Seite - (000015) - in Knowledge and Networks

3 knowledge specific to certain places and poses challenges to learning and imitation over distance (Malmberg & Maskell, 2002). From an economic perspective, such epistemic idiosyncrasies may be sources of competitive advantage in some regions where they foster innovative practice, learning, and economic development, while other regions lag behind and face the challenge of catching up. Researchers interested in geography’s particular role in knowledge creation have studied innovative regions with technological and knowledge clusters such as Silicon Valley (Klepper, 2010; Saxenian, 1994), Boston (Bathelt, 2001; Glaeser, 2005; Tödtling, 1994), Bangalore (Lorenzen & Mudambi, 2013), and London (Cook, Pandit, Beaverstock, Taylor, & Pain, 2007; Keeble & Nachum, 2002) to find out how physical proximity and face-to- face contact help create and circulate new ideas and knowledge. Geographical proximity allows for planned as well as seren- dipitous encounter and interaction, and it allows for learning even in the absence of immediate social relations simply by virtue of one’s “being there” (Gertler, 1995, p. 1) and observing others in proximity (Malmberg & Maskell, 2002). In this con- text, Abbott (2001) cited French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1897/1951, p. 123): A cough, a dance-motion, a homicidal impulse may be transferred from one person to another even though there is only chance and temporary contact between them. They need have no intellectual or moral community between them nor exchange services, nor even speak the same language, nor are they more related after the transfer than before (p. 141). In summary, the discipline of geography has developed a deep and diversified understanding of learning, knowledge creation, and innovation in and between places and spaces. Geographical places may become specific milieus (Camagni, 1991; Meusburger, 2009) where people enjoy access to localized knowledge and where they learn from others to come up with new ideas and innovations them- selves. But the social and more formal understanding of relational processes has been neglected until recently. Social Processes, Social Networks, and Distance In the social sciences the shoe is on the other foot. Whereas thinking of places and spaces has been a matter of physical distance, formal network theory has deepened human understanding of learning and knowledge creation as a social process. In general, social network researchers are interested in the nature, antecedents, and outcomes of social connectivity. Formal network analysis and the conceptual emer- gence of relational thinking in the social sciences (see Marsden & Lin, 1982, and Wellman & Berkowitz, 1988, for instance) have led to new research designs and have yielded ground-breaking empirical discoveries that challenge established categorical reasoning. New theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and concepts have been developing within the framework of relational thought (Doreian, Batagelj, & Ferligoj, 2005; Kilduff & Tsai, 2003; Snijders & Steglich, in press-a; Wasserman & Faust, 1994). Some scholars push this relational thinking as far as arguing that the basic assumption of a relational social science is the “anticategorical imperative” 1 Introduction