Table 1.

Explanations in economic geography: diverse approaches to theory-case packaging.

Explanatory disposition	Critical, strategic, stress-testing	Conjunctural, searching, reflexive	Corroborative, confirmative	Purposive, pragmatic	Synthetic, schematic, parsimonious
Casing strategies	Extended cases	Critical cases, crisis situations	Illustrative, affirmative, and comparative cases	Paradigmatic, heuristic cases	Ideal-type cases, sans contingency
Theoretical purpose	Reconstruction; remaking favored theories	Rearticulation; midlevel, generative theorizing	Application, exemplification, elaboration	Enhancement, extension, enrichment	Sharpening, refinement
Theory-culture	Oblique, (self) critical	Open, revelatory, radical	Validatory, curious, modest	Positive, (story)telling, consolidating	Essentializing, stylizing