Regenerational Selves and Regional ‘Resilience’: Agency, Entitlement and Privilege in the North East of England

Abstract

This chapter draws on findings from a recent research project entitled ‘From the Coal Face to the Car Park? Class and Gender in the North East of England’1 which charts the transitions from industrial landscapes of one or two generations ago to a present and (imagined) regenerated future (Taylor, 2012). The project involved in-depth interviews and nine focus groups with 97 women across class backgrounds and age ranges (16-85 years) living in a range of urban, suburban and rural locales across the North East. It involved regular meetings with a stakeholder ‘user-group’ of invested North East actors, including representatives from One North East Regional Development Agency and those from key sites of economic and cultural investment in the North East (such as the Baltic Art Gallery, the Sage concert hall and local businesses). Fieldwork was conducted between 2007–2009, hitting the global financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent recessions; since this time a UK Conservative-Liberal Coalition government has formed and instigated an intensified programme of welfare and educational cut-backs in response to the ‘time’s we’re in’. That said, measures of cutting-back, austerity and advised ‘resilience’ in the face of adversity have a history and an enduring presence in the North East which continues to rank high in UK figures of regional disadvantage.