Industrial representations of Belgian Limburg miners in the 1950s: labour, everyday life, and corporate culture

The aim of this paper is the analysis of the photographic representations of (Belgian) Limburg Miners in the 1950s, in view to learn about the changing (mining) community and shrinking labor Market at that time. Specific attention will be paid to the so-called industrial representations of these miners, taking different levels of the workers' life into account (everyday life, labor and industrial welfare) (Margolis, 1998). A historical and visual content analysis (quantitative and qualitative) (Van Leeuwen & Jewitt, 2001; Januarius, 2008) of the pictures of the various corporate magazines, jubilee issues and union magazines will be conducted. Not only the differences between the corporations and the unions, but also the specific emphasizes of each Mining settlement will be tackled. Questions on the visualizations (How were the miners depicted? What about the context? And what does this mean?) of miners will thus be answered. This analysis will contribute to our understanding of, on the one hand, the changing corporate culture(s) in the 1950s and, on the other hand, the specific (physical) representation(s) of miners and their community (Geary 2005). Furthermore, this paper can be situated in the developing fields of a visualizing social history (Jäger, 2009), media history (Heller, 2009) and a cultural approach of business history (Heller, 2008; Rowlinson & Delahaye, 2009).

ISBN:978-1907240256

Publication year:2011

Keywords:photographs, industrial, mining, representation