Interpreting Personalized Industrial Heritage in the Mining Towns of Cumberland County, Nova Scotia: Landscape Examples from Springhill and River Hebert
Abstract:As analysis of deindustrialization shifts from economic processes to community response, public landscapes become the locus for the struggle over memory. The interpretation of collective memory has been considered through oral histories, worker narratives, and public art. Missing from this analysis, however, are the personalized landscapes that also contribute to the understanding of industrial heritage in deindustrializing cities and small towns. This article considers a small number of artifacts and construc… Show more
“…Relict mining landscapes can be viewed as cemeteries of a dead industrial past – of toil, burden and sacrifice. Reshaping of the land surface by the process and by-products of mining gives rise to a ‘non-natural’ landscape, one that has a complex relationship with individual and collective cultural identity (Storm and Olsson, 2013; Summerby-Murray, 2007), degree of landscape change and ‘landscape memory’ (Skaloš and Kašparová, 2012; Wheeler, 2014), and metal-containing rocks as an emblem of the ‘more-than-human’ world of elemental Earth forces (Gibbs, 2009; King and Nic Eoin, 2014; Salas Carreño, 2017). As such, mining landscapes have similar physical and non-physical properties to formal cemeteries and grave sites.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The latter are also contested landscapes because they contain multiple layers of meaning as public, private, ideological, symbolic, ritualistic, and political spaces (Ashley, 2016;Graham et al, 2015;Jenkings et al, 2012;Kalinowska, 2012;Klaufus, 2016). Most studies of mining heritage focus on the built environment (Liesch, 2016;Pashkevich, 2017;Storm and Olsson, 2013), but fewer studies exist on workers' narratives and cultural memory (Laviolette and Baird, 2011;Summerby-Murray, 2007;Wheeler, 2014). In addition, several studies have discussed landscape and identity in South African mining regions (Bobbins and Trangoš, 2018;Bremner, 2013;Mbembe, 2004) and specifically in Johannesburg, where the city was founded and then grew on the basis of the economic power levered by the exploitation of mineral resources (Bremner, 2000a;Knight, 2018;Limpitlaw and Briel, 2014).…”
Section: Mines and Graves: Contested Landscapes Of Death And Remembrancementioning
Mined landscapes represent the exploitation of Earth’s resources, but they also provide evidence for the unequal power relations and changing attitudes to resource use (including both geology and human beings as resources) within mining communities and their surrounding political and economic contexts. This study explores the impacts that gold mining has had on the landscapes of Johannesburg, South Africa, with particular reference to how land used for Black mineworkers’ cemeteries was reclaimed and used to store mine waste. The study describes how the uncovering of an early 20th century cemetery site beneath a mine waste dump poses questions on the meaning and significance of the dead in the urban industrial landscape. The deliberate burial and then accidental rediscovery of these bodies some 100 years later is a significant metaphor for the reinterpretation of racialised urban landscapes in South Africa.
“…Relict mining landscapes can be viewed as cemeteries of a dead industrial past – of toil, burden and sacrifice. Reshaping of the land surface by the process and by-products of mining gives rise to a ‘non-natural’ landscape, one that has a complex relationship with individual and collective cultural identity (Storm and Olsson, 2013; Summerby-Murray, 2007), degree of landscape change and ‘landscape memory’ (Skaloš and Kašparová, 2012; Wheeler, 2014), and metal-containing rocks as an emblem of the ‘more-than-human’ world of elemental Earth forces (Gibbs, 2009; King and Nic Eoin, 2014; Salas Carreño, 2017). As such, mining landscapes have similar physical and non-physical properties to formal cemeteries and grave sites.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The latter are also contested landscapes because they contain multiple layers of meaning as public, private, ideological, symbolic, ritualistic, and political spaces (Ashley, 2016;Graham et al, 2015;Jenkings et al, 2012;Kalinowska, 2012;Klaufus, 2016). Most studies of mining heritage focus on the built environment (Liesch, 2016;Pashkevich, 2017;Storm and Olsson, 2013), but fewer studies exist on workers' narratives and cultural memory (Laviolette and Baird, 2011;Summerby-Murray, 2007;Wheeler, 2014). In addition, several studies have discussed landscape and identity in South African mining regions (Bobbins and Trangoš, 2018;Bremner, 2013;Mbembe, 2004) and specifically in Johannesburg, where the city was founded and then grew on the basis of the economic power levered by the exploitation of mineral resources (Bremner, 2000a;Knight, 2018;Limpitlaw and Briel, 2014).…”
Section: Mines and Graves: Contested Landscapes Of Death And Remembrancementioning
Mined landscapes represent the exploitation of Earth’s resources, but they also provide evidence for the unequal power relations and changing attitudes to resource use (including both geology and human beings as resources) within mining communities and their surrounding political and economic contexts. This study explores the impacts that gold mining has had on the landscapes of Johannesburg, South Africa, with particular reference to how land used for Black mineworkers’ cemeteries was reclaimed and used to store mine waste. The study describes how the uncovering of an early 20th century cemetery site beneath a mine waste dump poses questions on the meaning and significance of the dead in the urban industrial landscape. The deliberate burial and then accidental rediscovery of these bodies some 100 years later is a significant metaphor for the reinterpretation of racialised urban landscapes in South Africa.
