States and markets: understanding geospatial time The political economy of locatedness: national economies

These two reflections are related to quite distinct historical times: the first to the early nineteenth century, the press of the British empire in the East and the build-up to the opium wars in China; the second to the middle of the twentieth century, the expansion of global media and electronic connectivity. They both signal, in different ways, the influence of questions of proximity in shaping modernity and postmodernity, and the integral role of technologies to them.1