Material Culture and Structural Violence: Reframing Evidence of the Social Gradient in Industrial Contexts

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Constructing Bodies and Persons: Health and Medicine in Historic Social Context" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Coal mining is an industry which has historically exposed laborers to a variety of environmental and occupational health hazards which resulted in injury and/or physical disability. These health hazards however, did not impact all laborers involved in coal mining equally. As a coal mining company town organized with four distinct housing areas that historically correlate with grade (ie the socio-economic status of the job held at the colliery), Eckley Miners’ Village provides an ideal case study to explore how these health disparities were lived with and treated by residents of the industrial company town. This paper will outline my approach to identifying and reframing archaeological data and material culture to inform scholars on the materials used by those injured and disabled in colliery work to treat their conditions. Additionally, it will discuss how archaeologists can explore the implications of socioeconomic status on access to and quality of treatment materials. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2019   •
• Constructing Bodies and Persons: Health and Medicine in Historic Social Context

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 175