Competing Visions of Community: Empowerment and Abandonment in the Governance of Coalfield Regeneration

Abstract

This article engages with recent debates which assert that community participation and empowerment are place‐contingent. The particular nature of localities has regularly been taken to account for success or failure in processes of participation and regeneration. In contrast, this article exposes the failings based in the nature of the process of regeneration in the complex intersection of national agendas of community participation, regional objectives of economic growth and local aspirations of social cohesion and improved amenities. These agendas meet in the seemingly mutual pursuit of the ‘active community’. They become manifest in the micro‐politics of negotiating and enacting different constructions of community by the different actors ‘empowered’ in the regeneration process: regional development agencies, local government and local civil society. The article is based on ethnographic research in the Kent coalfield. The coalfields as distinct places have commanded a lasting place in the academic and policy literature: romanticized as the epitome of ‘communityness’ but demonized as the site of problem groups. This otherness has outlasted the industry the communities were built on. The analysis here shows that the social organization of regeneration in an arguably ‘different’ place is less driven by local specificities than by a failure to make visible conflicting constructions of community; therefore both the pathologizing of disadvantaged social groups and calls for more ‘community’ in policy delivery rather than policy reform are called into question.

The role of participation in sustainable community development programmes in the extractives industries

“…This is necessary to avoid exacerbating structural disadvantages within communities by excluding certain sectors, especially the vulnerable and minorities. In her examination of community regeneration projects in the east Kent coalfields of the UK, Doering (2014) reinforced the importance of not assuming who or what is the 'community' or excluding from the participatory process individuals and groups that do not fit the paradigm of 'community' in the eyes of the company. This links back to the importance of engaging with 'both God and the Devil', as described by Mutti et al (2012).…”

Resisting the 'Long‐Arm' of the State? Spheres of Capture and Opportunities for Autonomy in Community Governance

“…Civic participation is integral to the contemporary ‘partnership and network orthodoxy’ (Doering, ), becoming both a prerequisite and a barometer for governance interventions. Local people—deemed expert not due to professional credentials but local lived experience—acquired privileged access to decision making, often forming the nucleus of community‐led regeneration partnerships (Mackintosh, ; Hastings, ; Perrons and Skyers, ).…”

“…For example, governance ‘fixes’ conceived at higher tiers of governance are imposed on communities (Phil and Bailey, ), generating a range of restrictions and compromises. In this respect, governance transactions only compound hegemonic power relations (Uitermark et al ., ; Wallace, ; Doering, ), creating essentially elitist spaces where government persists (McAreavey, ; Blakely, ). From an administrative perspective, the state retains effective control of initiatives through the management and manipulation of local policy and institutions (Davies, ; Milligan and Fyfe, ; Fuller and Geddes, ; Parker et al ., ).…”

“…Rather, it is proposed, they represent ever‐more sophisticated strategies to subjugate the public within restructured governance regimes (see e.g. Kokx and Kempen, ; Huxley, ; Doering, ). Such accounts, often derived from Foucauldian and more recently post‐political and post‐democratic interpretations of governance, have significant explanatory potential, demonstrated by their prolificacy through the academic literature (Huxley and Yiftachel, ; MacLeod, ; Wilson and Swyngedouw, ; Parker et al ., ).…”

“…Supporting this argument, the article refers to more optimistic accounts of community involvement in governance (Taylor, ; Doering, ) and insights from accounts of subversive or contested practices (Holdo, ; Arampatzi, ). Such insights are infrequently derived from accounts of formal or statutory regeneration initiatives.…”