hindered by prevalent or changing politico-economic conditions and political activities at different levels of a society. As Sovacool and Brossman [12] (p. 839) have summarised, literature on technology and future visions, or "fantasies" (e.g., [22,24]) suggests that successful socio-technical imaginaries often entail four common characteristics; they (1) are concrete enough to be applied in the real world, (2) are critical towards the present situation, (3) provide convincing arguments for socio-technical transition, and (4) suggest that the socio-technical vision in question is powerful enough to make previous changes irrelevant.…”

“…This article addresses such efforts in the context of the Andean country Ecuador, which exemplifies recent developmental challenges and the ways in which a new hydroelectricity-driven energy policy approach has been negotiated, contested and legitimised. In this context, the role of expectations is crucial: the ways in which the new hydraulic megaprojects such as the 1500 MW Coca Codo Sinclair (CCS) are motivated and imagined have important repercussions for how energy futures, values, industrial transformations, social organization and governance are understood, rationalised and managed [9][10][11][12][13].…”

“…This article focuses on expectations and confronting knowledge regimes (see the introduction in this volume) concerning water and technology, understood as hydropower infrastructure, in the CCS as it exemplifies current challenges in sustainability governance and green transitions. Drawing on sociological science and technology studies, in particular the sociology of expectations [10,[12][13][14] and transitions studies literature [1,2,9,12], the article takes an actor-oriented approach and examines recent expectations and future visions regarding the CCS among various actors at different levels and spheres of Ecuadorian society. We show how the project is understood by diverse actors, ranging from instrumental and functionalist-pragmatic interpretations to addressing an intrinsic value of water and technology or generating symbolic understandings.…”

“…The sociology of expectations has been applied, for example, to biomedical research [10,15] but less often in relation to natural resources governance or hydropower (see, however, [9,12]). This article emphasises the performativity of expectations [10,13], i.e., how expectations shape politics, the future, technology, stakeholder interactions and concrete policies.…”