CfP: New Approaches to the Global Mining History: the social effects of ore extraction

XIX World Economic History Congress
25-29 July 2022, Paris, France
Call for papers for the session
New Approaches to the Global Mining History: the social effects of ore extraction

Session organizers

• José Joaquín García Gómez (University of Almeria)
• Gérard Chastagnaret (Université d´Aix-Marseille)
• Leda Papastefanaki (University of Ioannina & IMS/FORTH)
• Ángel Pascual Martínez Soto (University of Murcia)

Please email proposals (maximum 500 words) and a short CV to Jose Joaquín García Gómez (e-mail: josejgg@ual.es) by 15th September 2021.

We would like to invite you to submit a paper proposal to the double session “New Approaches to the Global Mining History: the social effects of ore extraction”, which has been accepted for the XIX World Economic History Congress, 25-29 July 2022, Paris, France.

Session theme

Resources extraction, of both metallic and energetic, has been essential for global economic development. Industrialisation meant an unprecedented increase in mine production since the mid-18th century, boosting not only the quantity but also the variety of resources extracted. This activity induced important alterations in the areas of ore extraction: it encouraged large migratory processes, led to the creation or consolidation of cities and townships, and altered people’s lives, the landscape and the environment.

Mining has always been a controversial activity, subject of quarrels when its detrimental effects eventuated. Resource extraction can lead to the appropriation of a non-renewable patrimony and cause socio-political divisiveness. It may produce different sorts of physical alterations, be highly contaminating and generate dangerous waste. This sector also displays relatively large rates of workplace accidents and morbidity. Even its contribution to economic development has been called into question by the Resource Curse literature, both at the regional and national level.

This session aims to bring together researchers working on the local impact of mining activities. It encompasses a broad range of topics, but preference will be given to contributions about the social effects of mining.

Studies analysing the different circumstances under which mining nuclei emerge and consolidate are highly welcome. The rise in production and the consequent labour demand attracted people not only from the surrounding regions, but also experienced and specialized workers from far away. Information on migrant workers’ backgrounds can shed light on the socio-economic, geographic and ethnic composition of township populations, and on recruitment tactics of mining companies. A related issue is the working class formation process in the new settlements; their (possible) racial divide and their main claims in each period and place.

The standard of living of workers in mining areas is another topic of interest. The creation of jobs often attracted large numbers of people who could not be adequately housed and fed, and settlements grew in a chaotic way. As a result of overcrowding, subsistence level wages and environmental degradation, living standards were often low and deteriorated. Only with government intervention including sanitary reforms in mining cities and the promulgation of social legislation did conditions improve. Papers focussing on environmental problems derived from mine extraction, conflicts around them and the implemented solutions are welcome, too.

Furthermore, the role of women and children in the mining sector, including their wages and working conditions, needs more attention. Women and children often had a fundamental role in the initial development of the sector, working underground and in the surface, doing auxiliary tasks, and supplying the population with food and services. They also played an important role in the stabilization and the reproduction of the mine labour force.

Deadline for submissions: 15th September 2021.

