Migration, mining, and experience: solidarity in the labour milieu of the Alès coalfield in France, 1918-1940

Thesis

This thesis examines processes of solidarity construction in an interwar French coalfield marked by large-scale immigration and economic rationalisation. Unlike recent migration histories of the Third Republic that have tended to focus on citizenship and the state, I approach European and colonial migrants’ experiences of interwar France by situating them in an environmental ‘labour milieu’. By exploring the complex mixture of risks to which workers in the Gard coalfield were exposed, I uncover how embodied experiences of coal capitalism differed according to class, race, nationality, and gender. This situation of differential exploitation was mediated through the rationalisation of mining work, the experience of workplace accidents, and the management of the material environment beyond the pits – realms in which practices of cooperation, mutual aid, and moral economies were an immanent but unguaranteed possibility. The first part of this thesis offers a fresh perspective on migrant experiences of interwar France, by presenting a non-deterministic perspective on quotidian solidarity, which considers the range of social, economic, and environmental factors that influenced its development, and limits.

The second half of the thesis explores political solidarity. By focusing on different forms of working-class struggle – strike action, Popular Front trade-union institutions, and engagement with international questions of fascism and colonialism – the thesis develops a complex picture of solidarity which held a defence of working-class life and a critique of differential exploitation at its centre. This conception of political solidarity developed through everyday interactions and conflictual flashpoints in which migrants and French citizens participated, and manifested itself through discursive, practical, institutional, and programmatic practices. These actions sought to challenge hierarchies of exploitation, but remained hampered by a muted regard for colonial or gender oppression. Ultimately, the thesis argues that a developing sensitivity to differential experience was fundamental to the often contradictory process of constructing of quotidian and political solidarities.

Authors: Coughlan, O

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-yxer1o56r
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: environment; labour; migration; France; solidarity
• Subjects: Coal; France--History--Third Republic, 1870-1940; Communism; Migration; Solidarity; Accident victims; Pollution; Strikes and lockouts; Social history