Preliminary Programme

Wed 12 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 13 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Fri 14 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 15 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00

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Thursday 13 April 2023 11.00 - 13.00
F-6 LAB20 The Representations of Labor as Bodily Experience: Senses, Spaces, Objects and Industrial Heritage in the Making
B24
Network: Labour Chair: Marta Kurkowska-Budzan
Organizer: Marta Kurkowska-Budzan Discussant: Agata Zysiak
Frank Meyer : The Ironworks as a Sensory Experience
The old ironworks, characterized by the use of charcoal and hydro energy, in addition to human labor and iron ore, were so much more than the blast furnaces. Indeed, the blast furnaces were spectacular, eye-catching phenomena, but when we think of the complex and diverse entity that an ironworks ... (Show more)
The old ironworks, characterized by the use of charcoal and hydro energy, in addition to human labor and iron ore, were so much more than the blast furnaces. Indeed, the blast furnaces were spectacular, eye-catching phenomena, but when we think of the complex and diverse entity that an ironworks actually was (mines, woods, charcoal piles, rivers to drive log and water wheels, hammer forges, ships etc.), there are numerous other sensory experiences to take into consideration.
How can one structure a museal tour concentrated on the sensuous experiences of the ironworks? One path is to go through the six senses and then think in different places along the production line, different social and gender positions.
The paper will explore the XIXth century ironworks as a sensory experience using the human senses as a structuring principle: The smells of the ironworks; The ironworks' views; The sound of the ironworks; The taste of the ironworks; The touch of the ironworks; The sense of temperature - heat and cold.
I will try to give examples of the varying sensory experience on the different steps of the commodity chain, taking other criteria, such as social structure and gender, into consideration. Surveys of visitors, including in-depth interviews according to a questionnaire shared with the one used in the research in Marta Kurkowska-Budzan's paper, will make it possible to determine how museum audiences today imagine manual labour in the XIXth century heavy industry, as well as what are the sources of this image. Are they rooted in some personal experience of manual labour or come from a family heritage ? If not, what is a possible museum narrative that translates the past bodily experience of labour into contemporary language? (Show less)

Jakub Muchowski, Marta Kurkowska-Budzan : The Coal Mining Heritage in the Making: Narratives of Bodily Experiences of Work
The deindustrialisation of Walbrzych (Poland) in the 1990s left a painful mark on the economic and social fabric of the city and its space. Negotiating the narrative of work as local heritage is difficult in such a context, as the society of the region is deeply traumatised and at the ... (Show more)
The deindustrialisation of Walbrzych (Poland) in the 1990s left a painful mark on the economic and social fabric of the city and its space. Negotiating the narrative of work as local heritage is difficult in such a context, as the society of the region is deeply traumatised and at the same time divided. The preserved material mining heritage in Walbrzych is mainly the buildings of the "Thorez" Coal Mine, revitalised in 2014: a complex of surface buildings and a residual underground infrastructure made available to visitors. Under the name of the "Old Mine" Science and Art Centre, several culture-forming institutions operate here. Among other things, the Centre conducts museum activities, but it is above all a platform that brings together initiatives, associations and individuals involved in establishing what the local mining heritage is.
Analysis of museum narratives, i.e.
a. the content of the permanent exhibition showing the functioning of the mine as a company, work in the mine and mining traditions
b. stories told by the guides - former employees of the mine
and interviews conducted with "Old Mine" employees (including expert interviews), interviews with activists from the miners' associations and participant observations have led, inter alia, to the conclusion that the process of heritagization of mining work in Walbrzych is largely bottom-up in nature, although obviously not universal. It is dominated by associations of miners. One of the main elements is the exclusion of women's work in the mining industry - which is the conclusion from the first part of the research.
Current fieldwork (2022) will complement analyses of museum representations by analyses of women's narratives. The interviewees are female department workers who had direct, physical contact with the mined raw material. Thus, their sensory experience was situated closest to what is considered 'miner's work' in the dominant heritage paradigm of coal mine work. They were workers in the processing plant, where the trolleys of coal went in a single transport line from underground. Like the miners' work underground, the work in the processing plant required a lot of physical effort, was noisy and dusty, and was only slightly automated.
Based on the above research and the ongoing fieldwork, these themes of the heritage of work as bodily experience will be discussed in the paper:
1. Modifying work tools to adapt them to one's own needs and relieve physical effort (in relation also to established factory norms); Narratives about the above in relation to museum representation (the objects on exhibits)
2. The post-industrial landscape (heaps, infrastructure) – in the workers’ narratives and in museum representations
3. The problem "How to tell the visitors about it?" - that troubles former mine workers (based on interviews with guides of “Old Mine” and visitors research) (Show less)