REFERENCES

• ARBAIZA, M. (1999). Urbanización y condiciones de vida en Vizcaya (1877-1930): aproximación a las causas sociales de la mortalidad infantil y juvenil. Historia Contemporánea, 18, 209-251.
• ARENAS, C. (2011). Padres y patrones. Poder y mercado en la cuenca minera de Riotinto, 1873-1936. In PÉREZ, Juan Aurelio et alia, Río Tinto: historia, patrimonio minero y turismo cultural, Universidad de Huelva, Huelva, pp. 231-242.
• BENGTSSON, T. and VAN POPPEL, F. (2011). Socioeconomic inequalities in death from past to present: An introduction. Explorations in Economic History, 48(3): 343-356.
• BLOOM, Khaled J. (2010). Murder of a Landscape: The California Farmer Smelter War, 1897-1916. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
• CUTLER, D.M. & GRANT, M. (2005). The role of Public Health Improvement in Health Advances: The Twentieth –Century United States. Demography, 42, 1-22.
• CHASTAGNARET, G. (2000). L’Espagne, puissance minière dans l’Europe du XIX siècle. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez.
• DEATON, A. (2013). The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• EASTERLIN, R. A. (1999). How beneficent is the market? A look at the modern history of mortality. European Rewiew Economic History,3, 257–94.
• ESCUDERO, A, & NICOLAU, R. (2014). Urban penalty: nuevas hipótesis y caso español (1860-1923). Historia Social, 80, 9-23.
• ESCUDERO, A., PÉREZ DE PERCEVAL, M.A. & SÁNCHEZ PICÓN, A. (2015). Urban environmental degradation and the standard of living: the case of the Spanish mining industry (1870-1930). Continuity and Change, 30(3), 395-421.
• FOGEL, R.W. (2004). The escape from hunger and premature death, 1700-2100. Europe, America and the Third World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• FLOUD, R., FOGEL, R.W., HARRIS, B., & CHUL HONG (2011). The changing body. Health, Nutrition and Human Development in the Western World since 1700. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
• FLOUD, R., FOGEL, R.W, HARRIS, B. & CHUL HONG, S., (eds.) (2014). Health, mortality and the standard of living in Europe and North America since 1700. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
• FLOUD, R., WATCHER, K. and GREGORY, A. (1990). Height, health and history. Nutritional status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• GIL OLCINA, A. (1970). Evolución demográfica del núcleo minero de La Unión. Saitabi, 20, 203-237.
• GUIMARAES, Paulo (2013). Conflitos ambientais nas minas portuguesas. In MONTEIRO, Bruno-DIAS, Joana (ed.), De Pé Sobre a Terra. Estudos Sobre a Indústria, o Trabalho e o Movimento Operário em Portugal. Universidades do Porto, Porto, pp. 135-177.
• HAMLIN, C. (1998). Public Health and Social Justice in the Age of Chadwick. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
• HARRIS, B. (2004). “Public health, nutrition and the decline of mortality: the McKeown thesis revisited”. Social History of Medicine, 17(3), 379-407.
• KEARNS, G. (1988). The urban penalty and the population history of England. In Brandström, A. and Tederbrand, L.G. (eds.): Society, Health and Population during the Demographic Transition (pp. 213-235). Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International.
• MARTÍNEZ SOTO, M. A. & PÉREZ DE PERCEVAL, M.A. (2017). “Salarios y organización del trabajo en la minería del sureste español, 1850-1936”. Revista de Historia Industrial, 69, pp. 49-79.
• MCKEOWN, T. (1976). The Modern Rise of Population. New York, NY: Academic Press.
• NATHANSON, C. A. (2007). The nineteenth century: From miasmas to microbes. In Disease prevention and social change. The state, society and public health in the United States, France, Great Britain and Canada (pp. 23-46). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• NAVARRO ORTIZ, D., MARTÍNEZ SOTO, A. P. & PÉREZ DE PERCEVAL, M. A. (2004). La vida en la sierra minera de Cartagena. Evolución demográfica de la diputación de El Beal, 1880-1970. Murcia: Ediciones Laborum.
• NEWELL, Edmund (1997). Atmospheric Pollution and the British Copper Industry, 1690-1920. Technology and Culture, 38 (3): 655-689.
• PÉREZ de PERCEVAL, M, MARTÍNEZ-SOTO, A. P., GARCÍA-GÓMEZ, J. J. (2019): “Female workers in the Spanish mines, 1860-1936”, International Review of Social History, 1-33. doi: 10.1017/S0020859019000567.
• PÉREZ CASTROVIEJO, P. (2006). Poder adquisitivo y calidad de vida de los trabajadores vizcaínos, 1876-1936. Revista de Historia Industrial, 30(1), 103-143.
• PÉREZ, Juan D. (2001). Lluvia ácida y deforestación en la mina: el primer expediente de compensación por daños causados por efecto de la contaminación atmosférica (1847). In GONZÁLEZ, M.-MARTÍNEZ, J. Naturaleza transformada. Estudios de historia ambiental en España, Icaria, Barcelona. pp. 239-264.
• — (2014). Tierra devastada. Historia de la contaminación minera. Síntesis, Madrid.
• — (2016). Mining Corporations and Air Pollution Science before the Age of Ecology. Ecological Economics, 123: 77-83.
• RAMIRO, D. and Oris, M. (2016). New Approaches to Death in Cities during the Health Transition. Dordrecht: Springer.
• RODRIGUEZ OCAÑA, E. & MARTÍNEZ NAVARRO, F. (2008). Salud pública en España. De la Edad Media al siglo XXI. Sevilla: Escuela Andaluza de Salud Pública. Consejería de Salud de la Junta de Andalucía.
• ROSEN, G. (1958). A history of public health. New York: MD. Publ.
• STECKEL, Richard and FLOUD, Roderick (ed.) (1997), Health and Welfare during Industrialization. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
• TEMPER, Leah (2018). Globalizing Environmental Justice: Transformative Movements. Past and Present. In HOLIFIELD, Ryan-CHAKRABORTY, Jayajit-WALKER, Gordon (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Justice, Taylor and Francis, London, pp. 490-503.
• WOHL, A. (1983). Endangered lives: public health in Victorian Britain, London: Methuen.