Fuzzy old world: A response to Markusen

Critical regional studies and economic geography have both taken 'qualitative turns' over the past 15 years. The paper takes issue with the claim that this methodological shift has entailed declining standards of evidence, a proclivity for 'fuzzy' theorizing, and a drift into policy irrelevance, making instead a positive argument for the further deepening of intensive, case-study approaches. This need not occur at the expense of quantitative research, because there is not a zero-sum competition in research methods. There should be continuing methodological pluralism, and intensive methods have a legitimate and important role to play. In this spirit, an argument is made for extending case-study methodologies in critical regional studies. The field needs more, not less, of this kind of work. There is no reason to believe that it will be any less rigorous or relevant as a result.