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

20世纪下半叶，随着20世纪60年代的合并和接管的瓦解，东米德兰兹郡的纺织业发生了大规模的变化。这项拟议的研究将对目前不发达的关于这个时代的纺织工人的工作做出强有力的贡献。史坦利·查普曼和布拉姆韦尔·陆克文等历史学家的工作主要集中在行业内并购的商业战略和经济学方面。像汤姆林森(2016)这样的历史学家写过关于去工业化进程的文章，但主要是关于男性的流失。纺织行业中女性工人的占主导地位使这种观点变得更加复杂。这项关于1980-2005年间东米德兰兹郡纺织工人的研究将使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认同这种东西，如果是的话，哪些叙事可能为纺织工人带来了这一点？物质文化及其对记忆的影响并不是历史学家通常采取的方法，因此，通过结合学科，这项工作将是方法上的创新。采用莱曼(2009)和阿诺德(2018)使用的策略，我将探索物质文化(包括照片、胶片)如何影响受访者的记忆实践，并评估媒体对那个时期纺织业的再现如何在所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个口述历史录音，并进行进一步的深入采访，作为现有录音的后续。记录于2019/20年的纺织故事口述历史提供了一个独特的、当代的视角来看待过去，这是旧的录音无法获得的。这些数据是从各级员工那里收集的，涉及他们工作生活的方方面面，因此提供了比经济史更个人化的洞察力，提出了只有员工自己才能回答的问题，比如他们将该行业快速收缩的责任归咎于哪里？他们如何看待产业变化，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文件夹收藏，然而，我打算对英国其他相关档案收藏进行简要概述。林肯的英格兰中部媒体档案馆将是必不可少的，因为它是Cloving the Nation收藏和地区新闻档案馆镜头的持有者(正如Murray，2013年所使用的)。还有机会检查在类似时期收集的Courtauld Memory Project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。在收购一些著名的袜子和针织品品牌的过程中，东米德兰的许多纺织公司都被纳入了他们的控制之下，直到21世纪初，Courtaulds纺织品公司本身被全球的Sara Lee公司收购。将这些新录音纳入这项研究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内的比较。Courtauld项目仍在进行中，一些录音已经可以访问并已被转录。

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.