The Dictionary of Human Geography (103 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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industrialization
The process whereby (NEW PARAGRAPH) industrial activity comes to play a dominant role in the economy of a region or nation state. Historically, industrialization has involved a more complex division of LaBour and the spread of mechanized production (machinofac ture) in place of hand production (manufac ture). These changes brought about a transformation in what Karl Polanyi called the form of economic integration, from the reciprocity of a moral economy to the market exchange of capitaLism. In certain Western societies, industrialization took place spontan eously, small scale domestic production for local consumption being replaced by larger scale ?factory? production aimed at more distant markets. For Adam Smith, such indus trialization formed part of the ?natural pro gress? of economic development, founded on the production of agricultural surpluses, but ultimately leading to specialist industrial regions and to international trade. Growth was organic, and the shift to mechanized production, prompted by supply being out stripped by growing demand, was dependent upon the development of appropriate technol ogy and the accumulation of capitaL for investment (Berg, 1994). (NEW PARAGRAPH) As part of modernization theory, such read ings of the past were instrumental in linking industrialization with development and in its portrayal as a solution to poverty in the devel oping world (Power, 2003). As a result, many less developed countries made industry cen tral to their development strategies. This planned (rather than spontaneous or ?orga nic?) industrialization has generally taken one of two forms: (a) import substitution, wherein governments encourage the development of indigenous manufacturing to produce con sumer goods for the domestic market, or (b) export orientated industrialization, which aims to enhance production for overseas mar kets. In the 1950s and 1960s, Western govern ments favoured import substitution as a development strategy for the tHird worLd. Influenced by the theories of Rostow and others (see stages of growtH) which accorded a pivotal role to the availability of investment capital they provided loans to developing countries to facilitate industrial de velopment. The problems of such strategies were thrown into stark relief by the economic crises of the 1970s. The infusion of capital, technology and business organization from outside brought with it problems of depend ency, most obviously manifest in the mount ing debts of many developing countries (Schurmann, 2001). More fundamentally, Marxist scholars challenged the ?development myth? by emphasizing the inevitability of uneven deveLopment under capitalism. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In recent years there has been a re articulation of modernization theory, partly through the rhetoric of globalization, which now points to the experience of developing countries experiencing rapid industrialization. Most striking are the so called asian miEacLe/ tiger economies of South East Asia, where the rate of industrial growth much of it fuelled by export orientated industries drawing on abun dant cheap labour has far exceeded that of europe during the industriaL revoLution. China has industrialized particularly rapidly and, in doing so, has highlighted many of the mounting ecological problems associated with industrial growth. In addition to those of poLLution of land, sea and air, is the more fundamental question of the sustainability of industrialization based on finite mineral re sources (Phillips and Mighall, 2000). What the example of South East Asia also shows is the emergence of service activities as an alternative source of employment and route to economic development (cf. services). jst (NEW PARAGRAPH)
inequality, spatial
The uneven distribution across space of a particular set of attributes, over which there is a moral politics of right or wrong. So, whereas spatial differentiation refers to conditions over which moral questions do not arise, spatial inequality refers instead to those characteristics over which there is a sense that their production is the result of human agency. The uneven distribution of naturaL resources is an example of spatial differentiation. On the other hand, variations between regions in terms of income levels or health rates would be examples of inequality. Think about the battles that have raged over the uneven distribution of access to some forms of medication, particularly between the wealthiest nations and those of the tHird worLd. sociaL movements of one kind or an other have lobbied multinational pharmaceut ical companies, in an attempt to get them to do their bit in addressing spatial inequalities in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. (NEW PARAGRAPH) weLfare geograpHy since the 1970s has been concerned with inequality in living standards, in the broadest sense. Attention has continued to be paid to traditional con cerns, such as those in differences in living standards, which remain of fundamental importance (Smith, D.M., 1994a). Addition ally, however, work has focused on the spa tially uneven distribution of sources of need satisfaction, reflecting a departure in welfare geography, away from narrow definitions of standards of living. While an emphasis on spa tial inequalities can reveal the particular socio economic trajectories of spatial units, it can run the risk of obscuring other factors at play. For example, we can think of inequality along the coordinates of cLass, gender and race (Perrons, 2004). The categories cut across one another, so that we can now under stand how all forms of identity and distinction (NEW PARAGRAPH) including those shaped by space in differ ent contexts, produce situations in which individuals suffer the consequences of inequal ity. Moreover, the emphasis on spatial patterns risks losing sight of the structural basis of inequalities (Smith, 2008 [1984]). (NEW PARAGRAPH) While we might all think that spatial in equality is, by definition, bad, it cannot auto matically be labelled as wrong. sociaL justice involves the conditions under which it might be possible to argue ethically and morally that spatial inequality is justified. Perhaps some groups or some spatial units are disadvantaged for the greater societal good. Given the rising inequalities, both within nations and between nations, what we can say perhaps is that the responsibility lies with those advocating in equality to justify their position in ways that do not fall back on trickle down economics or neo liberalism (Smith and Lee, 2004). kwa (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Perrons (2004); Smith and Lee (2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
informal sector
A contested term that refers to forms of employment and exchange rela tions that may be some combination of the following: small scale; unregulated, poorly regulated or over regulated (De Soto, 1989); sometimes illegal and untaxed (the black economy); precarious; family oriented; stro ngly entrepreneurial; poorly remunerated; and/or based on low level technologies. Trying to define the informal sector more pre cisely is unhelpful, although one can usefully consider it in relation to its assumed opposite, the formal sector. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In the context of developing countries in the 1950s, it was widely assumed that the modern sector of an economy would in time come to replace all or most of the pre modern econ omy (see modernization). It was further as sumed that the formal (?Western?) sector of a duaL economy was populated by unionized, mainly male workers, who enjoyed high real wages from manufacturing and a large number of benefits, including dearness allowances and paid leave. This was the (semi )skilled labour aristocracy that Lenin had written about. The informal sector, in contrast, described an economy made up of shoe shiners, domestic servants and other untenured workers: women, men and children who contributed little to the economy as a whole, and who had to be encouraged into the modern (manu facturing) economy from small scale commer cial or service activities. (NEW PARAGRAPH) This teleological view of the informal sector giving way to the formal sector was sharply challenged in the 1960s and 1970s. The Inter national Labour Organization (ILO) devel oped the concept of an urban informal sector in 1969, when it launched its World Employ ment Programme. The ILO aimed to move beyond measures of the labour force in devel oping countries that were restricted to the employed and the unemployed. A new gener ation of urban rural migration models now appeared, which suggested that migrants to the city were faced with a choice of remaining among the urban unemployed while searching for work in the formal sector, or of accepting work and lower wages in the informal econ omy. Non economists, meanwhile, led by the anthropologist Keith Hart, began to challenge the terms of the debate. Instead of emphasiz ing the separation of the formal and informal sectors, theorists began to focus on the ways in which ?popular entrepreneurship? (Hart, 1973) helped to reproduce capital labour relations in the formal sector. For example, three wheel taxi services helped to speed up circuits of exchange in city systems not well served by freeways or mass transit systems. Micro enterprises subcontracted intermediate goods from formal sector firms. What marked out the informal sector was ease of access to new entrants, including migrants, both domestic and international. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Barbara Harriss White (2003) has sug gested that the hype surrounding ?hi tech? India is blind to what she calls the India of the 88 per cent, or those men, women and children who work largely unprotected in India?s agricultural, industrial and service economies. Other studies have estimated the scale of the informal sector in parts of Africa at over 50 per cent, and at over 40 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean. The infor mal sector is also well entrenched in richer countries. The growth of Local Economic (NEW PARAGRAPH) Trading Systems (LETS) is evidence of this (see alternative economics). So too is the growth of gardening and maid services in cities such as Miami and Los Angeles in the USA, largely staffed by labourers from Latin America. sco (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Roberts (1994); Tripp (1997). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
information economy
A term dating from the late 1960s and early 1970s, describing the growing centrality of information to the de veLopment and restructuring of advanced industrial economies. Pioneering work by sociologist Daniel Bell (1973) outlined the increasing significance of the distribution, production and consumption of information within what he called post industriaL soci ety. Since then, human geographers amongst many others have made major contributions to understanding the spatial dynamics of information intensive industries (Hepworth, 1989) and the highly uneven geographies of computer networks such as the Internet that integrate information econ omies (Zook, 2005: see also knowledge economy; Learning region). sg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Hepworth (1989). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
information theory
A mathematical ap proach originally developed in communication science to measure the amount of information, degree of organization or uNcertaiNTy in a system. The measure is closely related to that for entropy. The basic equation devel oped by Shannon (Shannon and Weaver, 1949) is as follows: (NEW PARAGRAPH) H = ?a log (i =a ), (NEW PARAGRAPH) where H is the information statistic and pi is the probability (or proportion) of a variable in a given region. The individual pis might be employment in different regions, the propor tion of agricultural land in N counties or the probabilities of N possible outcomes in a sto chastic experiment. H = 0 when one of the pi is unity all the employment is concentrated in one region whilst H approaches a maximum (given by log N) when all the pi are equal. H is perfectly related to log W, the entropy measure. Information theory was extensively applied to the measurement of social and economic inequaLity by Henri Theil (NEW PARAGRAPH) (Theil, 1967). In geography, it has been used to measure organization in settlement patterns, information in choropleth mapping tech niques and in regional classification, as well as in the applications involving entropy maximizing models. lwh (NEW PARAGRAPH)
informational city
A term coined by Manuel Castells (1989) to describe a city whose development is dominated by the re structuring dynamics of manufacturing and research and development (R&D) in ?hi tech? industries (primarily information technology, defence, biotechnology and nanotechnology). Based on a detailed analysis of urban change in the USA in the late twentieth century, Castells suggested that such developments were underpinning the emergence of a global URbAN system made up of world cities dom inated by centralized clusters of innovation in these high technology sectors. He argued that these sectors were located in suburban com plexes called technopoles, which tended to be associated with increasingly dualized social structures and the dismantling of welfare state systems (Castells and Hall, 1994). sg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Castells (1989). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
infrastructure
In conventional economic theory and planning, infrastructure refers to the underlying structure of services and amen ities (social overhead capital, orSOC) needed to facilitate directly productive activity (or DPA). Examples include public services, transport, telecommunications, public utilities, and so cial and community facilities. Infrastructure tends to be immobile, labour intensive, indivisible and open of access, and to have economy wide effects. There is considerable argument over the extent to which infrastruc tural investment is a sufficient or even a neces sary precondition for economic development; whether it should be provided before develop ment in the form of excess capacity or whether scarce resources should be devoted primarily to DPA; and whether it should be publicly or privately owned. Indeed, the widespread growth of the private ownership of infrastruc ture and its ability to generate stable returns over long periods has led to significant finan cial interests in infrastructural development, not just in terms of ownership and financing, but as the basis of a range of disintermediated financial instruments. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Within marxism, ?infrastructure? has a more precise and theoretically charged meaning. (NEW PARAGRAPH) It refers to the forces and relations of material production that, in Marx?s classic writings, provide the foundation (or ?base?) for a legal, political and cultural ?superstructure? (see Base and superstructure). This formulation marked the site of a considerable debate within HistoricaL materiaLism over the rela tionship between infrastructure and super structure: some critics claimed that Marx saw this in reductive terms (?economic determin ism?), while most informed scholars provided more nuanced readings of the ways in which economic practices and structures are implicated in the conduct of social and political life. el (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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