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We are now living through a period of knowledge capitalism in which, as Castells put it, 'the action of knowledge upon knowledge is the main source of productivity.' In the face of such transformation, the economic, social and institutional contours of contemporary capitalism are being reshaped. At the heart of this world are an emergent set of economies, regions, institutions and peoples central of the flows and translations of knowledge. This book provides an interdisciplinary review of the triad of knowledge, space, economy on entering the twenty-first century. Drawing on a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, the first part of the book comprises a set of statements by leading authors on the role of knowledge in capitalism. Thereafter, the remaining two parts of the book explore the landscape of knowledge capitalism through a series of analyses of knowledge in action within a range of economic, political and cultural contexts. Bringing together a set of authors from across the social sciences, this book provides both a major theoretical statement on understanding the economic world and an empirical exemplification of the power of knowledge in shaping the spaces and places of today's society.
List of contents
1: IntroductionPart I: Knowledge, Space and Economy2: Power/economic knowledge: symbolic and spatial formations; 3: Materialities, spatialities, globalities; 4: Knowledge, innovation and location; 5: The state and contradictions of the knowledge-driven economy; 6: Just in time?: the prevalence of representational time and space to marketing discourses of consumer buyer behaviourPart II: Knowledge at Work in Space and Place7: Creating and sustaining competitiveness: local knowledge and economic geography; 8: The industrial agglomeration (of Motor Sport Valley): a knowledge, space, economy approach; 9: Worlds in motion?: 'Worlds of Production', evolutionary economic change nd contemporary retail banking; 10: Spreading the message: management consultants and the shaping of economic geographies of time and space; 11: The free and the unfree: 'Emerging Markets', the Heritage Foundation and the 'Index of Economic Freedom; 12: Visions of space, place, time and life - useful knowledge, the human form and the new geneticsPart III: Becoming in the (K)now: Spaces of Identity13: Space, knowledge and cosumption; 14: Virtual culture: knowledge, identity and choice; 15: Category management and circuits of knowledge in the UK food business; 16: Being told and answering back: knowledge, power and the new world of work
About the author
John Bryson, Peter Daniels, Nick Henry and Jane Pollard all lecture in the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, at the University of Birmingham
Summary
This text provides an interdisciplinary review of the triad of knowledge, space, and economy on entering the 21st century. Drawing on a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, the text comprises a set of statements by leading authors on the role of knowledge in capitalism.
