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. The se 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 hav e become localised - that is, detached from the national regime associ ated with productivism. This is leading to increased differentiation. We examine three land development sectors - minerals, farm building co nversion and golf - to illustrate how the processes of differentiation are driven by a variety of economic, political and social actors. The se are assessed using the notion of 'arenas of representation'. Two ar enas are identified - those of the market and regulation - showing how uneven development of the countryside can be understood as arising fr om action-in-context. Such differentiation, or the emergence of new ru ral spaces, is inevitable in the post-productivist era.