“…This re-management is also an aspect of the conservation efforts. Restoring sites damaged by mining activities involves the preservation of historical values [22]. It becomes undoubtedly interesting because, in addition to benefitting from nature, mining tourism also offers memorable knowledge that serves as an identity of the city while restoring the paralyzed social life.…”
Section: B Rejuvenation Of the Former Mining Area: Efforts To Revive ...mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…It becomes undoubtedly interesting because, in addition to benefitting from nature, mining tourism also offers memorable knowledge that serves as an identity of the city while restoring the paralyzed social life. It also means the redevelopment of the industrial mining area, which originated from previous activities [2], [22].…”
Section: B Rejuvenation Of the Former Mining Area: Efforts To Revive ...mentioning
The defunct coal mining industries have turned into slums, and abandoned by its inhabitants, thereby leaving behind a damaged environment with complex social problems. However, in Sawahlunto, Indonesia, abandoned and damaged coal mining industries can be rejuvenated into productive areas that are an environmentally friendly and exciting place to visit. Therefore, this research aims to analyze processes and the various techniques used to rejuvenate the abandoned coal mining area located at Sawahlunto, Indonesia, into an industrial heritage site. The process also acts as a solution to overcoming the environmental threat and social problems associated with the defunct coal mining industry area. This study used qualitative research methods, with data primarily collected through observations and in-depth interviews. Furthermore, in-depth interviews were conducted on various city stakeholders with adequate knowledge of the process and its impact on the rejuvenation of the former coal mining industry area in Sawahlunto. The results showed that the rejuvenation of the former coal mining industry as an industrial heritage site has proven to be the right strategy to generate productivity and restore hope to local communities living around the area. The rejuvenation of the former mining area was also the primary factor driving the city's regeneration. It helped ensure that the area is not turned into slums or deserted by the inhabitants. Currently, Sawahlunto has grown into a highly-valued coal mining heritage city in Indonesia and has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
“…(p. 152)Across deindustrialized landscapes, material and architectural remains of, for example, factories, mills, and headstocks act as sites of memory for former workers and their families, “physical reminders of industrial production and decline, and of the lives which were connected to these spaces” (Mah, , p. 402). Many investigating the invocations of deindustrialized landscapes have highlighted how industrial ruins engender senses of loss, mourning, and the death of industrial ways of life (Hill, ; Mah, , ; Strangleman, ; Summerby‐Murray, ). In this regard, as Lars Meier () has stated, “the strong emotions evoked by encounters with former workplaces, now shut down or completely transformed, can be compared to a grieving process” (p. 475).…”
Section: Reading Deindustrialized Landscapes and Materialities Of Memorymentioning
Sections of the post‐industrial working‐class have made a notable return to media and political discourses in the context of the rise of populism across Europe and the United States. These narratives, which exclude women and BAME working‐class people, suggests the (white, male) working‐class are angry and resentful of being left behind by increasingly globalized political economies, nostalgic for the industrial ordering of work, home, and community. It seems that the political and media establishment are, selectively, understanding what has long been realized by researchers of deindustrialization. In the first, this paper surveys and critiques recent discourses on the post‐industrial working‐classes. The paper then traces the development of industrial ruination as an interdisciplinary area of academic focus, highlighting the themes of memory and temporal factors that have come to dominate the literature. The next section reviews contestations surrounding the affordances of landscapes and industrial ruins for the analysis of memory and history. Finally, the paper proposes interrelated ways to advance future study which historical–cultural geographers are well placed to carry forward. Here, I call for greater attention toward the affective and embodied dimensions of classed experience and the intersectionalities of race and gender in working‐class subjectivities. Further, I suggest there is an imperative to a deeper understanding of constitutive “affective” histories to mediate enduring social inequalities and their political and socially divisive mobilizations.
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