The mining culture in the Alps. Self-representation of the professional category of miners

This volume takes up some themes already addressed in a previous book of mine, which however enriches and carries out a profound reworking based on new field research, on the refinement of some more recent analytical approaches and on an indispensable bibliographic update. This book is the result of a broad historical-anthropological research activity that has been going on for several years and that uses the notion of “mine” as an interpretative tool to bring out both the distinctive characteristics of an Alpine mining culture and to question the extent to which Alpine mining contexts can be correlated to more widespread and attested cultural models for mining populations in other parts of the world, even distant ones. The research in this book is guided by two main questions: How was the management and organisation of mining influenced by political and economic factors in different historical periods? Is it possible to confirm the existence of specific cultural expressions for mining? Despite their differences, the two questions in this book complement each other. In order to provide an adequate answer to these research questions, this study was conducted on the basis of precise methodological choices. Mining districts were selected that were influential sites for the development of mining in the Alpine region, but which have been little studied in historical-anthropological research. Based on archival research and ethnographic work, this book examines both the socio-economic aspects of some mining sites in the Alps and the cultural repertoires of the miners, which include productions of intangible culture that are not traceable in specific areas but extend across the entire Alpine region and are configured as specific to this occupational group.