Mining a productive seam? The coal industry, community and sociology

Recently there have been calls for sociology in Britain to reflect on its longstanding historical attention and focus, something which has been neglected of late. At the same time there is growing interest in the historiography of British sociology and critical reflection on how its early post-war assumptions went on to structure later research, writing and scholarship. Developing both of these insights this article looks at British sociology’s longstanding relationship with the coal industry, its work and especially its communities. From Coal is our Life (1956) through to Coal was our Life (2000) the sector has been an important site of sociological attention. It was an early focus of post-war community studies, becoming home to a residual traditional working class. Later still it was an arena of conflict on the front line of Thatcher’s Britain, before becoming a site on which to study loss and deindustrialisation. This article asks what sociology learnt from the deep coal mining industry and what it might still explore in the future around questions of regeneration and the ‘half-life’ of deindustrialisation.