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Through historical and anthropological inquiry, this paper addresses the issue of memory antagonisms involving cultural landscapes in the context of a former mining region: the Belgian Black Country. This region, which became increasingly industrialized in the 19th century through the massive development of coal mining and steel industry, subsequently experienced deindustrialization, and now finds itself mobilized in a process of 'post-industrial' mutation. The paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, it examines how the landscapes inherited from industry, and in particular the slag heaps of the coalfield, have over time become repositories of a working-class memory, through the living and working practices of the communities surrounding the mines. It also documents the various representations attached to these landscape objects, whose contradictions echo the oppositions between capital and labor that have marked the development of industrial capitalism. The second part of the paper, which focuses on the present situation, examines how these representations are remobilized in the valorization processes that are initiated by different actors, in the context of a 'post-industrial' urban transition strategy that seeks to produce a unified and pacified historical narrative. We'll be looking at how historical conflicts still permeate the representations of these landscapes, the question of their conservation, and their possible future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes a step in identifying a more accurate economic history of deindustrialization. Following the extension of the timeline of deindustrialization and its divorce from the 1970s, this article examines the reasons for production facility relocation our of Detroit, prior to the 1970s. Given that the process of deindustrialization occurred prior to 1970, the reasons must be reevaluated. To this end, this article examines one of the lesser investigated reasons that auto corporations moved their production facilities out of Detroit; organized labor. It shows that organized labor was one of the driving factors of production facility relocation. This article makes use of multiple collections housed in the Reuther Archives at Wayne State University in relation to organized labor, as well as union density data. This article details how and why production facilities were pushed out of Detroit in an effort to evade organized labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]