Hello world!
Here I am again with another installment of the coursework I have completed during my time at UBC. I am currently updating this portfolio and I was particularly proud of the work I did for this class, and thought it was time for the world to see it.
Geography 364 is one of the most interesting and yet challenging courses I have taken at UBC. Officially titled “Globalization, Cities and Regions”, the course covers topics surrounding the development of capitalism after the fall of the berlin wall, the emergence of neoliberalism and the effect that capitalism has had on economic geography, urban restructuring and regional development. The course taught by Dr. Jamie Peck (Canada’s Research Chair for Economic Geography) was very difficult due to its heavy emphasis of conceptualizing global economic processes interactions with space on local scales; however it was also incredibly interesting and engaging for that very same reason. Dr. Peck is an amazing instructor and would happily take another one of his courses in the future.
Our final paper was focused on comparing and contrasting the ‘varieties of capitalism’ literature to the ‘variegated capitalism’ theories put forward in Dr. Peck’s research. While very term heavy, this is basically a discussion of how Capitalism as a system spreads itself across the globe after the fall of communism; examining how an ideological system based around competition deals with having no competitors. While the varieties literature argues from a nation state level that we can see very different regional groupings or characteristics for how capitalism plays out globally, variegated capitalism argues for a much more localized analysis, arguing that the varieties literature is too categorical and assuming in the way it groups countries systems together.
In my paper I support the later, demonstrating capitalism’s economic geographical complexity through an analysis of China as an outlier in the varieties literature. You may find a PDF of the paper below.
Once again, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!