Regulating the new rural spaces: the uneven development of land

With the demise of agricultural productivism, that set of economic and political arrangements which made food production the overriding aim of rural policy, new forms of regulation have come into existence. These are linked to new patterns of development in rural areas which have arisen as economic actors seek to exploit the opportunities presented by the crisis in agriculture. Both development and its regulation have become localised — that is, detached from the national regime associated with productivism. This is leading to increased differentiation. We examine three land development sectors — minerals, farm building conversion and golf — to illustrate how the processes of differentiation are driven by a variety of economic, political and social actors. These are assessed using the notion of ‘arenas of representation’. Two arenas are identified — those of the market and regulation — showing how uneven development of the countryside can be understood as arising from action-in-context. Such differentiation, or the emergence of new rural spaces, is inevitable in the post-productivist era.