Challenging the de-industrialisation narrative: East Midlands textile workers 1980-2005

20世纪下半叶，随着20世纪60年代的兼并和收购的瓦解，东米德兰兹纺织工业发生了大规模的变化。所提出的研究将对当前欠发达的关于这个时代纺织工人的工作做出强有力的贡献。史丹利•查普曼（Stanley Chapman）和布拉姆威尔•拉德（bramwell Rudd）等历史学家的研究主要集中在行业内并购的商业策略和经济学上。汤姆林森（Tomlinson, 2016）等历史学家写过去工业化的过程，但主要是从男性的流失来看。纺织业女工的优势使这一观点复杂化。本研究以1980-2005年期间的东米德兰兹纺织工人为研究对象，将运用物质文化和记忆研究领域的原理来检验纺织工人的证词。它会问，是否存在集体身份这种东西，如果存在，哪些叙述可能会告诉纺织工人这一点？物质文化及其对记忆的影响不是历史学家通常采用的方法，因此，通过结合学科，这项工作将在方法论上具有创新性。采用Layman（2009）和Arnold（2018）使用的策略，我将探索物质文化（包括照片，电影）如何影响受访者的记忆实践，并评估该时期纺织业的媒体表征如何在正在讲述的故事中发挥作用。我将研究作为2019年纺织故事项目（在南大举行）的一部分收集的55份口述历史记录，并对现有记录进行进一步的深入采访。《纺织故事》口述历史记录于2019/20年，以独特的当代视角审视过去，这是以前的记录所无法获得的。这些数据是从各个层次的工人中收集的，涉及他们工作生活的各个方面，因此提供了比经济史更个人化的见解，提出了只有工人自己才能回答的问题，比如他们把行业的快速萎缩归咎于哪里？他们是如何看待工业变革的，他们是否保留了这种观点？他们在这个行业工作后做了什么？我预计这项工作将广泛利用当地档案，包括东米德兰兹口述历史档案馆和诺丁汉地方研究图书馆的口述历史收藏，然而，我打算对英国其他相关档案收藏进行简要概述。英格兰中部的媒体档案馆，林肯将是必不可少的，作为服装国家收藏和地区新闻档案镜头的所有者（如默里，2013年所使用的）。也有机会检查考陶德记忆项目在类似时期收集的相关录音。在20世纪60年代，Courtaulds纺织品公司是在英国创建纺织帝国的主要参与者之一。在他们收购了一些著名的袜子和针织品品牌后，东米德兰的许多纺织公司都被他们控制，直到21世纪初，Courtaulds纺织品公司本身被全球Sara Lee公司接管。在本研究中纳入这些新记录将解决纺织故事材料中的一些空白（例如种族多样性的存在），并提供一个重要的英国范围的比较。考陶德项目仍在进行中，一些录音已经可以访问并被转录。

The second half of the 20th Century saw large scale changes in the East Midlands textileindustry, as the mergers and takeovers of the 1960s were unravelling. The proposedresearch will make a strong contribution to a currently under-developed body of work onthe textile workers of this era. The work of historians such as Stanley Chapman andBramwell Rudd concentrate mainly on the business strategies and economics of themergers and takeovers within the industry. Historians such as Tomlinson (2016), havewritten about the process of de-industrialisation, but largely in terms of male loss. Thepredominance of female workers in the textile industry complicates this view. This study ofthe East Midlands textile workers in the period 1980-2005 will use principles from the fieldsof material culture and memory studies to examine textile workers' testimonies. It will askif there is such a thing as collective identity, and if so, which narratives might have informedthis for the textile workers?Material culture, and its influence on memory is not an approach commonly taken byhistorians, therefore, by combining disciplines, the work will be methodologicallyinnovative. Adopting the strategy used by Layman (2009) and Arnold (2018), I will explorehow material culture (including photographs, film) might influence interviewees' practicesof remembrance, and assess how media representations of the textile industry from theperiod might play a part in the stories that are being told. I will examine the 55 oral historyrecordings collected as part of the 2019 Textile Tales project (held at NTU), and conductfurther in-depth interviews as follow-ups to existing recordings.Recorded in 2019/20, the Textile Tales oral histories give a unique, contemporaryperspective on the past, which cannot be gained from older recordings. The data wascollected from workers at all levels, on all aspects of their lives at work, and thereforeprovides a more personal insight than economic histories, asking questions that only theworkers' themselves can answer, such as where do they place the blame for the industry'srapid contraction? How did they view the industrial changes, and have they retained thatview? What did they do after working in the industry?I anticipate that the work will draw extensively on local archives, including the collections ofolder oral histories at East Midlands Oral History Archive and Nottingham Local StudiesLibrary, however, I intend to conduct a brief overview of other relevant archival collectionswithin the UK. The Media Archive Central England, Lincoln will be essential, as holders of theClothing The Nation collection and regional news archive footage (as used by Murray, 2013).There is also an opportunity to examine relevant recordings from the Courtauld MemoryProject, collected during a similar time period. During the 1960s, Courtaulds Textiles plcwere one of the main players in creating a textiles empire in the UK. In their acquisition ofsome of the famous hosiery and knitwear brands, many of the textile companies in the EastMidlands were brought under their control, until Courtaulds Textiles plc itself was takenover by the global Sara Lee Corporation in the early 2000s. The inclusion of these newrecordings in this research will address some of the gaps in the Textile Tales material (forinstance the presence of ethnic diversity), and provide a significant UK-wide comparison.The Courtauld project is still ongoing and some recordings are already accessible and havebeen transcribed.