Making Markets Making Place: Geography, Topo/graphy and the Reproduction of an Urban Marketplace

This book examines place and place-making in London’s Borough Market. In particular, it uses topo/graphy (‘place-writing) to interrogate the ways in which Borough Market’s material, social-sensual and discursive relations assemble to reproduce Borough Market as a place, market and marketplace. Its central premise is that market-processes – the negotiation and exchange of commodities –are place-processes. This means that the often-abstract relationships that ultimately define what we think of as the economy are embedded in the rich and every materiality, sociality, sensuality and meanings associated with place. By tracing out these different elements, topo/graphy illustrates the ways in which economic reproduction is grounded in particular and often discrete practices. However, by assembling them together, this highlights the ways in which place and place-making are the driving force behind the economy at large.

Ben Coles is a broadly trained economic and political geographer who researches the intersections between commodities and markets, and marketplaces, with a particular focus on food. Ben is affiliated to the Department of Geography at the University of Leicester, UK. He has a Ph.D. in Geography from Royal Holloway, University of London, and degrees from the University of Kansas.