This workshop aims to ethnographically explore the production and effects of mining and
miners’ representations in different geographical and historical contexts. It will focus on the
ways in which stereotypes (and ideal types) contribute to create the conditions for economic
and political exclusion in mining areas.
By exploring the overlaps and discrepancies between dominant representations of mining (in
popular, political or media discourses, and scientific literature) and miners' actual practices
and self-perceptions, contributions will examine the ways in which specific social images of
mining are produced. These representations, in turn, produce social and material
consequences, ranging from the marginalisation or stigmatisation of miners and mining
communities to the legitimation of new forms of global extraction as “local” or “traditional”
practices.
This workshop will not only examine the discursive level of mining representations but will
also consider their material effects on mining as a practice. The aim is to provide new insights
into the anthropology of mining and foster a critical understanding to support transformative
interventions benefiting local mining communities involved in or affected by mining activities.
We invite ethnographically grounded papers and methodological reflection related but not
limited to the following themes:
1.Ethnography of mine workers: practices, self-perceptions and social representations.
2.Cross-historical and geographical comparisons of mining imaginaries and practices.
3.Post-mining and labour as cultural heritage.
4.Narratives related to mining and miners in visual media and literature.
5.Artistic and art-activist creations and collaborations with mining communities.
6.Politics of institutional or hegemonic representations of mining.
7.New frontiers: representing space, arctic, deep-sea mining.
19-20/09/2025
DIGGING INTO STEREOTYPES
Re-thinking mining
representations and practices
19-20/09/2025
Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy