An archaeology of dereliction: Poetics and policy in the governing of depressed industrial districts in interwar England and Wales

Emerging from a set of theoretical positions which have collapsed the culture-economy divide, this paper considers the role played by the industrial landscape in the discourse of economic depression in interwar England and Wales. The industrial landscape, it is argued, was a critical political arena in which to affirm and to contest how the declining regional economies of interwar England and Wales should be governed. Focusing upon the governmental designation of some industrial districts as 'derelict', the consequence and the contestation of this assessment is discussed in relation to the activities of Industrial Transference Board and the Special Areas Commission. (C) 2000 Academic Press.