Brett Christophers
Professor at Department of Human Geography
- Mobile phone:
- +46 73 442 81 36
- E-mail:
- brett.christophers@kultgeog.uu.se
- Visiting address:
- Ekonomikum, Kyrkogårdsgatan 10
- Postal address:
- Box 513
751 20 UPPSALA
Download contact information for Brett Christophers at Department of Human Geography
Professor in human geography, especially residential and urban geography at Institute for Housing and Urban Research
- Mobile phone:
- +46 73 442 81 36
- E-mail:
- brett.christophers@ibf.uu.se
- Visiting address:
- Trädgårdsgatan 18
- Postal address:
- Box 514
751 20 UPPSALA
Download contact information for Brett Christophers at Institute for Housing and Urban Research
Short presentation
I'm a human geographer based at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University. Research-wise, I tend to hop around: things I have written about range from climate change and the energy transition to British colonial history. In recent years much of my focus has been on changing patterns of ownership of socially-significant assets like housing, land and infrastructure, and especially the growing role of asset managers and other major investment institutions.
Biography
I have worked at Uppsala University since 2008.
Previously, I studied at Oxford University (BA, 1993), the University of British Columbia (MA, 1995) and the University of Auckland (PhD, 2008).

Publications
Selection of publications
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Anaemic geographies of financialisation
Part of New Political Economy, p. 271-291, 2012
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Games and prizes in the economic (and geographical?) performance of markets: Nobel, Shapley and Roth
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 2542-2545, 2012
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Part of Economy and Society, p. 112-140, 2011
-
Revisiting the Urbanization of Capital
Part of Annals of the Association of American Geographers, p. 1347-1364, 2011
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Credit, where credit's due: Response to "Follow the thing: credit"
Part of Environment & Planning. D, Society and Space, p. 1089-1091, 2011
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Part of Environment & Planning. D, Society and Space, p. 1068-1084, 2011
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Part of Dialogues in Human Geography, p. 32-34, 2011
-
On voodoo economics: theorising relations of property, value and contemporary capitalism
Part of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, p. 94-108, 2010
-
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 856-873, 2010
-
Part of Encyclopedia of Geography, Sage Publications, 2010
-
Complexity, finance, and progress in human geography
Part of Progress in Human Geography, p. 807-824, 2009
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Part of International encyclopedia of human geography, p. 12-17, Elsevier, 2009
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Envisioning media power: on capital and geographies of television
Lexington Books, 2009
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The BBC, the creative class, and neoliberal urbanism in the north of England
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 2313-2329, 2008
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Television's power relations in the transition to digital: the case of the United Kingdom
Part of Television and New Media, p. 239-257, 2008
Recent publications
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Empire of law: A book forum on Shaina Potts' Judicial Territory
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 826-830, 2025
- DOI for Empire of law: A book forum on Shaina Potts' Judicial Territory
- Download full text (pdf) of Empire of law: A book forum on Shaina Potts' Judicial Territory
-
Author response: on the conditions of possibility of asset-manager society
Part of Journal of Cultural Economy, p. 275-278, 2024
- DOI for Author response: on the conditions of possibility of asset-manager society
- Download full text (pdf) of Author response: on the conditions of possibility of asset-manager society
-
Asset manager capitalism: An introduction to its political economy and economic geography
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 546-557, 2024
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Response: the critic, the geographical imagination and the world
Part of Scottish Geographical Journal, p. 437-444, 2023
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The rentierization of the United Kingdom economy
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 1438-1470, 2023
All publications
Articles in journal
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Empire of law: A book forum on Shaina Potts' Judicial Territory
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 826-830, 2025
- DOI for Empire of law: A book forum on Shaina Potts' Judicial Territory
- Download full text (pdf) of Empire of law: A book forum on Shaina Potts' Judicial Territory
-
Author response: on the conditions of possibility of asset-manager society
Part of Journal of Cultural Economy, p. 275-278, 2024
- DOI for Author response: on the conditions of possibility of asset-manager society
- Download full text (pdf) of Author response: on the conditions of possibility of asset-manager society
-
Asset manager capitalism: An introduction to its political economy and economic geography
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 546-557, 2024
-
Response: the critic, the geographical imagination and the world
Part of Scottish Geographical Journal, p. 437-444, 2023
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The rentierization of the United Kingdom economy
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 1438-1470, 2023
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How and Why US Single-Family Housing Became an Investor Asset Class
Part of Journal of urban history, p. 430-449, 2023
- DOI for How and Why US Single-Family Housing Became an Investor Asset Class
- Download full text (pdf) of How and Why US Single-Family Housing Became an Investor Asset Class
-
Taking Renewables to Market: Prospects for the After-Subsidy Energy Transition
Part of Antipode, p. 1519-1544, 2022
- DOI for Taking Renewables to Market: Prospects for the After-Subsidy Energy Transition
- Download full text (pdf) of Taking Renewables to Market: Prospects for the After-Subsidy Energy Transition
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Mind the rent gap: Blackstone, housing investment and the reordering of urban rent surfaces
Part of Urban Studies, p. 698-716, 2022
- DOI for Mind the rent gap: Blackstone, housing investment and the reordering of urban rent surfaces
- Download full text (pdf) of Mind the rent gap: Blackstone, housing investment and the reordering of urban rent surfaces
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Fossilised Capital: Price and Profit in the Energy Transition
Part of New Political Economy, p. 146-159, 2022
- DOI for Fossilised Capital: Price and Profit in the Energy Transition
- Download full text (pdf) of Fossilised Capital: Price and Profit in the Energy Transition
