Evolutionary Perspectives on Rural Australia

Abstract

An enduring concern within Australian rural geography has been to understand the nature and implications of change. Much of the intellectual effort has been focused on interpreting how rural economies, populations, social institutions, cultures, and land uses have been transformed through processes operating across a range of spatial and temporal scales. This paper offers a critical appraisal of recent rural research in Australia and how this body of work has attempted to make sense of change. It argues that despite an ongoing focus on the nature of change, it is often reduced to a relatively simple historical narrative. We suggest that some of the emerging ideas in 'evolutionary economic geography' might offer an alternative means of conceptualising the trajectories of rural economies, institutions, and communities. The paper outlines the contours of evolutionary economic geography and the ways in which some of its key conceptual foundations might offer a means of understanding not only rural change, but also continuity.

Socio-economic impacts of a local bioenergy-based development strategy – The case of Pielinen Karelia, Finland

“…Without new investments and upgrades in industrial production, the resource periphery would suffer negative regional lock-in with increasing depopulation, declining employment and increasing unemployment. This lock-in does not inhibit new paths but defines opportunities and limits possibilities for new paths, keeping the negative path in the region alive [6,7]. This paper showed that the modelling of socio-economic impacts of bioenergy solutions at the local level is challenging because of the aggregated regional model and its sensitivity.…”

“…One possibility is locally promoted entrepreneurship and small business development, which has proved to be promising in rural and lagging regions [14,15]. Other studies have highlighted the role of external shocks as a solution for prevailing negative lockin in rural regions [6,8,16]. The referred place-based argument suggests that development strategies should, therefore, focus on mechanisms that build on local capabilities and promote innovative ideas through the interaction of local and general knowledge and endogenous and exogenous actors in the design and delivery of public policies [17].…”

Assessing the Efficacy of Transition Theory to Identify Industry Transformation: a case study examining the deregulation of Australia's dairy industry

“…Statutory marketing authorities were removed in the rice and sugar industries and the reserve price scheme suspended in the wool industry (Bardsley 1994;Dibden & Cocklin 2010;Tonts et al 2012). The dismantling of regulations and the concomitant phased withdrawal of government support for the Australian dairy industry commenced in the 1980s, albeit at a slow pace (Pritchard 2005).…”

Income Growth and Employment in the Pilbara: an evolutionary analysis, 1980–2010

“…While regional economies are undergoing constant adjustments, the creation of entirely new paths (or 'de-locking') typically requires a major external shock. From the perspective of evolutionary economic geography (EEG), regional context is important in understanding the emergence and evolution of development paths (Martin 2010;Tonts et al 2012). It has been suggested that, in the early stages of a path-dependent process, firms within a given region gain an initial advantage as a result of locally contingent factors (often coupled with an historical accident or chance-like event).…”

“…To emphasise the importance of geography and history in understanding the spatial configuration of capitalist economies this emerging paradigm draws on a wide range of theoretical constructs including 'path dependence', 'resilience', 'hysteresis' and 'place dependence' (Tonts et al 2012). Yet much of the debate on this 'evolutionary economic geography' has focused on contesting abstract theoretical claims, rather than exploring the extent to which evolutionary processes might occur in 'actually existing' places.…”