尺度重构视角下的经济全球化研究

全球化的“时空压缩”特征降低了要素流动的空间成本,而为组织和协调跨国经济活动而出现的跨国公司与国际组织,导致象征权利范畴的领土边界对经济、文化和政治的影响力不断削弱,进而引发了极端全球主义式的“地理终结”论调。人文地理学者结合全球化的特征,通过改变尺度结构,明确了全球尺度涉及的主体与内容,凸显出地域单元的意义,避免了全球尺度的抽象理解,从而反驳了地理终结论,形成了两个关键认识：①尺度建构不一定建立在相对性的基础上并构成垂直体系,基于关系建构的全球尺度更契合不同主体和空间联系日趋紧密的特征;②全球化与地方化过程是并存的。全球化并不意味着尺度的垂直叠加,而是全球与地方之间的复杂联系。这两个关键认识为人文地理学参与全球化研究形成了独特的视角：一方面,学者们运用立体网络思维,以关键主体与空间为节点、以关系为纽带,实现“超越边界”式的分析;另一方面,全球化与地方化并存的理念也促使城市与区域发展研究从单纯强调区域差异转向探讨区域内外相互作用,为城市与区域治理提供了新思路。

Economic globalization research based on scale-construction in western human geography

Time-space compression in the context of globalization leads to declining costs of communication and transportation and increasing transnational activities. The emergence of multi-national firms and international organizations, in accordance with increasing boundary-crossing activities, has simultaneously weaken the power of state on economic, political, and cultural processes within its territory. Under such circumstances, some researchers assert globalization as "the end of geography", which sounds like an argument of hyper-globalist. In light of scale construction, human geographers are engaged in reconstructing the global scale and relating it to other scales. It turns out that space matters in the process of globalization. Two key points emerge: (1) Scale construction is not necessarily with hierarchical structures. Relation-based scales provide a better model for globalization, which is featured with horizontal communication rather than vertical regulation. (2) Global shifting exhibits trends both towards globalization and localization simultaneously, much of which appears to be global-local nexus rather than simplex globalizing process. These findings introduce new perspectives into globalization research in human geography: framework based on relational network makes it possible to conduct a trans-territorial analysis and to depict a big picture of the reshaping pattern of global economic landscape. On the other hand, in light of localized globalization, researchers set out to refer regional development to global-local interactions other than local embeddedness and endogenous factors, which offers insight into urban and regional governance in the context of globalization.