Article published in:
International Journal of Language and Culture
Vol. 8:2 (2021) ► pp. 267–296

Renewing the coal mining past

Parody, languageculture, and the transformation of cultural memory in Heerlen, the Netherlands

| Maastricht University | NL-Lab (Humanities Cluster, KNAW)
| Maastricht University
This article examines how inhabitants of Heerlen, a town in the province of Limburg in the southeast of the Netherlands, renew the cultural memory of coal mining in the area through parodic linguistic and cultural practices linked to the (re)articulation of collective local and social identities. Heerlen became a center for the coal mining industry in the Netherlands in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The closure of the mines between 1965 and 1974 had devastating consequences for the economic, social, and cultural developments of the area. Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in the region’s mining past, creating new momentum for Heerlen in its transition from a struggling former mining area to a city focusing on long-term socio-economic development and cultural innovation. In this context, new practices of cultural memory are emerging through local performances of language and culture that operate to reconstruct Heerlen’s coal mining past through parodic repetition. By discussing two case studies exemplifying the creative ways in which dominant accounts of the mining past are being rearticulated, we explain how the use of parody may serve to undermine the interacting social norms, identities, and hierarchies that have come to shape cultural memories of mining in communities historically defined by working-class and male-dominated labor. The article integrates linguistic and sociolinguistic research, studies of regional history, and theories of parody rooted in contemporary literary criticism and gender studies, to demonstrate the importance of place-bound practices of languageculture as a compelling force of linguistic and socio-cultural renewal.
Keywords: coal mining heritage, Heerlen Dutch, languageculture , parody, regional identity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Heerlen’s mining past
  • 3.Linguistic practices and parodies of class
  • 4.Gender parody and the undermining of masculinity
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 23 April 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.19006.cor
References
Aalbers, C., Heutinck, L. & Visschedijk, P.
(2011) Krimp en de groene ruimte in stedelijke gebieden. Wageningen: Alterra.Google Scholar
Agha, A.
(2007) Language and social relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Assmann, J.
(1995) Collective memory and cultural identity. New German Critique, 651, 125–133. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bakhtin, M.
(1971) Discourse typology in prose. In L. Matekja & K. Pomorska (Eds), Readings Russian poetics: Formalist and structuralist views (pp. 176–196). Cambridge/London: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
(1984) Rabelais and his world. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Bolton, N. & Fransen, A.
(2017) Stephanie & Esther: Een sprookje uit de Limburgse heuvels in 57 foto’s en 21 verhalen. Heerlen: Leon van Dorp.Google Scholar
Butler, J.
(1990) Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York/London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cornips, L.
(1994) Syntactische variatie in het Algemeen Nederlands van Heerlen. [Doctoral dissertation, University of Amsterdam]. IFOTT 6.Google Scholar
(2003) Heerlens Nederlands. Den Haag: Sdu Uitgevers.Google Scholar
Cornips, L. & de Rooij, V.
(2015) Belonging through languagecultural practices in the periphery: The politics of carnival in the Dutch province of Limburg. Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 241, 83–101. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2020) Sociolinguistic enregisterment through languagecultural practices. In N. Smith, T. Veenstra & E. O. Aboh (Eds), Advances in contact linguistics: In honour of Pieter Muysken (pp. 342–364). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cornips, L., de Rooij, V. & Stengs, I.
(2017) Carnivalesque language use and the construction of local identities: A plea for languageculture as a field of research. Jahrbuch für Europäische Ethnologie. Die Niederlande, 31: 61–90.Google Scholar
Delbroek, B. & Roels, L.
(2018) Echte venten: Een verkennend onderzoek naar mannelijkheid bij Limburgse mijnwerkers. Studies over de sociaaleconomische geschiedenis van Limburg, 631, 164–203.Google Scholar
Gales, B. P. A.
(2004) Delven en slepen. Steenkolenmijnbouw in Limburg: Techniek, winning en markt gedurende de achttiende en negentiende eeuw. Hilversum: Verloren.Google Scholar
Gottschalk, E.
(2012) Manifest Culturele Lente. Rijckheyt: Centrum voor regionale geschiedenis. http://​www​.rijckheyt​.nl​/sites​/rijckheyt​/files​/pdf​/over%20ons​/manifest​_CL​_deel1​.PDF
Greer, G.
(2009, August 20). Caster Semenya sex row: What makes a woman? The Guardian. https://​www​.theguardian​.com​/sport​/2009​/aug​/20​/germaine​-greer​-caster​-semenya
Haelen, Q. van
(2015) Van het concert des levens… De terugkeer van de tegelspreuk. Onze taal, 79(5), 138–141.Google Scholar
Hemel, Z.
(2016) De toekomst van de stad: Een pleidooi voor de metropool. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
Horn, K.
(2017) Women, camp, and popular culture: Serious excess. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hutcheon, L.
(1989) The politics of postmodernism. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
(2000) A theory of parody: The teachings of twentieth-century art forms. Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
(2005) Irony’s edge: The theory and politics of irony. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jaffe, A.
(2000) Comic performance and the articulation of hybrid identity. Pragmatics, 10(1), 39–59. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2007) Corsican on the airwaves: Media discourse in a context of minority language shift. In S. Johnson & A. Ensslin (Eds), Language in the media: Representations, identities, ideologies (pp. 149–172). London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Jameson, F.
(1991) Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. London/New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Johnstone, B.
(2017) Characterological figures and expressive style in the enregisterment of linguistic variety. In C. Montgomery & E. Moore (Eds), Language and a sense of place: Studies in language and region (pp. 283–300). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kasper, H. & Knotter, A.
(2013) Na de mijnsluiting: Herstructurering en reconversie in internationaal perspectief. Roermond: Stichting Behoud Mijnhistorie.Google Scholar
Knotter, A.
(Ed.) (2012) Mijnwerkers in Limburg: Een sociale geschiedenis. Nijmegen: Vantilt.Google Scholar
Lahiri-Dutt, K.
(2013) Bodies in/out of place: Hegemonic masculinity and kamins’ motherhood in Indian coal mines. South Asian History and Culture, 4(2), 213–229. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Latten, J. & Musterd, S.
(2009) Parkstad Limburg in een veranderend demografisch tij. In J. Latten & S. Musterd (Eds), De nieuwe groei heet krimp: Een perspectief voor Parkstad Limburg (pp. 9–15). Den Haag: NICIS.Google Scholar
Minten, L.
(2007) Beeldvorming. In B. Delbroek, F. Delarbre, S. Krul, L. Minten & C. Nelis (Eds), De Koolputters: Geschiedenis van de Limburgse mijnwerkers (pp. 396–414). Zwolle: Waanders.Google Scholar
Nijhof, E.
(2012) Omstreden erfenissen: Het mijnwerkerspensioen en de silicose. In A. Knotter (Ed.), