Postgraduate encounters with sub-disciplinary divides: entering the economic/development geography trading zone

The identification of, and advocacy for bridging, a divide between economic and development geography has been a focus of considerable recent attention. Yet the practical challenges and opportunities involved in crossing sub-disciplinary boundaries, particularly at postgraduate level, are rarely examined. The processes which together shape various stages of postgraduate training and research are reflected on here. Through addressing approaches to research on the global South, specifically in the case of India’s pharmaceutical industry, it is shown how in-depth fieldwork, including engagement with the empirical realities of stakeholder interviews, can make sub-disciplinary boundary crossing a necessity. Opportunities arise for postgraduate students to produce research that cuts across the more established academic boundaries and that may ultimately result in richer geographies of development.