‘That rather sinful city of London’: the coal miner, the city and the country in the British cultural imagination, c. 1969–2014
‘That rather sinful city of London’: the coal miner, the city and the country in the British cultural imagination, c. 1969–2014
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“伦敦那个罪恶之城”：英国文化想象中的煤矿工人、城市和乡村，约 1969 年至 2014 年
作者：
Jörg Arnold
摘要本文的出发点是，在当代英国的文化想象中，煤矿工人的形象往往被视为反城市和有机主义品质的体现，而在欧洲大陆，这种品质更常见于农民。借鉴雷蒙德威廉姆斯的理论见解，本文追溯了这种“感觉结构”的谱系，追溯到1984/85年矿工罢工的时候，再回到20世纪70年代。它认为，“农村化”的矿工是一个想象中的一个复杂的权力斗争的“真实的”身份的矿工之间进行的行业和国家，全国矿工工会（NUM）和国家煤炭委员会（NCB），而且，至关重要的是，在NUM本身。“乡村化”是由工会激进分子极力推动的，他们试图取代由煤炭委员会和工会温和派共同倡导的另一种愿景，这种愿景将矿工牢牢地置于工业现代化的核心。只是在1984/85年罢工中矿工失败之后，以及随后对这次罢工进行文化改造期间，这种结构才最终占据主导地位。
Abstract The article proceeds from the observation that in the contemporary British cultural imagination, the figure of the coal miner tends to be presented as the embodiment of anti-urban and organicist qualities that in continental Europe are more commonly associated with the peasantry. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Raymond Williams, the article traces the genealogy of this ‘structure of feeling’ back to the time of the miners’ strike of 1984/85 and further back in the 1970s. It argues that the ‘ruralized’ miner was one imaginary in a complex power struggle over the ‘real’ identity of miners that was waged between the industry and the state, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the National Coal Board (NCB), and, crucially, inside the NUM itself. ‘Ruralization’ was most vigorously promoted by union militants who sought to displace an alternative vision, championed jointly by the Coal Board and union moderates, which had situated miners firmly at the heart of industrial modernity. It was only in the wake of the defeat of the miners in the 1984/85 strike, and during the subsequent cultural reworking of this strike, that this structure finally gained dominance.