Linking industrial culture and human agency in three (post)industrial towns: Collective and individual agency shaping development paths

Abstract

The aim of this article is to better understand the relationship between industrial culture and human agency and how it influences development outcomes. The study is set in the geographical context of three small and old industrial towns, where traditional industrial practices are embedded in the material and institutional environment and people's behaviours that form a distinctive industrial culture. Conceptually, we use a relational perspective to investigate the dialectic between human agency and industrial culture: we examine how industrial culture can guide human agency–through motivation, legitimation, or specific behaviour; and how human agency reshapes industrial culture through its actions–destruction, modification, maintenance of cultural assets. The results show that a strong industrial culture implies a more reproductive type of agency and a pronounced collective behaviour of actors, aiming at a more incremental development that reflects the existing place-based culture. In the case where industrial culture is thinner, new development relied on individual agents completely altering development paths. Our research places particular emphasis on collective assets and collective agency in the context of smaller towns with strong industrial culture and their ability to influence the direction of future development. In addition, we emphasise the simultaneous role of (individual) change and (collective) reproductive/maintenance agency, which can lead to stable development without major disruptions to the institutional or cultural context. Our findings are important for understanding small industrial communities and how the collective aspects of industrial culture require that new development initiatives are aligned with industrial traditions and place-based culture.