Making Sense of Mining History Themes and Agendas Routledge Studies in Modern History Series

This book draws together international contributors to analyse a wide range of aspects of mining history across the globe including mining archaeology, technologies of mining, migration and mining, the everyday life of the miner, the state and mining, industrial relations in mining, gender and mining, environment and mining, mining accidents, the visual history of mining, and mining heritage. The result is a counter balance to more common national and regional case study perspectives.

Foreword

Stefan Berger and Peter Alexander

Chapter 1:

Mining History: Sub-Fields and Agendas

Stefan Berger

Chapter 2:

Archaeology of mining in the pre-industrial age: the recognition and interpretation of ancient mines

Simon Timberlake

Chapter 3:

Engineering changes: The cause and consequence of modern mining methods at Butte, Montana; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Broken Hill, New South Wales

Jeremy Mouat

Chapter 4:

A comparative account of deep-level gold mining in India and South Africa: Implications for Workers’ Lives

Dunbar Moodie

Chapter 5:

Local moments in mining history. Some ideas on the relationship between foreign and native in Mexican silver mining

Alma Parra

Chapter 6:

Coal-mining, migration and ethnicity: a global history

Ad Knotter

Chapter 7:

Culture and classed identity in shaping unionisation on mines

Peter Alexander

Chapter 8:

Feminising an ancient human endeavour: Gendered spaces in mining

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt

Chapter 9:

Accidents and mining: The problem of the risk of explosion in industrial coal mining in global perspective

Michael Farrenkopf

Chapter 10

On Fatalities, Accidents and Accident Prevention in Coal Mines: Colliers’ Safety Discourse in Oral Testimony from the Ruhr in Germany and the Witbank Collieries in South Africa

Paul Stewart and Dagmar Kift

Chapter 11

The state, labour conflicts and coal mining

Chris Wrigley

Chapter 12

This Land is My Land: Global Indigenous Struggles and the Adivasi Resistance in Muthanga (Kerala, India)

Pavithra Narayanan

Chapter 13

Black Gold and Environmental Enemy No. 1: Towards a Visual History of Coal

Stefan Siemer

Chapter 14

Environmental History and Global Mining: Towards a Neo-Materialist Approach

Timothy J. LeCain

Chapter 15

Mining Heritage

Stefan Berger

Index

Stefan Berger is the Director of the Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and Chairman of the Foundation History of the Ruhr.

Peter Alexander is the Director of the Centre for Social Change, University of Johannesburg, South Africa.