WG Labour in Mining

Mission

The EHLN working group Labour in Mining aims at creating and expanding existing, more or less formal and informal contacts and networks of scholars with an interest in labour in mining sector in Europe and around the world. The WG wishes to exchange knowledge, to organize meetings and workshops, to organize and design collective projects, and to participate with sessions in the ELHN Conferences.

Scope

Mining has special characteristics not only for its kind of jobs (typically in the underground), its morbidity and workplace accidents, its location linked to the existence of resources and migratory phenomena, the high potential for conflict and harsh working conditions. Its peculiarity has given to labour markets of the sector a kind of isolation in relation to other productive activities. These characteristics have given a particular evolution, reproducing itself internally (through the own families), and perpetuating cultural moulds that have continued along time. The study of the evolution of the labour relations in mining is useful not only for knowing the transformations of labour in this sector, but also for elaborating more our knowledge of labour history in general, and in some labour markets, characterized by some grade of isolation, in particular.

We have a wide range of literature concerning labour activities in mining, both in the past and the present day. Although much has been done in the field of compiling sources and research, it is a topic that has suffered from a focus on the local scope and thus resulted in various clichés on miner's behavior. Furthermore, some elements have hardly been studied at all, for example: the role of women in the mines and the mining communities regarding the living conditions; the incidence of work related illnesses (silicosis, hydrargyrism, hookworm, lead poisoning, etc.). Moreover little has been studied about Europe's lack of vision about the sector as a whole regarding the evolution of the more relevant mining countries and hubs.

We would like to discuss research related to a broad range of themes and concepts in economic, social and cultural labour history of mining including but not limited to the following:

The intersection of class, race, gender, age, global inequality, etc. in labour in mining; Dual work (agricultural and mining), migrations, discrimination.
Labour relations: labour organisation, developing of the wage earner work, wages and remuneration systems, hiring and scientific organisation of labour.
Technological development and evolution of the job markets: from the steam to the electricity, from the gravimetric concentration systems to the differential flotation, the underground work and the open-cast work, labour problems, incidence in the health and conflicts, technological change and mining conjunctures.
Living conditions and inequality. Occupational health and safety in mining: mortality, morbidity, pollution and sanitary institutions.
Mining communities: characteristics, problems, urban penalty.
Strategies of the management, working movement, industrial paternalism, truck system, conflicts, trade unions.
Industrial archaeology of mining activities, immaterial patrimony, culture.
Archives of mining activities.

We wish to contribute in the relations between the researchers in this field, in the establishment of research lines and a frame to exchange information and knowledge, publications and other initiatives in this field. Moreover, we are offering a support to databases download and consultation on the mining labour, accesible for the Academy. We also aim at the exchange of knowledge about primary sources, archives, and literature related to the history of labour in mining.

Activities

The EHLN working group Labour in Mining is engaged in many activities in and outside of the European Labour History Network. The group organises workshops, conferences and sessions, both alone and in collaboration with other Working Groups and scholars. These are the main events organised until now:

5th ELHN Conference in Uppsala, 2024: 4 sessions (Mining Mobilities across the Globe: Labour, Science, and Knowledge Circulation in Mining (15th-21st Century) ; Mining–Agriculture Relationships: Influences on labour organisation and labour markets) Find more information here
4th ELHN 2nd WORCK Conference in Vienna, 2021: 4 sessions (Environmental and Social Impacts of Mining in Time and Space I and II; Economic and Social Impacts of Mining. The case of Spain & Case Studies from USA, Africa, Europe)
3rd ELHN Conference in Amsterdam 2019: 2 sessions (4 panels) (Living Conditions in Mining Towns in History ; a joint session “Health Environment and Labour in Mining” with the WG “Occupational Health and Environmental Labour History (19th-21th c.)”
Patronage of the Summer course on “Minería histórica y nueva minería. De la historia socioeconómica al siglo XXI” (“Historical mining and new mining. From socioeconomic history to the 21th century”), La Rábida (Huelva, Spain), 20 – 23 July, 2021.
Interdisciplinary conference “Futures in the History of Deindustrialisation”, Bologna, October 13-15, 2022 jointly with ELHN Working Groups: “Memory and Deindustrialisation”, “Workers, Labour and Labour History in East-Central Europe”; the Department of History and Cultures of the University of Bologna; the Department of Education of University of Roma Tre; the Museo del Patrimonio Industriale Bologna; the Italian Labour History Association (SISLAV).

What’s always going on (and you might also contribute to!)

Articles Selection (seasonal, every 4 months): Periodical posts listing interesting readings (mostly academic articles, but also blog posts) published in the previous 4 months, related to Mining History and similar disciplines: https://lim.hypotheses.org/734

Books selection (annual): Post published every year in december listing interesting books published in the year, related to Mining History and similar disciplines. Authors are invited to notify their publications in order to be highlighted. You can find some exemples here

You are warmly invited to send us your suggestions!

The Young Mining Historians’ Corner (Monthly, published issues): Periodical post about young scholars’ researches (PhD candidate, Young Doctors, Professors or Lecturers), consisting in short abstracts about their thesis projets, thesis, ongoing researches related to mining history and similar disciplines.

Early Career Researchers are highly invited to send us proposals (filling this YMHC_Form) at labourinmining@gmail.com.

Collaborative Project: “Database of Databases in Mining History” In 2021, we launched a collaborative project listing open access sources. Find the database here. You can contribute by sending your suggestion to labourinmining@gmail.com

Contact

The coordinators of the ELHN Working Group Labour in Mining are:

Francesca Sanna (University of Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès, francesca.sanna@univ-tlse2.fr)
Gabriele Marcon (European University Institute, Gabriele.Marcon@eui.eu)
José Joaquín García Gómez (University of Almeria, josejgg@ual.es)

To contact the working group please send an e-mail to labourinmining@gmail.com and use the PDF contact form attached below.

Mission

Scope

Activities

Contact

External links