The Dictionary of Human Geography (105 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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institutionalism
A term with many mean ings in the social sciences, all intended to sig nal the varied ways in which institutions structure social life in time and space. It is an approach that rejects actor centred ap proaches that stress individual human inten tion and will. It also seeks to interpret structure in terms of historically and socially embedded institutions, seen to evolve slowly, often unpredictably and sometimes ineffi ciently. Structures are not seen as immutable, universal, or machine like. In poLiticaL geog rapHy institutionalism has influenced the study of political institutions and their effects on eLectoraL geograpHy, and studies of geographies of belonging, citizenship and conflict. In sociaL geograpHy, it has had some impact on studies of social and cultural institutions and their role in the making of space and place. But its most significant im pact has undoubtedly been in economic geog raphy, where it has forged a path between mainstream approaches and radical political economy (see institutional economics). aa (NEW PARAGRAPH)
instrumental variables
A statistical and econometric technique to estimate modeLs of the regression type that have problems of endogeneity. In the standard multiple regres sion model of the general form: (NEW PARAGRAPH) Y ? b0 + pi Xi + b2X2 + e, (NEW PARAGRAPH) where Y is the dependent variable, X1 and X2 are the independent variables and e is the ran dom error term, the assumption is that the two independent variables are genuinely exogen ous. Suppose, however, that X1 is endogen ous, itself determined by Y and other exogenous variables such as X3 and X4. An example might be if Y represents regional em ployment growth in ?hi tech? services and X1 is regional income: Yis influenced by X1, but X1 is itself influenced by Y, implying that X1 is correlated with e, a violation of the assump tions of regressions. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The technique of instrumental variables works by finding a set of ?instruments?, vari ables that are themselves exogenous and are good at predicting X1. Such a set would include X3, X4 (and X2 for the version of in strumental variables known as two stage least squares), other Xvariables and perhaps spatial or temporal lagged values of X3 and X4. Denoting this set of instruments as Z, one regresses X1 against Z, obtaining the predicted or fitted estimates of Xi, denoted as X1. The (NEW PARAGRAPH) A 1 1 (NEW PARAGRAPH) estimate X1 depends only on Z, and so is uncorrelated with e, and the original regres sion for Y is now estimated, replacing X1 by XA1. This procedure, which thus requires two regressions, eliminates the endogeneity bias. The limitation of instrumental variables lies in the ability to find a suitable set of instru ments that is both exogenous and good at predicting X1 weak instruments will circumvent the endogeneity but provide poor estimates of the p coefficients (for a full discussion, see Bowden and Turkington, 1990). (NEW PARAGRAPH) An interesting recent geographical example, widely publicized through The Economist magazine, is a study by James Feyrer and Bruce Sacerdote of the economic prosperity of 80 former colonial islands around the globe. They argue that the current prosperity is directly related to length of colonization, but recognize that fertile and promising islands may have attracted colonists; that is, endo geneity. They then use instrumental variables with measures of wind speed and direction as instruments: before steam ships, such vari ables may well have influenced the date of colonization, but are strictly exogenous. Lwh (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Kennedy (2003). See also The Economist, 2 November 2006. (NEW PARAGRAPH)
instrumentalism
A philosophy of science concentrating on end results such that science becomes an instrument judged in terms of practical utility rather than the truth or falsity of theory. Gregory (1978a) identified instru mentalism as a feature of geography?s quanti tative revoLution, informed by a particular reading of positivism, the generation of models being welcomed for their potential to shape policy. Such work entailed a narrow conception of reLevance, subsequently cri tiqued. Concerns over instrumentalism have informed debates over geographic informa tion systems, with calls for GIS to adopt a more critical and reflexive perspective on the conditions of its production and utilization (Pickles, 1995a). dmat (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Gregory (1978). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
integration
The creation and maintenance of intense and diverse patterns of interaction and control between formerly more or less separate social spaces. Integration involves the bringing together of different systems of meaning and action founded in different sets of social relations. It takes place in different registers economic, political and cultural and so is an inherently uneven process. This is compounded because integration takes place through not merely over time and space: without the formation of new times and spaces, the social relations embedded in inte gration could not be constituted. As such, it is profoundly affected by technical change. Innovations in the movement of people and commodities, and most recently in the elec tronic transmission of ideas, images, infor mation and cultural forms, have made possible new modes of interaction and new ways of being ?present? in other places (see time space compression; time space distanciation). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Places have never been closed, cellular sys tems; people have always been caught up in (NEW PARAGRAPH) the lives of others. But the porosity of place has varied, and may be transformed forcibly (by war), peacefully (through agreement or negotiation), or through a mix of the two. Historically, colonialism and imperialism have been powerful vehicles of integration, although the processes were highly asymmet ric and shot through with differentials of power and profit. Today, economic integra tion usually depends on market mechanisms, through the circulation of capital, labour and knowledge, through the global integration of consumer practices and consumer culture, and through political interventions in inter national political economy (policies on trade, investment, immigration etc.), but these pro cesses may also have violent correlates that Harvey (2003b) connects to a continuing global regime of accumulation by dispossession. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Integration does not automatically imply the erasure of difference. Economically, it may impose or allow greater degrees of spe cialization and promote areal differenti ation (see GLObALlZATlON); politically, it may raise questions about autonomy, identity and independence within national or transnational formations; culturally, it may allow the dis semination of new hybrid cultural forms (see HYbRiDiTY; transculturation). All three issues have surfaced in successive enlarge ments of the European Union and the project of a united europe (see Bialasiewicz, Elden and Painter, 2005). More generally and over the longer term, Braudel (1985, p. 45) empha sizes that the integrative world economy is simply ?an order among other orders?, and that the struggle between integration and dif ferentiation/distinction has always been and remains a powerful determinant of economic, political and cultural relations. rl (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bialasiewicz, Elden and Painter (2005); Lee (1990). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
