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SAMF-Fagkomiteen for samfunnsvitenskap

The Spatial Embeddedness of Foreign Direct Investment: investigating the complex dyna of FDI for power,regional development and poverty

Awarded: NOK 2.9 mill.

The rate of FDI has risen dramatically the past three decades. Developing countries' inwards stock of FDI amounted to about one third of their GDP in 2004, compared to just 10 per cent in 1980. The recent explosion of FDI reflects significant transformati ons in economic and political processes. Yet the complex dynamics of these FDIs and the outcome for power relations, regional development and poverty are poorly understood and must be further developed. This effort has progressed since 2003 with initial f unding from the Melzer Fundation. We propose that FDI should be seen as consisting of capital, actors and knowledge, or what we call the 'capital-actor-knowledge complex'. An approach to FDI through the 'capital-actor-knowledge complex' allows an investi gation of its effects that go beyond quantitative economic analysis and into the terrain of socio-cultural processes embedded in space. This is what we label complex dynamics; those involving the major contemporary social questions like regional power, de velopment and poverty. This project plans to link two sub-projects departing from the 'capital-actor-knowledge complex' to investigate how the complex dynamics of FDI are embedded in spatial scales. The main research objective can be formulated as: How ca n studies of the spatial embeddedness of FDI through the capital-actor-knowledge complex enhance understandings of FDI dynamics? This can be approached from different angles, and the sub-projects will highlight specific relations within the 'capital-acto r-knowledge complex'. One sub-project investigates FDI and contemporary power relations through a study of 'FDI as discourse'. The second investigates FDI and understandings of innovation and regional development through a study of 'FDI as socials fields' . However, in each case the analysis will idraw on the other two pillars of the 'capital-actor-knowledge complex', also including 'FDI as development'

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SAMF-Fagkomiteen for samfunnsvitenskap