Table Of ContentTitle Pages
Economic Geography: Volume 1: Land, Water, and
Agriculture
L. S. Bhat, H. S. Sharma, and M. H. Qureshi
Print publication date: 2016
Print ISBN-13: 9780199458417
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2016
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199458417.001.0001
Title Pages
Volume 1: Land, Water, and Agriculture (p.ii)
(p.i) Economic Geography
(p.iii) ICSSR Research Surveys and Explorations
Economic Geography
(p.iv)
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Title Pages
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Foreword
Economic Geography: Volume 1: Land, Water, and
Agriculture
L. S. Bhat, H. S. Sharma, and M. H. Qureshi
Print publication date: 2016
Print ISBN-13: 9780199458417
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2016
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199458417.001.0001
(p.vii) Foreword
Javeed Alam
This Survey of Research and Explorations in geography is one of the series of
exercises initiated by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR)
since 1969, covering the disciplines of geography, economics, sociology, political
science, and psychology. These disciplines have interfaces among them and have
the potential to strengthen the interdisciplinary focus to identify complex and
challenging issues that man has to face under the impact of modern technology
on the life and living conditions of the people. Dichotomy between the developed
and developing world has been increasing in spite of the efforts to integrate
their economies through globalization. Also, the impact of globalization on the
polarized economy of India prior to independence has further resulted in
increasing regional disparities within the country, thereby affecting the living
conditions of different sections of the people, particularly of the poorest among
them.
Economic geography aims at understanding the spatial organization of the
national economy centred on the system of relatively few large cities in the
midst of an ocean of villages and small towns. This needs to be reversed by
integrating the development of a system of small towns as agro-industrial
centres that would enable diversification of employment, infrastructure, and
provision of social facilities and amenities. These aspects of development have a
human face in socio-economic development, which has strong regional affinity
and powerful force for dispersal of economic activities with people’s
participation in the development process.
Keeping the spatial organization of socio-economic development as the
framework of reference, the survey has attempted an (p.viii) integrated review
of the theme of economic geography for the contributions during 2003–9. Gaps
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Foreword
in research and training have been identified and an exploratory view for
improvement has been provided.
I congratulate the Editorial Committee, the contributors, and the discussants for
the timely completion of the research survey that has enabled the Council to
take the necessary steps for publication of the report for wider dissemination
and feedback from the scholars in the field of social science.
Javeed Alam
Chairman, Indian Council of Social Science Research (2008–11), New Delhi
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Preface
Economic Geography: Volume 1: Land, Water, and
Agriculture
L. S. Bhat, H. S. Sharma, and M. H. Qureshi
Print publication date: 2016
Print ISBN-13: 9780199458417
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2016
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199458417.001.0001
(p.ix) Preface
L.S. Bhat
Economic geography has been chosen as the theme for the sixth Survey of
Research and Exploration for the period covering 2003–9. The theme is gaining
importance in the wake of globalization of the economy that aims in
strengthening the interdependence of developed and developing countries
within and between them. This strategy would require improvement of the
economies of developing countries, utilizing their manpower and endogenously
available resources. India’s regional diversities in sociocultural characteristics
and disparities in levels of living standards of the people make a strong case for
understanding the element of space in the evolution of regions and their
complementary role in the long-term perspectives of development at the global
and intra-national regions of different scale.
Using this as the frame of reference, the Editorial Committee (Geography)
discussed at length and identified sub-themes related to economic geography.
Contributors were identified and invited for appraisal of the scope and content
of the survey report. Theoretical and conceptual framework and changes over
time have been kept in focus while attempting a critical review of the methods of
analysis and achievement during the period under review. The topics chosen
were grouped into five categories and theme editors were identified to
coordinate and integrate the report. A draft report was discussed at the meeting
of the Editorial Committee with the contributors. Discussants were invited for
offering their comments and suggestions, if any. These deliberations proved to
be vital for finalization of the report. Gaps in research and training and the
exploratory view of the (p.x) role of economic geography as an interdisciplinary
theme in social science were discussed in general, and geography in particular.
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Preface
The Editorial Committee would like to express its gratitude to Professor Javeed
Alam, Ex-Chairman, Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), for
writing the Foreword and Shri Ranjit Sinha, Ex-Member Secretary of the
Council, for his keen interest and support for the preparation of the survey
report. The Editorial Advisory Committee of the Council, comprising all the
chosen disciplines in social science, had also met earlier for exchange of views
on the survey of research from each discipline.
