The fashion industry in many 'global' and 'not so global' cities has experienced a lack of local manufacturing capacity. Toronto and Montreal are two cities that have lost garment production as a result of globalization, the removal of tariff barriers and gentrification. In this paper, we explore programs designed to train workers in production, including those initiated by non-profits, colleges and other organizations. These programs confront a skills crisis in the industry, while also integrating marginalized populations into the labour force. Functioning as intermediaries, such institutions - and the system of production to which they give rise - contribute to the cultural economy of fashion by fostering the development of material labour (i.e. those operating in the realm of production). This crucial form of labour provides a foundation for the realization of immaterial labour (i.e. those operating in the realm of design). While production is vital to the cultural economy, we argue that culture is also critical to production and skill development, as the strength of various institutions lies in their ability to cultivate social and cultural connections within and beyond the training program.

In a context of government cutbacks, non-profit labour-market intermediaries are assuming a more significant role in efforts to combat precarious employment. Yet such organizations are still subject to state funding regimes, regulations, oversight and neoliberal logics. As such, some scholars argue that they constitute “shadow state” spaces. In this paper, we move beyond the ‘shadow’ concept, casting light on the ways that different state-non-profit relations shape non-profits’ agency to define and realize their respective mandates. Building on a relational perspective, we hold that links between non-profits and the state are not linear. We complement this perspective with an institutional-relational approach to consider how a non-profit’s distinct institutional configuration (i.e., regulations, funders, and partners) enables or forecloses agency vis-à-vis the state apparatus. Through an examination of two non-profit labour market intermediaries that serve immigrant workers in Montreal/Tio’tia:ke, our analysis lends insight into institutional elements that can enlarge a non-profit organization’s space to maneuver.

Building on Lees’ call for ‘engaged dialogue’ between academics and non-academics (practitioners and activists) through collaborative writing and publishing, this commentary considers the approaches and relations that can enhance such efforts. I draw on my experiences as a managing editor of an online magazine, Progressive City: Radical Alternatives – a magazine that seeks to transcend the academic-practice divide – and the lessons they offer (opportunities and challenges) for realising more inclusive forms of engagement in the realm of publishing.

WISEs encompass a multitude of relations that both fall within – but also exceed – neoliberal capitalist relations. They are often spaces of mutual aid, collectivity and care, and these enterprises can – under limited circumstances – give rise to more-than-capitalist relations. In this paper, we examine the types of organizational and spatial structure that can best support the flourishing of non-capitalist relations, arguing that social enterprises that are part of a collective and networked space are more likely to realize the economies of scale and scope necessary to enhance their transformative possibilities. A case study of one non-profit organization in Toronto, Canada is used to support this argument.

Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) have emerged as an important labour market intermediary in the contemporary period, helping those who face multiple intersecting barriers to find work. Interpreter Services Toronto is one WISE that provides training for immigrant women living in Toronto, Canada. In this paper, we draw upon detailed open-ended interviews to explore the joint economic-social mandate of the organization, and its incorporation of an anti-racist feminist praxis. Interpreter Services Toronto develops skills and secures employment. It also creates a safe space for immigrant women, advancing an ethics of care that supports the social reproduction of immigrant women. While the organization is constrained by neoliberal imperatives, our objective in this paper is to explore the everyday experiences of people involved in this organization. We examine the tensions and contradictions the organization confronts, but also the subjectivities and coalitions they form, and the possibilities opened up by an alternative ethics and praxis.

In this chapter, drawing on Bourdieu's concept of the field, we examine the system of actors that are involved in creating the aesthetics of fashion. We adopt a dynamic approach that considers the diversity of "fields" associated with different fashion centres and the constellation of sites within each field (including manufacturing, retailing, marketing and consumption). Drawing on case studies from both established and emerging international fashion centres, we investigate how digital technologies are transforming the field of fashion at different scales and in different geographic contexts, and consider implications for structures, power relations and spatialities in and of the industry.

In an era of workfare, characterized by the rise of 'work first' policies, new actors are emerging in the field of labour market integration. This paper explores the role of one labour market intermediary- Petites-Mains. Petites-Mains is a Work Integration Social Enterprise (WISE), which emerged to promote the social and economic inclusion of immigrant women in Montreal. We discuss the challenges the organization confronts in balancing its hybrid economic/social mandate and countering the negative effects of the market. While WISEs in Quebec have their origins in community or religious associations and their emergence can be traced to the decline of the welfare state, over time they have become increasingly dependent on state funding (especially support from the provincial government). The increasingly neoliberal orientation of provincial governments threatens the social mandates of the WISEs. These changes are affecting the potential of WISEs to assist marginalized immigrant women. We discuss some of the ways WISEs respond to the challenges they confront, leveraging networks at a variety of scales, and in doing so, we challenge conventional accounts of the role of civil society organizations.

Social circus is a unique form of social intervention that uses circus arts to work with youth and other disadvantaged groups. In this paper, we explore social circus in Montreal, with a particular focus on the work that the Cirque du Soleil has been doing in its social circus programme, Cirque du Monde. We explore the objectives of this programme, which are to assist individuals to become ‘active citizens’. The emphasis on cultivating neoliberal subjectivities raises questions about the instrumental nature of the programme. However, we suggest that social circus also has characteristics that can lead to the development of a potentially transformative politics and space, and examine forms of support that could develop spaces that would enhance this potential.