Anu Printsmann : Inner Workings of the Landscapes of Brown Gold
Oil-shale – or as it is often referred to – brown gold – was formed approximately 450 million years ago. This organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) has been used since ancient times as it can be burnt without processing. There are folk ... (Show more)
Oil-shale – or as it is often referred to – brown gold – was formed approximately 450 million years ago. This organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) has been used since ancient times as it can be burnt without processing. There are folk tales in Estonia how shepherds were throwing pieces of brown stones to the bonfire and found oil to be extracted. The other oft-repeated legend tells about burned down sauna as it was constructed from wrong material. Oil-shale industrial mining and chemical processing in Estonia started during the WWI as there was a scarcity of fuel. It has been called as the only natural resource Estonia possesses. Oil-shale is associated with Soviet period as Donbas-like conglomeration was formed. Nowadays Estonia is energy-independent but simultaneously as European “black sheep” of pollution.
This presentation will take a look behind these grand narratives, nitty-gritty details of work as bodily experience. While men were mainly occupied in underground mines of open-pit quarries, women had to sort oil-shale from limestone in processing plants – whereas close to 40 heaps of their “handicraft” now “enrich” the otherwise flat landscape. The representations of physical labour are studied in two museums dedicated to oil-shale: Kohtla-Järve Museum of Oil Shale and Estonian Mining Museum (with underground part). Oral histories will also touch the (unrealised) impact these workers had on landscape, making it anthropocenic. (Show less)

Kirsti Salmi-Niklander, Pete Pesonen : “Duck Lamps” and “Homers”. Changes and Continuities in the Oral Histories Related with Norms, Hierarchies and Tacit Knowledge in Högfors Ironworks during the 20th Century
We will explore the changes and continuities in the oral histories related with norms, hierarchies and tacit knowledge in industrial work. Our case study is Högfors ironworks, founded in 1820 on the Karjaanjoki river in southern Finland, which is the oldest still functioning ironworks in Finland. During the first decades ... (Show more)
We will explore the changes and continuities in the oral histories related with norms, hierarchies and tacit knowledge in industrial work. Our case study is Högfors ironworks, founded in 1820 on the Karjaanjoki river in southern Finland, which is the oldest still functioning ironworks in Finland. During the first decades of the 20th century, it expanded into the largest ironworks in Finland. The workers were mostly recruited from the countryside nearby, but during and after the Second World War, the recruitment was expanded to other parts of Finland.
In the early 20th century, the analysis is based on oral history collections and autobiographical texts. At the beginning of the 20th century, the ironworks was a very hierarchic and patriarchal community, young boys followed their fathers and elder brothers to the same department and learned the tacit knowledge of casting iron. The first apprentice piece of work for a foundry man was a “duck lamp”, an oil lamp which was used for lightning.
The late 20th century is explored through a collection of oral history interviews, which were made by students in 2021. Most of the interviewees had studied in the workshop school of the Högfors iroworks during the 1950s to the 1970s, and their work careers ranged from the 1950s to the early 2000s. Workshop school functioned from 1942 to 1977, and attracted young boys from different parts of the country. The interviews focused on “homers” and the norms and boundaries related with their production. A “homer” (firabeli in Finnish) is an object made for one’s own benefit by a worker using his or her factory's equipment and materials. The interviewees bring up the importance of “homers” in the process of learning the tacit knowledge related with the skills of foundry work. (Show less)



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