The Limits to Scale? Methodological Reflections on Scalar Structuration

Neil Brenner

Fruitful new avenues of theorization and research have been opened by recent writings on
the production of geographical scale. However, this outpouring of research on scale
production and on rescaling process has been accompanied by a notable analytical
blunting of the concept of geographical scale as it has been blended unreflexively into
other core geographical concepts such as place, locality, territory and space. This essay
explores this methodological danger: first, through a critical reading of Sallie Marston’s
(2000) recent article in this journal on “The social construction of scale”, second, through a
critical examination of the influential notion of a politics “of” scale. A concluding section
suggests that our theoretical grasp of geographical scale could be significantly advanced if
scaling processes ara distinguished more precisely from other major dimensions of
sociospatial sturcturation under capitalism. Eleven methodological hypotheses for
confronting this task are then proposed.