Theory and Explanation in Geography by Henry Yeung
When
Published by Wiley in its RGS-IBG Book Series in September 2023, Theory and Explanation in Geography is one of the few provocative monographs in recent decades that engages deeply with epistemological debates on theory and method in Geography. This in-person event with the author invites readers and interested participants to examine critically the book’s main tenets and prospects for reflexive theory development as the key to the future of the discipline. The session provides an opportunity for the author to respond to comments and for the audience to engage in further discussions. After a brief introduction of the book by the author, the interactive discussion can potentially address wide-ranging issues, such as epistemology, styles and practices of theorizing in different critical approaches and “isms”, relational thought, processual thinking, mid-range explanatory theories, causal mechanism-based approach to theory and explanation, situated knowledges, “theorizing back”, and so on. The discussion will be relevant for colleagues and students in social and cultural geography, feminist and postcolonial geographies, critical geopolitics, environmental studies, urban geography, economic geography, and other topical interests within the geographical discipline and beyond.
About the author/speaker:
Henry Wai-chung Yeung is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geography and Co-Director of Global Production Networks Centre at the National University of Singapore. He is the recipient of multiple research awards, including the 2022 Sir Peter Hall Award for Lifetime Contribution by the Regional Studies Association in the UK, the 2018 Distinguished Scholarship Honors by the American Association of Geographers, and the 2017 Murchison Award by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), UK. He has published 7 monographs and 1 textbook (3 editions), 7 edited books, 110 journal articles, and 50 book chapters. His most recent books are Theory and Explanation in Geography (RGS-IBG Book Series, Wiley, September 2023), Interconnected Worlds: Global Electronics and Production Networks in East Asia (Innovation and Technology in the World Economy Series, Stanford University Press, June 2022), Strategic Coupling: East Asian Industrial Transformation in the New Global Economy (Cornell Studies in Political Economy Series, Cornell University Press, 2016), and Global Production Networks: Theorizing Economic Development in an Interconnected World (with Neil Coe, Oxford University Press, 2015). For over two decades since 2001, he has been a co-editor of two top journals in Geography – Economic Geography and Environment and Planning A. He is also past editor of Review of International Political Economy (2004-2013) and serves on the editorial boards of 19 other journals.