Relational economic geography represents a broad set of theoretical approaches, which have an explicit focus on the social foundations of economic processes. A central concern of studies that constitute this line of inquiry is an understanding of how the nature, scale, and structure of social relations between key economic actors shape processes of restructuring and consequent economic performance. This article outlines the constitutive features of relational economic geography. The article begins by providing a historical context for the rise of relational economic geography, situating it as a response to empirical trends as well as the limits of past approaches. Then, the key attributes associated with relational economic studies are presented. Given the diversity of perspectives that fall within a school of “relational” thinking, the discussion highlights not only a general approach that has dominated an earlier wave of studies but also an alternative set of approaches that have come into ascendance of late. While earlier studies emphasize a place-based approach to analyzing key networks associated with economic learning, highlighting how proximity can allow for institutions that facilitate knowledge exchange, more recent analyses are agency centered and focus on the contingent nature and scale of such networks. The article concludes with reflections on the state of relational economic geography as a “work-in-progress,” underlining the conceptual and methodological challenges that remain.

The term originally portrayed a public space for economic transactions but the term has since evolved into an abstract and disputed idea. Despite modern markets seemingly omnipresent nature, their specific geographies have undergone relatively little analysis. This collection of new essays rediscovers the physical space that markets inhabit and explore how the impact of political, social and economic factors determine the shape of a particular market space. The essays present new research from the fields of geography, economics, political economy and planning and provide valuable case study material to show how markets are contested, constructed and placed. Rather than separate markets from the surrounding society and state, these essays connect markets to their wider context and showcase how economic geography can combine with other disciplines to throw new light on spaces of exchange.

This theme issue originates from an invitational workshop on the spatiality and diversity ofmarkets, convened at the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy in Montreal in 2017.Workshop participants, regardless of their disciplinary backgrounds and diverse researchinterests, shared a conviction that markets should be analysed in their plural and hybridforms, as social and political constructs always ‘in making’. In contrast to more orthodoxconceptions of markets as free-standing entities, discrete institutions or ideal types, this wastranslated into an imperative to centre ‘marketization’, along with attendant processes ofmarket re/construction. While this was interpreted as a positive research programme, if achallenging and quite radically open one, there was also an underlying concern. The concernwas that critical approaches to the study of markets, which foreground and problematizetheir variegated character, seem to have reached something of an impasse. A gulf has openedup between those orthodox market purists who seem to see little beyond the abstract marketprescribed by the neoclassical model (a self-regulating system of rational buyers and sellers)and the heterodox sceptics who, if they do not sidestep the market altogether, focus insteadon an unruly plethora of real markets, criticizing the neoclassical market model as an ide-alized and ideological construct. As we point out elsewhere (Peck et al., 2020), the problemwith these polar(ized) positions is that, notwithstanding their philosophical and normativedifferences, they all tend to work with,or against, a received reading of the capital-MMarket as advanced by standard economic theory, indexing to this analytical yardstick ineither positive or negative terms. On the heterodox side, the sway of the neoclassical, capital-M Market is manifest across a range of perspectives. Political-economic accounts, forinstance, tend to invoke an understanding of the market as a destructive juggernaut.

Objective: The present study analyzes how the relation between the contextual, structural and instrumental dimensions of governance influence the evolution of productive agglomerations in the segment of gems and jewel. Method: Qualitative-descriptive research was, therefore, undertaken, applying the multiple case study method on two clusters. Originality/Relevance: The research fills the gap found in the research on clustering and systems dynamics and with the prospect of obtaining more reliable results on the evolution of the cluster's trajectory. Regarding the systemic view of agglomerations, especially around the topic of governance, there seems to be space for a research that involves multiple variables.Results: In both cases, the existence of natural resources was fundamental for the flow of incentives from the public authorities and the support institutions, and for the definition of scope and cooperation, which resulted in positive results for the participants. Over time, it was seen that the perception of limited collective benefits on the part of the players and the weak coordination resulted in the formation of subgroups, with specific interests. Theoretical/methodological contributions: The study employs a system dynamics approach, that highlights a non-linear relation between elements of a system, since this approach has had limited application in existing studies on the governance dynamics of productive agglomerations. The empirical results confirm the influence of the dimensions of governance on the evolution of the agglomerations, demonstrated by the relationships between the elements that compose them, which can inform the construction of scenarios for designing and anticipating future trajectories of productive agglomerations.

The Mile-Ex district of Montreal, Canada - an inner-city manufacturing cluster - is experiencing an influx of new knowledge-based firms, which in addition to residential developments threatens to displace current manufacturing firms. This study examines the competition over industrial space and how state strategies, particularly at the scale of the City, are enabling this trend. Drawing on interviews with local stakeholders and planners, a review of policy documents and field observations, we seek to expand on a nascent literature exploring the gentrification of manufacturing spaces and shed light on the different mechanisms by which the state mediates neighbourhood change.