The Future of Geography (RLE Social Cultural Geography) by Ron Johnston

Author:Ron Johnston [Johnston, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138997851
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2015-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

THE EXAMPLE OF RESEARCH ON ‘MANUFACTURING SHIFT’

At this point having come through some rather compressed and abstract methodological argument, it may help to go through a more extended substantive example drawn from geographical work, and one which can demonstrate the consequences of following either of our two methodological principles. It concerns some recent research on ‘manufacturing shift’ in Britain; that is the tendency for metropolitan areas and large towns to suffer major losses of manufacturing employment while small towns and rural areas enjoy gains.

In this case there is a striking, if approximate and transient ‘regularity’: the larger the settlement the greater the job loss, with the smallest actually showing an increase, albeit small in absolute terms. The ‘messy’ and transitory nature of the ‘regularity’ reminds us that it is hardly a closed system – indeed what else could one expect of something like employment change?! Most researchers have sought explanations through strategy 1 (searching for regularities). Accordingly various hypotheses were tested, such as the possibility that the pattern reflected (i.e. was determined by) whether places had Assisted or Non-Assisted Area status. In this particular case, the hypothesis was rejected, for Non-Assisted Areas such as East Anglia and the South Coast, as well as parts of Assisted Areas (e.g. Northumberland), experienced employment growth. Conversely, the larger settlements within Assisted Areas seemed to suffer decline no less than those in Non-Assisted Areas. But let’s just reconsider whether this really was a refutation of the hypothesis. Now most researchers cast the hypothesis in the form of an expectation of an empirical regularity: that employment growth or decline would vary according to whether the area was Assisted or Non-Assisted. But there is another way of casting such a hypothesis – one which refers to a mechanism and which is therefore more in keeping with a realist approach. We could specify how we thought regional development grants and other incentives might influence firms – not just by positing a simple regularity between incentives and employment change but by thinking through what kinds of firms would find them an attraction and why (e.g. in relation to financial resources, capital intensity and to competing influences). This recasting of the hypothesis would require a different (and possibly more time-consuming) style of research to check its empirical adequacy. Interviews with firms, taking into account their differing circumstances, might be required. And it would probably produce complex answers, hedged round with qualifications about intervening, mediating mechanisms – but then this is what decisionmaking is usually like. We might find that even though, at an aggregate level, there is no firm correlation between Assisted Area status and employment decline, there were nevertheless cases where location and in situ investment decisions were influenced by regional incentives. However, this need not always translate into employment increases, for grants can be used to replace workers by machines! This latter kind of mediating factor is very common in this field of study, but a realist approach is more likely to pick it up than one which concentrates on regularities.

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