Hungarian Geographical Bulletin

Panel discussion of Henry Yeung’s Theory and Explanation in Geography

2025-10-01T08:43:48+00:00

This paper focuses on Henry Yeung’s recently published book with Wiley, Theory and Explanation in Geography, discussing it through the lens of an international group of scholars and from various perspectives. On the one hand, the current study aligns with the volume’s main message to create and apply mid-range explanatory theories in geography more intensively, rather than relying too heavily on theories imported from other disciplines, such as philosophy, which often overlook different geographical contexts and provide inadequate causal explanations. We also advocate for the conscious promotion of the internationalisation and decolonisation of geography through such theories. On the other hand, the paper examines the challenges and ambiguities of how geographers can become more self-reflective and philosophically educated to develop better theories, as well as how the history and philosophy of geography, as a subfield of the discipline, can contribute to this goal.
This study also scrutinises the relationship between proximity, scale, and causality, discusses the book’s major takeaways through a Central and Eastern European lens, and, even more broadly, analyses the structural shifts the volume and its referencing patterns indicate in the international practice of doing geographical research during the last half a century. By doing so, the article summarises the conclusions of a panel discussion held in November 2024 at Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, the only book launch event of Theory and Explanation in Geography to have occurred so far in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe.

The ironic misfortunes of ‘geographic theory’. Sceptic musings on a sexy oxymoron

2025-10-01T13:34:42+00:00

In this short piece, I engage with Henry W. Yeung’s (2024) diagnosis of a ‘philosophy envy’ affecting contemporary human geography to partially support his interpretation and equally argue against it. While I read geography’s infatuation with changing philosophical vogues as resulting in a deleterious theoretical hubris, the reasons for the academic and political pedigree that prevailing forms of geographic theory have purchased require a deeper epistemic scrutiny (and perhaps also a bit of spoof) than Yeung’s book allows for. Consequently, after preliminary derision of globalised scholarly infatuation with theory-making, I turn attention to two features of the epistemic structures underpinning mainstream critical geography, namely, constructivist schemes and parochial modes of justification, briefly taking issue with both. I end with a final coda about what could be expected of Theory of Geography as a subfield, calling simultaneously for a more substantive and purposeful philosophical reflection in geography and a sceptical take on theory to curve down its pure vanity.

Theory, explanation and references in geography: Comparing two seminal books by David Harvey and Henry Yeung

2025-10-01T11:41:29+00:00

This article aims to present how the comparative bibliometric analysis of seminal books’ reference lists reflects, and enables scrutinising, some fundamental structural characteristics of the functioning of Geography as a scientific discipline in different periods. It employs David Harvey’s Explanation in Geography, a magnum opus of Geography’s quantitative revolution from 1969, and Henry W. Yeung’s Theory and Explanation in Geography from 2024, a comprehensive conceptual work whose title consciously evokes Harvey’s volume, as case studies. After discussing the possibilities and limits of investigating books as imprints of changing academic practices and addressing methodological questions, the paper reveals a significant increase in the number of references and referenced publications between the two books. It reaffirms the rising share of journal articles (instead of books) and multi-author publications (instead of single-author ones) as structural outcomes of ‘academic neoliberalisation’, while revealing that books, book chapters and single-author publications still make a difference and have a considerable impact on academic discourses. It presents that ‘Geography’ as a term has become rather a synonym of ‘Human Geography’ in certain contexts, instead of containing both Human and Physical Geography. The results prove a significant growth in the impact of publications by female authors and the visibility of scholars outside the UK and the USA, including the Global South. At the same time, they still indicate a firm male dominance and the hegemony of Anglo-American authors and English language publications in the discipline.

Context as ontology and epistemic infrastructure: Rethinking explanation in economic geography

2025-09-30T16:53:13+00:00

This paper clarifies how mechanism-based explanation can work in economic geography when digital spatial methods are routine. We outline a critical realist orientation that treats socio-spatial context in two linked ways: as an ontological condition that enables or constrains causal powers, and as an epistemic infrastructure that organises the categories through which mechanisms become visible. On this basis, explanation involves specifying mechanisms, scope conditions, and likely empirical traces, while attending to how data systems shape what can be observed. We illustrate the approach with two short cases from Romania. First, spatial models of COVID-19 vaccine uptake identify clustering and diffusion, but explanation arises only when these patterns are situated within a layered health regime shaped by socialist legacies, market reforms, and transnational guidance. Second, typologies of peri-urban change derived from demographic and satellite data are read as traces of spatial figurations generated by property restitution, fragmented planning, and capital flows. In both cases, the same variables can sustain divergent ontological commitments: mechanisms treated as regularities, or mechanisms identified as generative structures with stated conditions of activation. The paper’s contribution is practical. It offers a clear statement of the framework, two heuristic illustrations that connect patterns to mechanisms, and a set of design suggestions: state mechanisms and scope before methods; use digital tools to locate and evaluate traces rather than to stand in for mechanisms; combine quantitative outputs with institutional and historical evidence; and document the fit of travelling categories to regional ontologies. We do not claim to settle the debate. Our aim is to show how explanation can proceed in a way that is transparent about assumptions and proportional in its claims. Viewed this way, the paper provides a tractable starting point for cumulative, comparative, theory-building research in and beyond Central and Eastern Europe.

Global production networks: A geographical review of a research tradition

2025-10-02T07:51:14+00:00

This paper analyses the academic literature on global production networks (GPN) from 2000 to 2024 based on data from the Scopus database. It focuses on the uneven international landscape of authors, publications, funding sources, publishers and citations in the GPN literature compared with the firm Anglo-American hegemony prevailing in international geography in general. The article begins with an overview of the existing literature on asymmetrical power geometries in geography as a discipline, as well as the scholarly project of internationalising, worlding and decolonising geography. After that, it presents the research methodology of the current study. The results section highlights the temporal dynamics of the rise of the GPN research tradition. It reveals the multidisciplinary nature of this field of research and its solid interest in the industrial sector and the geographical dimension of the economy. It identifies the existence of a ‘primary European core’ and a ‘secondary Asian core’ rather than Anglo-American hegemony in the GPN literature, as reflected in the authors, funding sources and case study areas. It also confirms the dominance of Manchester and Singapore as leading global centres of calculation, as well as the still massive British hegemony over major publishing platforms, which is particularly strong in terms of citation-attracting ability. Meanwhile, the results reaffirm the marginalised position of most of the Global South. Finally, our study examines the uneven geography of GPN literature from authors in East Central Europe as a global semi-periphery and draws some general lessons for the geographies of science and the future possibilities of promoting the process of internationalisation, decolonisation and worlding of geographical research.

Yeung, H.W.: Theory and Explanation in Geography

2025-09-30T16:53:14+00:00

Thompson, B.H. Jr.: Liquid Asset: How Business and Government can Partner to Solve the Freshwater Crises

2025-09-30T16:53:15+00:00