This article discusses how changes in male-dominated work are connected to changes in gender constructions in the workplaces. The discussion is based on results from research conducted 2001–2021, mainly qualitative empirical studies of mine work. Although the development of the mining industry will not be as technologically deterministic and rapid as the usual dystopian and utopian visions predict, our research shows that there has already been changes that have affected mine work and workplaces. These changes have challenged the old, gendered mining workplace cultures and the implementation of new technology and reorganisation initially met resistance in the workplace. Workplace cultures seemed to be lagging behind in their acceptance of technological and organizational changes. The resistance was shaped in relation to intertwined masculinities and miner identities linked to the old ‘macho masculin-ity’, a form of local hegemonic masculinity built upon overarching myths and discourses about both mining and rural communities. The subsequent changes of mining work resulted in new gender encodings of the new technology and the new spaces of work – which created new organisational gender boundaries and new forms of inequality. At the same time, there are new forms of masculinities and feminini-ties emerging in mining organizations, which can provide openings for gender equality. Although mine work continues to be male dominated, we can see that new places, new technology, improved work environment and increased gender equality seem to imply that it has become difficult to preserve the old (‘macho’) miner masculinity and to maintain the gender marking of mining work as male and the image of the miner as male.
As of now, the ‘green transition’ and the acceleration of new digital technologies implemented in mine work is beginning to shape the industrial workplaces of northern Sweden. The discourses of “green” and “technological transformation” are permeated by gendered preconceptions, by some expected to reshape the masculine workplace of the mine. Yet, our conclusion is that transformation of gendered structures in mining is not foremost dependent of technological change. Rather, we have seen complex connections between gender, technology, work and place for these male-dominated industrial workplaces, including processes of both stability and change, suggesting that changes in workplaces does not only challenge but also reproduce and reconfigure gender-based preconceptions and social constructions of gender.