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Rentiers, everywhere: a response
Part of Progress in Human Geography, p. 1275-1276, 2022
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Part of Antipode, p. 130-152, 2022
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Class, Assets and Work in Rentier Capitalism
Part of Historical Materialism, p. 3-28, 2021
- DOI for Class, Assets and Work in Rentier Capitalism
- Download full text (pdf) of Class, Assets and Work in Rentier Capitalism
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The End of Carbon Capitalism (as We Knew It)
Part of Critical Historical Studies, p. 239-269, 2021
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A tale of two inequalities: Housing-wealth inequality and tenure inequality
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 573-594, 2021
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Stretching scales?: Risk and sociality in climate finance
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 88-110, 2020
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Part of Dialogues in Human Geography, p. 73-75, 2020
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Environmental Beta or How Institutional Investors Think about Climate Change and Fossil Fuel Risk
Part of Annals of the American Association of Geographers, p. 754-774, 2019
- DOI for Environmental Beta or How Institutional Investors Think about Climate Change and Fossil Fuel Risk
- Download full text (pdf) of Environmental Beta or How Institutional Investors Think about Climate Change and Fossil Fuel Risk
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Part of Critical Historical Studies, p. 303-323, 2019
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The allusive market: insurance of flood risk in neoliberal Britain
Part of Economy and Society, p. 1-29, 2019
- DOI for The allusive market: insurance of flood risk in neoliberal Britain
- Download full text (pdf) of The allusive market: insurance of flood risk in neoliberal Britain
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Intersections of inequality in homeownership in Sweden
Part of Housing Studies, p. 897-924, 2019
- DOI for Intersections of inequality in homeownership in Sweden
- Download full text (pdf) of Intersections of inequality in homeownership in Sweden
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Part of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, p. 571-586, 2019
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Risking value theory in the political economy of finance and nature
Part of Progress in Human Geography, p. 330-349, 2018
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Part of Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, p. 144-164, 2018
- DOI for Risk capital: Urban political ecology and entanglements of financial and environmental risk in Washington, D.C.
- Download full text (pdf) of Risk capital: Urban political ecology and entanglements of financial and environmental risk in Washington, D.C.
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Financialisation as Monopoly Profit: The Case of US Banking
Part of Antipode, p. 864-890, 2018
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Introduction: The Spatial Constitution of Markets
Part of Economic Geography, p. 211-216, 2018
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Remaking Mortgage Markets by Remaking Mortgages: US Housing Finance after the Crisis
Part of Economic Geography, p. 238-258, 2018
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Intergenerational Inequality?: Labour, Capital, and Housing Through the Ages
Part of Antipode, p. 101-121, 2018
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Part of Annals of the American Association of Geographers, p. 1108-1127, 2017
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Seeing financialization?: Stylized facts and the economy multiple
Part of Geoforum, p. 259-268, 2017
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The performativity of the yield curve
Part of Journal of Cultural Economy, p. 63-80, 2017
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The State and Financialization of Public Land in the United Kingdom
Part of Antipode, p. 62-85, 2017
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For real: land as capital and commodity
Part of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, p. 134-148, 2016
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Geographies of finance III: Regulation and 'after-crisis' financial futures
Part of Progress in Human Geography, p. 138-148, 2016
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Part of Environment and planning A, p. 485-503, 2016
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Part of Dialogues in Human Geography, p. 158-161, 2016
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Part of International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, p. 1094-1110, 2016
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Thinking around, through and beyond The Great Leveler: Key themes
Part of ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING A, p. 2550-2555, 2016
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The Law's Markets: Envisioning and effecting the boundaries of competition
Part of Journal of Cultural Economy, p. 125-143, 2015
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Geographies of finance II: Crisis, space and political-economic transformation
Part of Progress in Human Geography, p. 205-213, 2015
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Banking Spatially on the Future: Capital Switching, Infrastructure, and the Ecological Fix
Part of Annals of the Association of American Geographers, p. 378-386, 2015
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From financialization to finance: For ‘de-financialization’
Part of Dialogues in Human Geography, p. 229-232, 2015
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The limits to financialization
Part of Dialogues in Human Geography, p. 183-200, 2015
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Part of Economy and Society, p. 188-217, 2015
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Constructing and deconstructing markets: making space for capital
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 1859-1865, 2015
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Against (the idea of) financial markets
Part of Geoforum, p. 85-93, 2015
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Value models: Finance, risk,and political economy
Part of Finance and Society, p. 1-22, 2015
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Part of International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, p. 79-97, 2014
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Centring Housing in Political Economy
Part of Housing, Theory and Society, p. 373-394, 2014
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Part of Economic Geography, p. 429-450, 2014
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Part of Antipode, p. 1054-1071, 2014
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The inherent challenges of human geography
Part of Progress in Human Geography, p. 327-329, 2014
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From Marx to market and back again: Performing the economy
Part of Geoforum, p. 12-20, 2014
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Is finance productive (and other important questions)?: A response to Block, Blyth, and Engelen
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 256-261, 2014
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Geographies of finance I: Historical geographies of the crisis-ridden present
Part of Progress in Human Geography, p. 285-293, 2014
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The Housing Question under Capitalist Political Economies
Part of Housing, Theory and Society, p. 422-428, 2014
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The territorial fix: Price, power and profit in the geographies of markets
Part of Progress in Human Geography, p. 754-770, 2014
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Intervention - Mad World?: On the Social Construction of Economic Value
Part of Antipode, 2013
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A monstrous hybrid: the political economy of housing in early-twenty-first century Sweden
Part of New Political Economy, p. 885-911, 2013
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Banking and competition in exceptional times
Part of Seattle University Law Review, p. 563-576, 2013
-
Anaemic geographies of financialisation
Part of New Political Economy, p. 271-291, 2012
-
Games and prizes in the economic (and geographical?) performance of markets: Nobel, Shapley and Roth
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 2542-2545, 2012
-
Part of Economy and Society, p. 112-140, 2011
-
Revisiting the Urbanization of Capital
Part of Annals of the Association of American Geographers, p. 1347-1364, 2011
-
Credit, where credit's due: Response to "Follow the thing: credit"
Part of Environment & Planning. D, Society and Space, p. 1089-1091, 2011
-
Part of Environment & Planning. D, Society and Space, p. 1068-1084, 2011
-
Part of Dialogues in Human Geography, p. 32-34, 2011
-
On voodoo economics: theorising relations of property, value and contemporary capitalism
Part of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, p. 94-108, 2010
-
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 856-873, 2010
-
Complexity, finance, and progress in human geography
Part of Progress in Human Geography, p. 807-824, 2009
-
The BBC, the creative class, and neoliberal urbanism in the north of England
Part of Environment and planning A, p. 2313-2329, 2008
-
Television's power relations in the transition to digital: the case of the United Kingdom
Part of Television and New Media, p. 239-257, 2008
-
Ships in the night: Journeys in cultural imperialism and postcolonialism
Part of International journal of cultural studies, p. 283-302, 2007
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Underpopulation, television economies, and the power of the geographical imagination
Part of Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography, p. 39-51, 2007
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Enframing creativity: Power, geographical knowledges and the media economy
Part of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, p. 235-247, 2007
Articles, review/survey
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Part of Antipode, 2013
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Part of Cultural Geographies, p. 156-161, 2007
Books
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Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World
Verso, 2023
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David Harvey: A Critical Introduction to His Thought
Routledge, 2022
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Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?
Verso, 2020
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Economic Geography: A Critical Introduction
Wiley-Blackwell, 2018
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The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain
Verso, 2018
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Money and Finance after the Crisis: Critical Thinking for Uncertain Times
Wiley-Blackwell, 2017
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The Great Leveler: Capitalism and Competition in the Court of Law
Harvard University Press, 2016
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Banking Across Boundaries: Placing Finance in Capitalism
Wiley-Blackwell, 2013
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Envisioning media power: on capital and geographies of television
Lexington Books, 2009
Chapters in book
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Part of Keywords in Radical Geography, p. 248-252, Wiley-Blackwell, 2019
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Money and Finance after the Crisis: Taking Critical Stock
Part of Money and Finance after the Crisis, Wiley-Blackwell, 2017
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Petals not thorns: Competition policy and finance
Part of Controlling Capital, p. 58-73, Routledge, 2016
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Petals not thorns: Competition policy and finance
Part of Controlling Capital, Routledge, 2016
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Cultural Industries and the (Geographical) Political Economy of the Media
Part of Mediated Geographies and Geographies of Media, Springer, 2015
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Part of The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography, Wiley-Blackwell, 2015
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Part of The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography, Wiley-Blackwell, 2015
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Cultural Industries and the (Geographical) Political Economy of the Media
Part of Mediated Geographies and Geographies of Media, Springer, 2015
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Part of The Ashgate Research Companion to Media Geography , p. 363-376, Ashgate, 2014
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Part of Encyclopedia of Geography, Sage Publications, 2010
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Part of International encyclopedia of human geography, p. 12-17, Elsevier, 2009
Other
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Book review symposium: New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain
Part of Urban Studies, p. 439-453, 2020
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Part of International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, p. 1066-1067, 2016
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Monopolizing Neoliberalism Away
Part of Antipode, 2015
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Monopolizing Neoliberalism Away
Part of AntiopodeFoundation.org, 2015
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Sovereign Wealth Funds: Legitimacy, Governance, and Global Power
Part of Journal of Economic Geography, p. 226-227, 2014
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Part of Journal of Economic Geography, p. 226-227, 2014
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Book review symposium: Locating banks, tracking money
Part of Progress in Human Geography, p. 319-329, 2014