Sphere
There follows a series of images taken to represent concepts and experiences of the South Yorkshire former mining area. They are taken by the author and by other participants. The images feed into a key theme of the project turning around the importance of landscapes and histories. This remains important to identify, both historically and in the present, the distinctive geographical-historical nature of mining communities. This is so because it loomed large in any account of such localities, and thus the radical reconstruction of space/place is powerfully felt and experienced by those living within such areas - though there will be obvious generational imperatives to consider in this proposition. This is linked to the view that identity was (is) powerfully bound up, it seemed, with a strong sense of community/locality/region, and the pit village in many senses exemplifies this. We could make the argument with other industrial locations/landscapes too - textile towns in West Yorkshire - and from this is established, over time, a strong sense of identification with place, as well as the emergence of a set of assumptions, practices, discourses which work at a wider cultural and social level to define place, not only for those dwelling within, but for those on the outside. In this sense, places become inseparable from their representations, underlining the concept of 'narrative and cultural identity.'
The South Yorkshire Mining Region
In Britain the project examines the South Yorkshire coalfield. With Barnsley as its main town, this region covers some 127 square miles and has a population of 230, 000. It has mined coal for nearly 200 years. At the turn of the 1980s it contained 16 pits, employing 15,000 people.
South Yorkshire was never fully mono-industrial, however, with a manufacturing and industrial sector based around linen and glass making. But by 1994 virtually all of South Yorkshire's coalfields had been closed.
A highly distinctive history and industrial culture characterised the area, and South Yorkshire was at the heart of the year-long miners' strike to save jobs and communities in 1984-85, as well as the protests against the final wave of pit closures in 1991.
In this region the question of class cultures and community identity has long loomed large. Within Britain, notions of 'the North' as essentially industrial and proletarian and as the province of the working class run deep. Now much new work takes the form of call centres (see the picture below) or other service-related activities and by 2000 coal mining had all but disappeared. The same can be said for the nearby steel making industry concentrated around Sheffield.
The real absence for many, though, was the celebrated mining 'spirit' - one 'which had developed over generations, based on collectivism, kinship, advancement by co-operation rather than individuality' - and now the disappearance of the social and political institutions that nurtured and advance it. Work change, as the image below indicates, was central to re-forming community, region and notions of 'self.' We will return to this notion throughout the course of this study - below is an image that constitutes sight of new work.
Regeneration, heritage and the 'selective tradition': from market town to mining and back again?
Regeneration represents a process designed to transform the very fabric, the constitutive setting, of community identity. This means 're-imagining' community and place, 're-inventing' or 're-shaping' traditions and formations, through structural process of social, cultural and economic transformation.
Central and regional governement initiatives work to shape the process, marking its effects through narratives, both written and visual, as well as material changes in the economy. The following 'stories' here below show the 'old' and the 'new'; the historic shift from production to consumption.
Traditions might sit uneasily now with the above sign of consumption, and the following architectural image of what might represent the new town. Thus Barnsley's mining past is not the tradition that helps constitute its current identity. Yet the past - as the messages below suggest - can never simply fade, or be re-fashioned. This perspective will be explored in greater depth throughout the life-course of the project.
