Out of the Pit: The Culture of Memorializing Miner-Martyrs

Abstract

In this essay I narrate a study of coalmining monuments that draws upon performance (auto)ethnographic methods. The monuments facilitate memorialization-through-transcendence, allowing actors in these sites to experience transcendence along three axes: temporal, existential, and spatial. Through critical reflection about the monuments and the installation that served as both an outlet for and a continuation of the research, I question the nature of cultural others, the relationship of space to culture, and the performative potential of non-sentient beings (such as monuments). I offer this academic narrative as support for performance ethnography as a method for the study of public memory.

Keywords:

• Coalmining culture
• Public memorials
• Performance ethnography
• Autoethnography
• Transcendence

Acknowledgements

She would like to thank her colleagues at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale for their support in the creation of this article. This paper would have been impossible without the help of the members of two graduate seminars: Performance Ethnography (Fall 2007) and Writing for Publication (Summer 2008), led by Dr. Nathan Stucky and Dr. Ronald Pelias, respectively.

Notes

1. From June to August of 2007, I conducted ethnographic research in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in preparation for another performance project: a March 2008 show about coalmining culture entitled “Blood From a Stone: Mining Elemental Genealogies.” I visited various coalmining sites throughout industrial Cape Breton, including the two studied in this particular project. I also interviewed seventeen Cape Bretoners (coalminers and others) and conducted historical research.

2. Residents of coalmining towns in industrial Cape Breton observe Miners’ Memorial Day every June 11. On that day in 1925 starving striking miners marched to a power plant at Waterford Lake to demand restoration of water and power to their town. The company, who had cut these resources to force the men back to work for a significant pay decrease, had “police” (mostly drunkards recruited from Halifax) waiting on horseback for the men. In the ensuing clash Davis was killed, two others were wounded by gunfire, and dozens on either side were trampled and beaten. Eventually the miners overwhelmed and marched the “police” to the town jail. The strike, however, continued for months. Interestingly, the newspapers of the time compared New Waterford to Herrin, where, in 1922 (also in June), at least 20 strikebreakers and a few union miners died in a bloody clash (Westra).

3. This process is similar to what Ellis and Bochner call “systematic sociological introspection and emotional recall” (737), in which the researcher uses writing to understand experience.

4. A man-rake is a series of cars used to transport miners to their work sites.

5. In a second, reconstituted installation performed at the Central States Communication Association Convention in April, 2009 (while this publication was in process), I integrated some of these more critical performance choices, resulting in a different performative point of view.

6. I wish to thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this phrase.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shauna M. MacDonald

Shauna M. MacDonald is a doctoral student at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale