_________________________________________________________________________Swansea University E-Theses "Still a mining community": Gender and change in the Upper Dulais Valley." Jones, Stephanie How to cite: _________________________________________________________________________ Jones, Stephanie (1997) "Still a mining community": Gender and change in the Upper Dulais Valley.". thesis, Swansea University. http://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa42484 Use policy: _________________________________________________________________________ This item is brought to you by Swansea University. Any person downloading material is agreeing to abide by the terms of the repository licence: copies of full text items may be used or reproduced in any format or medium, without prior permission for personal research or study, educational or non-commercial purposes only. The copyright for any work remains with the original author unless otherwise specified. The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holder. Permission for multiple reproductions should be obtained from the original author. Authors are personally responsible for adhering to copyright and publisher restrictions when uploading content to the repository. Please link to the metadata record in the Swansea University repository, Cronfa (link given in the citation reference above.) http://www.swansea.ac.uk/library/researchsupport/ris-support/ "STILL A MINING COMMUNITY": GENDER AND CHANGE IN THE UPPER DULAIS VALLEY Thesis submitted for PhD Examination Stephanie Jones University of Wales Swansea ProQuest Number: 10801714 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10801714 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 DECLARATION AND STATEMENTS DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed (candidate) D ate .................. STATEMENT 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged in brackets and by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed (candidate) D ate ........................................................... STATEMENT 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed (candidate) D ate ............................................................. Sum m ary This ethnographic study of a former mining community in the upper Dulais valley explores how major structural changes, in terms of employment opportunities and socio-economic conditions, have impacted on the everyday lives of the villagers, with particular reference to gender relationships and identities. Evidence of the structural changes is presented, and relevant feminist literature which attempts to explain gender divisions is discussed to contextualise the data, which was gathered during twelve months' fieldwork carried out between 1994 and 1995, ten years after the major miners' strike and five years after the last pit in the valley closed. Methodological, epistemological and ethical questions are raised concerning the values of doing anthropology at home, and an argument is made for the need to acknowledge the reflexive and analytical capabilities of the subjects of research, and the contribution which they make to the final academic project, in this case the ethnography. Utilising the notion of habitus, it is suggested that the practices of everyday life were operating to maintain the identity of the village as a mining community, and that this was facilitated by the retention of traditional gender segregation and identities, albeit that these identities were expressed in a modified form after pit closure. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my long-suffiring supervisor, Dr Nickie Charles, for her excellent supervision and encouragement throughout the research process. I would also like to thank the other nembers of staff and postgraduate students at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Wales, Swansea who have provided intellectual and moral support. Thanks also to my family, which has always providec emotional and material sustenance beyond the call of duty. I will never be able to thank Tim Davies enough, as he has always been there for me and beenprepared to share the good times and the bad. The research could not have been (arried out at all without the bursary provided by the University of Wales, Swansea, for which I am very grateful, and of course the co-operation of the people of the community in which the research was conducted. This thesis is dedicated to them, with special thanks to Carol and George. Table of Contents Pagel Introduction Page5 Chapter 1: Contextualising communities and gender divisions Page25 Chapter 2: Concepts considered Page51 Chapter 3: Methodological applications and applicability Page69 Chapter 4: Setting the scene Page88 Chapter 5: "Fitting in" in Blaengwyn Pagel29 Chapter 6: "Fitting in" and not "fitting in" in Blaengwyn Pagel44 Chapter 7: Projecting their voices: the interviews Page 180 Chapter 8: The ethnographic metaphor Page 201 Chapter 9: Conclusions Page 220 Appendix 1: Questionnaire Pag* 222 Appendix 2: Transcript of radio programme Pagt 239 Appendix 3: Summary of social networks Page 242 Bibliography Introduction When I decided that I wanted to undertake postgraduate research in anthropology, mentors from my undergraduate days sensibly advised me that when writing a thesis, it was a good idea to choose something which would be personally interesting enough to engage the researcher for the whole period of research and beyond, through the high and low points of a gruelling process. With this advice in mind, I decided to do research in Wales, my home country, as I knew that I wanted to do "anthropology at home", and as a feminist, I knew that I had to make gender my main focus of study. When I read about a university being set up in a former mining community in south Wales inThe Guardian of 1 December 1992, the article by Francis Beckett attracted my attention as the village featured, Blaengwyn, in the Dulais valley, seemed to be an ideal location for my research. The article outlined the development of the Community University of the Valleys, an initiative of the Department of Adult Continuing Education at Swansea University. It was suggested that new educational opportunities were being made available to a community devastated by unemployment following pit closure, and that women who had supported miners during the strike were facilitating these opportunities through the DOVE workshops which had been set up to provide vocational training courses for local women. Beckett cited the 1991 Labour Force Survey predictions that by the year 2000, 24% of men in Wales aged 15 to 65 "will either be retired or have simply given up hope of ever working again" (Beckett, 1992). My attention was engaged by the possibilities for research in the village. I was interested in how the DOVE workshops had been set up, what impact the Community University might have in the area, and what effect the 1984-5 1 miners' strike had had on the village. All three events could be argued to be about changing gender relations in the wake of the decline of the mining industry. I hoped to be able to explore how major structural changes are translated into everyday life by carrying out research in an area previously associated with heavy industry. Clearly changes were going on, as demonstrated by the establishment of the DOVE workshops and the Community University, but I was interested to see whether these impacted on the everyday lives of people in the village, and if so, to what extent. Becketf s article implied major changes in the village in the wake of the 1984-5 strike and local pit closure, and I wanted to explore whether things had changed as much as people claimed. Beckett noted that during the strike, many women became politically active outside the home, organising food distribution, attending and speaking at rallies, and picketing. Men on strike often stayed at home to look after their children while their wives were involved in such activities. Jean Stead (1987) claims that this role-reversal in mining communities is irrevocable, and that gender relations will never return to the traditional sharply segregated roles apparent before the strike. Waddington et al (1990) however, maintain that enthusiasm for political change, especially in terms of gender relations, endured within these groups only as long as the strike and that they are now back to pre-strike conditions. However, the women's group established in the Dulais valley during the strikeis still active in running the DOVE Centre. The strike therefore seemed to give a taste of what life would be like in the village after what it was trying to prevent, pit closure, happened. I wanted to see how the closure of the main local industry, the industry which defined what the community was, a "mining community", would affect day to day activity in that community. I was particularly interested in gender relations and gender 2 identities, and how these might have changed since pit closure. I thought that these identities might be tied up with local identity too, and since the village was known as a mining community, and therefore had a certain masculine identity through its association with men's work, I thought it would be interesting to explore how the demise of the dominant male industry locally affected gender and community identities.