Spatialising knowledge: placing the knowledge community of Motor Sport Valley

Within the contemporary world of 'the knowledge economy', understanding the spatial organisation of knowledge production has become a key issue. Drawing on recent emphases in economic geography on the cultural construction and social embeddedness of economic success, this paper outlines an attempt to understand one form of spatial organisation of knowledge - the agglomeration or cluster - using the analytical concept of 'the knowledge community'. Using the example of Motor Sport Valley, the paper provides an empirical and methodological example of how one might place a knowledge community. The British motor sport industry dominates its world of production with a regional agglomeration, Motor Sport Valley, centred on Oxfordshire and stretching into East Anglia and down into Surrey. The paper provides empirical demonstration of the processes of knowledge generation and dissemination constituting the space (and knowledge community) of Motor Sport Valley. The paper recognises also the need to contextualise the 'microfoundations' of knowledge communities within a greater political economic system. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.