Theoretical advancement in economic geography by engaged pluralism

Economic geographers have recently been confronted with attempts to constitute a new paradigm of evolutionary economic geography. The paper aims at advancing theoretical economic geography by reviewing its core critique and proposed solutions, particularly that of integrating the perspective of a geographical political economy. Although we sympathize with the identified shortcomings of an evolutionary economic geography we criticise the alternative approach for being too narrow and reductionist. In contrast, a relational economic perspective is argued to theorize the core weaknesses of EEG, namely power, social agency and particularly the interrelatedness of influences on different scales, more comprehensively. By combining evolutionary and relational approaches in certain respects we, furthermore, plead for an advancement of theoretical economic geography by engaged pluralism.