From mining policy to grassroot politics. Industrial citizenship in times of crisis

Descrizione del progetto

Essere un cittadino industriale oggi

Nell’Europa del sud, alcune miniere stanno riaprendo e questa decisione potrebbe avere conseguenze di carattere politico. Il progetto MINPOL, finanziato dall’UE, si propone di studiare questo fenomeno facendo luce sul concetto di cittadinanza industriale, nel contesto della reindustrializzazione delle società rurali europee. Il progetto studierà la politica mineraria spagnola, ponendo l’accento su un caso di studio nel sud-ovest della Spagna. Inoltre, analizzerà l’impatto locale delle politiche sulla ripresa delle attività di estrazione. Per valutare la politicizzazione della popolazione potenzialmente derivante dalla riapertura delle miniere, MINPOL indagherà su spazi pubblici, associazioni e azioni collettive.

Obiettivo

Addressing a recent trend of mine reopening in southern Europe, the project will analyse the relationships between mining
policies, expectations of employment and grassroot politics in times of economic crisis. On the basis of an ethnographic case
study located in southwest Spain, the project will study mining revival from policy-making to its local impact on working-class
families involved in the re-opening of a historical mine.
The MINPOL project aims at shedding an innovative light on how economic and political order is produced, maintained but
also challenged locally. Drawing upon the concept of “industrial citizenship”, which stresses the role of industry in the
constitution of political subjects, on the work scene and beyond, this project will study political subjectivities arising from
hopes of re-industrialization in European rural societies. Beyond the specificities of the economic sector and of the
geographic setting, this research will contribute to the study of grassroots politics, emphasizing the prevalent importance of
work while questioning how the economic policies in times of crisis transform the way (un)employment shapes daily life and
subjectivation processes.
The project will be conducted along three paths of investigation.
1. It will study Spanish mining policy, analysing the appropriation of economic doctrines from European to local scale,
paying particular attention to the diffusion of policy narratives and devices.
2. Focusing on (former) miners’ families, the project will study local impacts of mining revival policies. Moving from the
industrial world and the work-scene to the surrounding villages, it will analyse the renewed importance of mining industry in
production and reproduction practices, and its influence on social identities.
3. Investigating public spaces, associations and collective action, it will scrutinize discrete processes of politicization
that arise from ordinary sociality and (re)productive practices.