Thanks are due to all the staff members of the research survey and Publication
Division of the Council, particularly Shri K.L. Khera, Ex-Director, and Shri Ajay
Gupta, Deputy Director, who have extended full support during different stages
of the work.
L.S. Bhat (1930–2013)
General Editor
New Delhi
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General Introduction—Economic Geography
Economic Geography: Volume 1: Land, Water, and
Agriculture
L. S. Bhat, H. S. Sharma, and M. H. Qureshi
Print publication date: 2016
Print ISBN-13: 9780199458417
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2016
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199458417.001.0001
(p.xi) General Introduction—Economic
Geography
Conceptual and Theoretical Framework
L.S. Bhat
Economic geography is one of the important sub-fields of geography, along with
physical, human, and regional geography; all interrelated and integrative among
various elements covering each of them. Landscape approach (for example,
physical landscape and human, economic, and regional landscape) is the focus of
the analysis and synthesis of these elements.
Focus of economic geography is on spatial organization of the economy. Physical
landscape and human response over time serve to explain the changing
personality of a region or a system of regions in a national framework.
This survey report attempts to provide the progress of research during the
period 2003–9. However, it would be incomplete without a comprehensive
backdrop to the current survey with focus on methods and achievements in the
field covering the changes in the fundamental viewpoints of geography and the
progress of the conceptual and theoretical framework evolved over the years to
reflect its interdisciplinary nature, cutting across physical and social sciences,
that have similar viewpoints and relevance.
The manner in which spatial organization has evolved over time under the
impact of historical socio-economic factors has a bearing on economic
development and vice versa. The subject matter of geography (p.xii) has tried
to keep pace with these changes in sister disciplines; and in so doing has
demonstrated, through case studies, its importance and relevance in identifying
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General Introduction—Economic Geography
and explaining the causes for regional disparities in development and the
strategies to minimize them.
Methods and Achievements in the Field
The traditionally held view that geography is concerned with man and the
surface of the earth where he lives and works provides the magnitude of
challenge faced by contemporary geographers. The challenges are because of
three different but related dimensions; one is man himself because of the
qualitative change and composition in terms of demographic, sociocultural, and
economic attributes of the population over time. Second, the surface of the earth
itself is subject to continuous changes as a result of the imprints of man’s
adaptation to the environment of the area and vice versa. But impressions of
variations in human response to natural environment, resource endowment, and
its utilization over time are seen in similarities and dissimilarities of socio-
economic organization of space within and between the broad natural regions of
the world, as well as in countries of continental dimension as India. Third, the
processes of change that set in as a result of the interaction between man and
environment are also subject to continuous change. It is against this background
that one has to evaluate the foundation of geography as a spatial subject, the
progress made in the discipline, particularly in its fundamental viewpoint of
region or space (as a neutral term), and the prospects for the future in the midst
of challenges faced due to technological innovations and man’s efforts to
improve his quality of life.
Because of the ambiguity of ‘geography as the study of everything on the surface
of the earth as the home of man’, the debate on systematic and regional
geography finally centred on the distributional pattern of all the attributes,
explanation of the underlying factors contributing to variations in the observed
patterns, and their interrelationship. The concept of region and regionalization
were given more than their share of dominance in the early period of twentieth
century, so much so that the contribution of regional geography, for instance, in
the Indian case, became largely a regional description and qualitative (p.xiii)
expression of analysis. Regional synthesis, or regional differentiation
(regionalization), and characterization of regions was attempted by subjective
methods of map overlays. Often, study of a large territory comparable to that of
a nation or sub-national areas was undertaken, and the end product was the
regional differentiation and description of their characteristics. In other cases,
using somewhat vaguely the homogeneity criteria, a nation or a sub-national
area was divided into a scheme of regions; and these regions became the basis
for detailed study (Spate 1967). For the first time, Spate introduced the concept
of macro, meso, and micro-region in a hierarchy system. Economy of nation is
organized in or on the geographic space and it has been possible to differentiate
spatial organization into fully integrated (relatively closed macro), partially
integrated (meso), and microeconomic regions. This hierarchy of regions is
organized around a nested system of nodes and their tributary areas connected
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General Introduction—Economic Geography
by transport routes. Intensity of trade and types of commodities traded serve to
portray inter-regional and intra-regional relationships.
