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

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

Some mines are reopening in southern Europe, and this decision may have political consequences. The EU-funded MINPOL project has studied this phenomenon by shedding light on the concept of industrial citizenship, within the context of the reindustrialisation of European rural societies. The MINPOL project has focused on the relationships between mining policies, expectations of employment and grassroot politics in times of economic crisis. Based on an ethnographic case study located in southwest Spain, the project focused on 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 sheds 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 has studied 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 contributes 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 has been conducted along three paths of investigation. 1. It has studied 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 has studied local impacts of mining revival policies. Moving from the industrial world and the work-scene to the surrounding villages, it has analysed 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 has scrutinized discrete processes of politicization that arise from ordinary sociality and (re)productive practices.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union