Global networks and local developments: agendas for development geography

It can be argued that development geography has left few traces either on the broader canvas of development theory or on the thought and practices of social actors engaging with material processes of change typically framed within the language of development. This paper argues that this is because the sub‐field has been somewhat too case study oriented, and because its prac‐titioners have, with some exceptions, kept themselves – or at least their identities – at the margins of debates within and among development actors. Yet development geography has much to con‐tribute to on‐going reflections on the nature of development. The paper explores themes that might be at the centre of an empirically grounded but theoretically oriented development geography that might speak to contemporary processes of globalisation and local change. It suggests that comparative case study work exploring the ways in which the development of capitalism and processes of intervention are both linked and vary across space still offers fruitful terrain for theory.