This approach persists even today, and Indian geographers are yet to evolve an
analytical framework for understanding India’s regions and providing a
geographical interpretation to the processes and patterns that change the
personality of the regions and their influence on sociocultural and economic
changes (see References). These studies have provided evolution of regions as
dynamic entities and presented a scheme of regions and highlighted the
problems in national planning and regional integration. However, exercises in
regionalization, composite or topical, related to some aspects making up the
regional personality have been far too many, and often repetitive, using
traditional descriptive approach aided by maps or using simple quantitative
techniques. Classic example of regionalization of agriculture has been the use of
Weaver’s method of delineation of crop combination regions which did not go
beyond this exercise (Weaver 1954). Yet another example is in the use of
principal component analysis for composite regionalization of the attributes
which are often not rigorously tested for their linear association. Thus, instead
of professional improvement of the methods of analysis, a lot of superficiality has
crept in. These are examples in the application of quantitative techniques in
identifying a scheme of regions with variations in levels of overall development.
(p.xiv) Conceptual Clarity
Concept of Region, Area, and Space
Environmental determinism constituted the core of the concept of region in
geography during the nineteenth century. Commensurate with technological
advances, geographical research could not develop appropriate tools and
techniques to enable the discipline to accommodate the dynamic aspects of
regional transformation. This led to a widening of the gap among the disciplines
both in physical and social sciences with which the subject of geography shares
its periphery. Instead of geography taking the lead in providing for
understanding and evaluation of the factors contributing to regional
differentiation, much of the innovation in this aspect was borrowed by
geography from economics, as can be seen in the writings of Christaller (1966),
Freidman and Alonso (1964), Isard (1960), Lefeber (1958), Losch (1954), and
Richardson (1969). This would enable us to critically evaluate the fundamental
viewpoint of the subject, while appreciating the discipline’s foundation on the
concept of space element. Also, the multidisciplinary viewpoints/contributions of
Indian geographers have been reviewed in this book and bibliographic
references.
While the concept of region conveys to the geographer the properties of
homogeneity unlike that of area or any other bounded unit (such as an
administrative unit), there has been continued discussion within geography
about ‘homogeneity versus heterogeneity’, ‘formal versus functional or nodal’,
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General Introduction—Economic Geography
and ‘single purpose versus composite region’ without much clarity. For that
matter, it is now realized that this debate has been a stumbling block in the
progress of geography; the boundary should be flexible depending on the
purpose; and it is the core which is important. Core areas of two regions could
be separated by a belt and not by a fixed boundary line. The remark that
‘geographers have spent good deal of their time in search of boundaries which
do not exist of regions which do not matter’ seems to be valid if one were to
enlarge the concept of region to accommodate similar view of other disciplines
(Isard 1960).
Space elements form a common link in several disciplines, for example,
geographic space, social or cultural space, economic space, and so on. Likewise,
the concept of spatial organization of the national or regional economies around
nodes emphasized in regional (p.xv) economics finds a common conceptual
basis in the emergence of a geographical region expressed in the concept of
formal region tending to become a functional region, and that the formation of
functional regions around nodes (market centres) is the initial stage in the
formation of economic regions. The space element of the economy, particularly
of an agricultural region, comprises areal and locational components connected
by transport routes, and is special to geography in introducing hierarchic
concept of regional and locational systems. If the boundary is kept flexible and
the economy more open-ended (as the sub-regional economies are in a national
context), the question of where to draw the regional boundaries could be
decided depending on regional economic development strategy spelt out in the
national plan. For example, location of basic and heavy industry in large regions
within which demands for these products endogenously exist, or they need to be
assumed on the basis of development of other activities (for example,
agricultural and engineering industries as part of the development plan
formulated using local and regional resources [both physical and human]).
Thus, modern geography, in its application to problems in development, has
enlarged the conceptual and theoretical framework and sharpened both the
quantitative and cartographic techniques. It has been possible to search for the
extent of association among these attributes. Recurrence of certain patterns has
lead to search for spatial regularity. This measurement of association or
relationship among different elements, first, formed the basis for quantitative
analysis using simple and multiple correlation, regression, etc., to the extent
that certain attributes have linear association and the end result provides
objectivity to geographical interpretation. Second, geographers have shown
interest in measuring regional differences in the pattern of distribution of one or
more attributes which are often interrelated. This, in effect, is regionalization
(single purpose or composite). Geographers in India have been using factor
analysis as one of the methods in regionalization, though this trend is recent (for
example, in identifying variations in the overall levels of development or
underdevelopment, functional classification of towns, and delineation of
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