Landscapes of a New Cultural Economy of Space

Making sense of new cultural economies, it is argued, needs consistent attention to the resonances of individual lives. Otherwise, a discussion of cultural economies remains suspended in a detached virtualism (Miller, 2000). The idea of the remaking of geographies and cultural economies remains, necessarily, a consistent search to make the subject dynamic in its resonance with the contemporary world. In recent debates concerning the reframing of the cultural economies of geography, there is an evidence of increasing acknowledgement of the overlooked importance of subjectivities within geographical explanation. This has often been difficult when trying to attend to the large scale apparent dynamics of change. The shift of geographies to focus upon cultural economies combines two profound threads that inform this chapter: the acknowledgement of the breadth and inclusivity of what economies are and the refusal mutually to isolate the cultural and the economic. Thus the economic becomes engaged and even framed in relation to the cultural, and vice versa. Such an appraisal makes more robust the limits of either - or claims from these two grounding components of geographical thinking and its representation of the world. These themes are sustained in different ways across the chapters of this book. This chapter seeks to build a critical discourse concerning space, embodied practice and lay knowledge. It does this in order to address the mechanisms through which individuals are engaged in the processes of new cultural economies.

From the reviews:

"The strength of this book is the indepth and multiple perspectives investigation of landscape transformation … . The book is reader-friendly and its chapters are well-structured around the four processes of landscape transformations. … Overall, this is a well-written and easy-to-read book … . The book links disparate research being done in the field and provides a comprehensive guide and useful source of references to graduate students, university faculty, tourism professionals, and policymakers." (Marianna Sigala, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 34 (3), 2007)

"Landscapes of a New Cultural Economy of Space helps to link recent discussions of the cultural economy of space and globalization with the well-established literature on landscape in cultural geography. … The stated goal of this edited volume is to explore how culture and economy intersect in the creation of contemporary places and landscapes. … a good starting point for researchers seeking to explore the contours of landscapes shaped by the new cultural economy." (Michael W. Longan, The Professional Geographer, Vol. 60 (1), February, 2008)