Industrial culture in a post-industrial world: The case of the North East of England

Abstract

In this article David Byrne takes a theoretical and empirical look at the formation and development of industrial urbanization. Specifically, he looks at two urban industrial city regions and suggests that rather than being doomed by their industrial pasts, they are complex systems which have multiple future trajectories. Here, Byrne's paper explores the experiences and cultures of the North East region in the UK and the Katowice industrial region in Poland, both located in the zones of carboniferous capitalism. Byrne explores how the culture of industrialism and a proletarian class consciousness survives in what is generally considered to be a post-industrial period. Drawing upon the work of Raymond Williams, he suggests that an 'industrial structure of feeling'--the sentiments which inform and construct 'ways of life'--remain a feature for many social groups and not just the proletariat beyond the period of industrialism. Byrne concludes by raising some questions about the links between residual industrial culture and emergent cultural forms, such as ecological and social groups who seek to challenge the character of consumerist capitalism.