Mr Krugman and the Geographers: an unequal struggle in the field of economic geography Fernando Cardoso Cotelo * Bruno Martins Hermann † Sergio Goldbaum ‡ May 29, 2016 Abstract This paper explores the controversy between the New Economic Geography and the Economic Geography Proper. From the 1990s on, the so called “geographical turn” in economics meant the colonization of a disciplinar field until then dominated by geographers: the field of study of uneven development of economic activity in space. We hipothesise here that the dispute between economists and geographers for the disciplinary field of Geographical Economics is exposed in a methodological instance. In the last two decades there has been a movement toward cooperation and learning with one another, but that cooperation did not happen in the method- ological field. Keywords: economic geography; methodology; epistemology; hermeneutics JEL Classification: B20, B41, R00 Resumo Este trabalho pretende explorar a controv´ ersia entre a Nova Geografia Econˆ o- mica e a Geografia Econˆ omica Propriamente Dita. A partir da d´ ecada de 1990, a “virada geogr´ afica” na economia significou a coloniza¸ c˜ao de um campo disciplinar at´ e ent˜ ao dominado pelos ge´ografos: o campo do estudo do desenvolvimento desigual da atividade econˆ omica no espa¸ co. A hip´ otese deste estudo ´ e de que a disputa entre economistas e ge´ ografos pelo campo disciplinar da Geografia Econˆ omica exp˜ oe-se na instˆ ancia metodol´ ogica. Ao longo das duas ´ ultimas d´ ecadas criou-se uma disposi¸ c˜ao por parte de economistas e ge´ ografos de aprenderem uns com os outros. Entretanto, estacoopera¸c˜ ao n˜ao se deu no campo metodol´ogico. Palavras-chave: geografia econˆ omica; metodologia; epistemologia; hermenˆ eutica Classifica¸ c˜ ao JEL: B20, B41, R00 * Doctor in Economics – EESP-FGV † Doctor in Economics – CEDEPLAR-UFMG ‡ Doctor in Economics – EAESP-FGV 1