From coal not to ashes but to what? As Pontes, social memory and the concentration problem
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From coal not to ashes but to what? As Pontes, social memory and the concentration problem. / Perez-Sindin, Xaquin; Van Assche, Kristof .
I: The Extractive Industries and Society, Bind 7, Nr. 3, 2020, s. 882-891.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - From coal not to ashes but to what? As Pontes, social memory and the concentration problem
AU - Perez-Sindin, Xaquin
AU - Van Assche, Kristof
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Based on quantitative and qualitative data on the former mining community of As Pontes, Spain, where boom took place in the 70’s to 90’s, we develop a contribution to the literature on social impact of natural resource booms by bringing in notions from governance and social memory theories. Mining was always contested in As Pontes, eroded old rural economy, wiped out and depopulated villages, while it led to higher crime rate and less social cohesion. The effects of the bust were buffered by a strong welfare state, and a power plant, which now imported coal, but still employed hundreds of locals. Despite the not glorious past and despite the not terribly dramatic present, we still find deep nostalgia and other features observed in places where boom provoked less resistance and bust was more dramatic. Thus, a rigid ‘industrial’ identity structured governance, nostalgia for the ‘good’ times dominated, a rather passive attitude towards reinvention, waiting for the next boom. We further the concentration problem concept and link it to erasure of institutional, cognitive and material infrastructures of memory. Material and discursive links to the past are erased, and a monofunctional landscape and community offers less cohesion and fewer options for reinvention
AB - Based on quantitative and qualitative data on the former mining community of As Pontes, Spain, where boom took place in the 70’s to 90’s, we develop a contribution to the literature on social impact of natural resource booms by bringing in notions from governance and social memory theories. Mining was always contested in As Pontes, eroded old rural economy, wiped out and depopulated villages, while it led to higher crime rate and less social cohesion. The effects of the bust were buffered by a strong welfare state, and a power plant, which now imported coal, but still employed hundreds of locals. Despite the not glorious past and despite the not terribly dramatic present, we still find deep nostalgia and other features observed in places where boom provoked less resistance and bust was more dramatic. Thus, a rigid ‘industrial’ identity structured governance, nostalgia for the ‘good’ times dominated, a rather passive attitude towards reinvention, waiting for the next boom. We further the concentration problem concept and link it to erasure of institutional, cognitive and material infrastructures of memory. Material and discursive links to the past are erased, and a monofunctional landscape and community offers less cohesion and fewer options for reinvention
KW - Faculty of Science
KW - coal mining
KW - memory and forgetting
KW - memory, collective
KW - RESOURCES
KW - social impacts
KW - Environmental impacts
KW - Identity
KW - Space Perception/physiology
KW - spatial perception
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - coal mining
KW - memory and forgetting
KW - social impacts
KW - Environmental impacts
KW - identity
KW - Space Perception
KW - Space Perception/physiology
U2 - 10.1016/j.exis.2020.07.016
DO - 10.1016/j.exis.2020.07.016
M3 - Journal article
VL - 7
SP - 882
EP - 891
JO - The Extractive Industries and Society
JF - The Extractive Industries and Society
SN - 2214-790X
IS - 3
ER -
ID: 237515277