98 research outputs found
“The strategic wolf hidden beneath the clothing of the economic sheep”? Tin and the strategizing of raw materials
No full textTin provides a particularly telling illustration of how the interactions of business and governments shape the evolution of the global economic trade; the tin industry has experienced extensive state intervention during times of war, encompasses intense competition and cartelization, and has seen industry centers both thrive and fail in the wake of decolonization. The history of the international tin industry reveals the complex interactions and interdependencies between local actors and international networks, decolonization and globalization, as well as government foreign policies and entrepreneurial tactics. This chapter discusses tin and the strategizing of raw materials
“The path of civilization is paved with tin cans”: The political economy of the global tin industry.
No full textTransgressing the moral economy: Wheelerism and management of the nationalised coal industry in Scotland
No full textThis article illuminates the links between managerial style and political economy in post-1945 Britain, and explores the origins of the 1984–1985 miners' strike, by examining in longer historical context the abrasive attitudes and policies of Albert Wheeler, Scottish Area Director of the National Coal Board (NCB). Wheeler built on an earlier emphasis on production and economic criteria, and his micro-management reflected pre-existing centralising tendencies in the industries. But he was innovative in one crucial aspect, transgressing the moral economy of the Scottish coalfield, which emphasised the value of economic security and changes by joint industrial agreement
Industrial clustering in a peripheral region: Path dependence and creation in the Scottish Highlands
No full textNo abstract available
The mine management professions in the twentieth century scottish coal mining industry
No full textThis book seeks to redress the exclusion of colliery managers and other mining professionals from the history of British, and particularly Scottish, coal industries. This is accomplished by examining these groups within the most crucial period of their ascendancy in the Scottish coal mining industry, 1930-1966. This work seeks to place such persons within their context and to examine their roles, statuses and behaviours through their relationships with employees and the execution of their functions, also examining their terms and conditions of employment, the outlook of their professional associations, and that of their union. Through all this, Dr. Perchard illustrates how this growing consciousness amongst managerial employees in the industry was accompanied by an intense public discussion, within the mining professions, over their future shape, principles and occupational standards
‘Land and empire: politics and the British aluminium company’ : Paper to the European Business Association Conference, Glasgow
No full textFor much of the twentieth-century, aluminium producers enjoyed a close relationship with national governments, not least as prominent players in military-industrial complexes (for example, Anderson 1951; Smith 1988; Grinberg and Hachez-Leroy 1997). This paper explores the ideological motivations and political activities of senior figures within Britain’s dominant native aluminium producer for much of the twentieth-century, the British Aluminium Company Ltd. (BACo), drawing on work by the author (Perchard 2007, 2010). As a company self-styled as ‘the Service’, support within BACo for imperial priorities and patrician values was sustained both by commercial imperatives as well as the social and cultural background of many of the directors (until the 1960s), amongst them hereditary landowners, retired senior military officers and latterly senior civil servants. This paper will examine the political activities of directors collectively and individually through their engagement with power elites (Mills 1956). In particular, it will focus upon the areas of imperial defence, and regional development in the Scottish Highlands (where BACo’s main smelters were based), to illustrate how their involvement in political activities and social networks was both self-serving and governed by instinctive values. In so doing it will also comment upon the ‘revolving door’ between public and private spheres. While calling into question the general application of the notion of a ‘gentlemanly capitalist’ order, this paper accords with Larry Butler’s view of imperial mining concerns and the British metropolitan government’s priorities during decolonization that: ‘it may, rather, be more accurate to speak of temporary convergences of interest’ (Butler 2007: 477; Cain and Hopkins 1987)
Revisiting the history of the British coal industry: the politics of legacy, memory and heritage
No full textThis paper revisits the history of the British coal industry in the context of deindustrialisation, ruptures in electoral politics, and attempts by former miners to preserve a mining past. Methodologically it draws on an oral history project that involved over 100 participants in England, Scotland and Wales. The life stories conveyed by the former miners provide entry points to various aspects of the industrial, social and cultural life of coal communities. The specific focus here is on the ways in which the miners themselves are striving to create and curate their own stories and experiences through localheritage projects in the town of Leigh in north west England and the former mining villages of the north Wales coast. The interviews are indicative of the sense of the isolation they continue to experience in the contemporary economic context of deindustrialisation and challenges to their sense of class, community and nation. Tensions between former miners and the wider social and political culture of their communities hinge on narratives and histo- ries of the 1984/5 miners’ strike. Heritage projects developed in both localities have become battlegrounds for what kind of history should be presented to the public, where memorials should be located, and which memories and experiences should be preserved. Miners who took part in the strike understandably want to centre their histories and narratives through the lens of 1984/5, while those who continued to work through the dispute argue that it should be given a more marginal position in commemoration and heritage. The interviews offer more complex read- ings of the social and cultural politics of the coal industry and challenge some of the prevailing orthodoxies in the historiography
‘“Broken Men” and “Thatcher’s Children”: memory and legacy in the Scottish coalfields : Paper to the Working Class Studies Association Conference, Chicago
No full textIn 1939, Scottish deep coal-mining employed 90,000 workers. Nationalization of the British coal industry in 1947 renewed hope for the future of coal, and new developments a sense of optimism in the industry’s permanence on the economic landscape of post-war Scotland. Over the next four decades the industry shed 70,000 jobs, over a third of these lost between the mid-1950s and 1964 (Knox 1999; Perchard 2007). What remained of the industry was subject to stringent and far-reaching cuts over the next twenty years, with Scotland’s last deep coal mine closing in 2002. As a recent review of the activities of the principal regeneration body for the coalfields observed, the contraction of this industry continues to cast a long shadow over former coalfield communities across Scotland (EKOS 2009). The two characterisations of the legacy of the contraction, and disappearance, of Scotland’s deep coal-mining industry – ‘broken men’ and ‘Thatcher’s children’ – are indicative of a number of dominant narratives, capturing its contested legacy. Redolent in these testimonies are the scars of past conflict and occupational injuries and disease, and the ambivalence and powerlessness over the loss of a workplace and culture, so evident in other areas affected by industrial closures (e.g. Strangleman 2001; Linkon and Russo 2002), suffusing personal and collective narratives. This paper will examine the long-term legacy of the contraction of the industry, with a particular emphasis on how this has been experienced alongside the construction of group and individual memories, as well as its effect on Scottish national consciousness
"Broken men" and "Thatcher's children": Memory and legacy in Scotland's coalfields
No full textThis article explores the legacy of the demise of the deep coal mining industry in Scotland. It places particular emphasis on the cultural scars of this process as witnessed through miners' and managers' memories, positioning these within the context of occupational socialization, conflict, and alienation. The piece explores the enduring importance of these cultural scars in shaping broader collective narratives of decline in Scotland, and how responses were manifest in shifting political outlooks and the emergence (at both a local and national level) of a resurgent nationalism from the early 1960s onward. Drawing on the notion of the cultural circuit, the article examines how and why personal experience of the loss of the coal industry informed and conformed to the politics of the miners' union in Scotland, the National Union of Mineworkers Scottish Area (NUMSA). As the article makes clear, the program of closures in the industry has left profound psychological scars in coalfield communities - ones that, like the closure of other major industrial sites, shape a powerful national narrative. Copyright © 2013 International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc
Stealing our identity and taking It over to Ireland : deindustrialization, resistance, and gender in Scotland
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