TY - JOUR AU - Blaikie, Piers AB - The theory of the spatial diffusion of innovations: a spacious cul-de-sac by Piers Blaikie Criteria for evaluating progress and the nature of space This article critically reviews the progress that has been made in the spatial diffusion theory of innovations, particularly since the last review in Progress in Geography (Brown arid Moore, 1969). Such an undertaking prompts two related questions-progress for whom, and by what criteria do we judge ‘progress’? Almost all social sciences have been undergoing an increasing degree of self-examination and criticism, whereby the ‘half-life’ of theories and paradigms has consistently become shorter-partly due to the increas- ing output of research itself, and to changes in the world political economy. Geography has been a part of this process, although the impulses have usually been transmitted from without, and received and reinterpreted by practitioners within. There are two reasons for this which concern the nature of space itself as well as the nature of those who study it. First, space is precisely what the political economy makes it; second, the way in which space is studied is inherently ideological. To take the first proposition, it is clear that space in human geography implies relationships between man and ‘nature’ TI - The Theory of the Spatial Diffusion of Innovations: A Spacious Cul-De-Sac JF - Progress in Human Geography DO - 10.1177/030913257800200204 DA - 1978-06-01 UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/sage/the-theory-of-the-spatial-diffusion-of-innovations-a-spacious-cul-de-aucdAy8yJN SP - 268 EP - 295 VL - 2 IS - 2 DP - DeepDyve ER -