Temporality and the evolution of GPNs: remaking BHP’s Pilbara iron ore network

Global production networks (GPNs) exist across time as well as space, an idea that is underplayed within GPN theory. To consider how time influences the remaking of the network and region, the paper explores the temporal development of one iron ore GPN in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Its emphasis is on temporality and, drawing upon evolutionary economic geography (EEG), the paper shows that GPNs are created over and with time. This makes a singular contribution to GPN theory by simultaneously explaining the configuration of contemporary networks and in developing an understanding of how actors make and remake networks over and with time.