Structure, Agency, and Context: The Contributions of Geography to World‐Systems Analysis

The interaction of geography and world‐systems theory has created two groups of work. The first body of work uses world‐systems theory as its theoretical framework with minor levels of critique or change. The second body of work attempts to inform world‐ systems theory by explicitly including a geographical perspective. Human geographers attracted to world‐systems theory provide a perspective that highlights the role of agency in what is widely perceived to be a rigid structuralist approach. Key geographical concepts of region and place are viewed as social constructs created within an overarching context of structural imperatives. By conceptualizing places, states, and the macroregions of core, semiperiphery, and periphery as geographical scales, the role of agency in creating and maintaining the important structures and institutions of the capitalist world‐economy, such as hegemony, is illustrated. The geographer's interest in the creation of geographical scales results in analysis of the dynamism of the contemporary world‐system.