The col (NEW PARAGRAPH) lective term used to refer to the protection offered by a variety of legal instruments most notably copyright, patents and trade marks with respect to the use of certain intangible goods including ideas and informa tion. Typically, the holder of such rights is entitled to a temporally or spatially limited degree of exclusivity in the use of the matter in question, an exclusivity that is designed to stimulate and reward the inventiveness in volved in making it useful. Like all property rights, IPRs are very much social rights, embodying how societies choose to recognize the claims of certain individuals and groups but not others to certain particularly signifi cant and/or potentially limited things. As such, they have varied over time and between places on the one hand, and been the object of much debate on the other. A series of related developments over the past half century or so has seen an intensification of the implications of these differences and contestations, bring ing intellectual property rights to the very forefront of contemporary intellectual and political discussion. (NEW PARAGRAPH) First, a technologically enhanced ability on the part of scientists and others to translate, manipulate and circulate biological materials has multiplied the kinds of things which might potentially be covered by IPRs. Second, the advent of what has been called a ?kNOWLEDGE economy? has seen a scramble by relevant parties of all sorts to protect as much and as many of the intangible aspects of their prod ucts and services as possible (and thereby their profits and position). Finally, moves by global bodies ranging from the United Nations to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to har monize and regulate how intellectual property rights are defined and practiced worldwide has publicly exposed the extent and magnitude of the issues at stake, as well as the profound disagreements that need to be overcome. (NEW PARAGRAPH) At this point, it is probably fair to say that the aspect of intellectual property rights that has most exercised geographers? interest has been the questions that they raise about the ownership of biological materials. In the 1994 Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intel lectual Property Rights (TRIPS) (which is administered by the WTO and is undergoing almost continuous renegotiation), provision was made for certain kinds of materials to be patentable. This reflected a trend since the 1970s of business interests (and especially the life science firms involved in producing medicines), to successfully argue that patents are essential for their ability to make a return on their investment in research and develop ment required to discover, produce and get regulatory approval for new products. The idea that biological materials (if not animal, plants or processes themselves) should be privately owned even in the temporary form offered by patents has been hugely controversial. Some object that it is morally inappropriate that the legal commercial logic of property should be extended to living things in any form. For others, what is inappropriate is the imposition of a Western (NEW PARAGRAPH) model of property on to situations involving peoples who might collectively make sense of the world in very different terms. What they demonstrate is how important an under standing of the legal geographies of IPRs is likely to be for the foreseeable future (see law). nb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Brown (2003); Coombe (1998); Dutfield (NEW PARAGRAPH) ; Parry (2004); Whatmore (2002). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
intensive agriculture
Intensive agriculture is broadly characterized as repeated cultiva tion and/or grazing of the same area of land using supplementary energy inputs to enhance the fertility of the land: it is contrasted with extensive agriculture, which involves seasonal patterns of transitory land use over large areas (Simmons, 1996). As a process, intensi fication refers to improving the yield on land already in production, usually by efforts to speed up, enhance or reduce the risks of bio logical processes in agrarian production; whereas extensification refers to bringing more land into production. Boyd, Prudham and Schurman (2001) have drawn parallels between these two ideas and Marxian econom ics concepts regarding the subsumption of la bour. Food regime theorists such as Freidmann and McMichael (1989) have used regulation theory to posit a broad shift from extensive to intensive agriculture in the postwar period, al though many have contested these assump tions and have noted a much more variegated landscape of extensive and intensive production. (NEW PARAGRAPH) As a historical process, intensification has been associated with the transition from feu dalism to capitalism (see enclosure), and the ensuing development of markets in land, la bour, credit and farm inputs. One theory of intensification is through the penetration of commodity relations into peasant households. What Bernstein (1995a) has called the ?simple reproduction squeeze? is when inputs and re productive needs once produced by house holds need to be purchased at the same time that household members are drawn into off farm employment, reducing the labour ap plied to farming and social reproduction. The prospect of declining yields and income thus forces agrarian producers to adopt more high yielding configurations of capital, labour and technology. Blaikie?s (1985) theorization as to how this squeeze can lead to soil erosion in developing countries was seminal in political ecology. Since increased yield can be achieved with more rotations (fewer fallows), reduced crop loss or faster growing varieties/ animal breeds, today intensive agriculture is associated with high input use, includ ing chemical fertilizers and pesticides, animal pharmaceuticals and growth hormones, mech anization and genetic engineering. Non technical innovations in labour control can be considered intensification as well; for ex ample, the use of vulnerability to ensure a timely, and compliant, labour force. Because farmers are ?price takers?, agriculture is plagued by systematic over production, a prob lem that intensification only exacerbates. At the introduction of a new technology, early innov ators enjoy surplus profits, based on improved productivity. As others jump in, price com petition ensues, causing rates of profit to fall, until marginal returns are very low. Inten sification has come to be associated with high land values, since land tends to be capitalized at the ?highest and best use? (see Guthman, (NEW PARAGRAPH) 2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Intensive agriculture practices have become closely associated with growing public con cerns about the environmental and food safety problems of industrial systems of food produc tion. These problems range from water pollu tion caused by agricultural chemical runoff and the loss of biodiversity associated with monocultures, to the incubation of animal dis eases such as BSE. Sometimes, the industri alization of agriculture, which can also connote corporate control, largeness or factory like conditions, is more precisely described as intensification. jgu (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Kimbrell (2002). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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