TY - JOUR
T1 - “Coal [from Colombia] is our life”. Bourdieu, the miners (after they are miners) and resistance in As Pontes.
AU - Perez-Sindin, Xaquin
AU - Van Assche, Kristof
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - We address the question why social identities associated with resource extraction can survive the extraction itself, a question which is highly relevant for devising strategies for economic diversification and community reinvention in many communities. The case of As Pontes, in Galicia, Spain, where a rural community transformed into a power house of coal mining and electricity production, as part of state-led development schemes, is highly instructive, as it reveals the importance of state planning and a central actor which structured social, political and economic life, and created identities which could not easily be dislodged. We deploy notions from Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of practice to analyze the persistence of identities and associated hopes for an impossible return to the past, giving central place to the idea of symbolic violence, i.e. the internalization of categories, identities and relations initially promoted by a coalition of actors benefiting from this order of the social field.
AB - We address the question why social identities associated with resource extraction can survive the extraction itself, a question which is highly relevant for devising strategies for economic diversification and community reinvention in many communities. The case of As Pontes, in Galicia, Spain, where a rural community transformed into a power house of coal mining and electricity production, as part of state-led development schemes, is highly instructive, as it reveals the importance of state planning and a central actor which structured social, political and economic life, and created identities which could not easily be dislodged. We deploy notions from Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of practice to analyze the persistence of identities and associated hopes for an impossible return to the past, giving central place to the idea of symbolic violence, i.e. the internalization of categories, identities and relations initially promoted by a coalition of actors benefiting from this order of the social field.
U2 - 10.1016/j.resourpol.2021.102006
DO - 10.1016/j.resourpol.2021.102006
M3 - Journal article
VL - 71
JO - Resources Policy
JF - Resources Policy
SN - 0301-4207
M1 - 102006
ER -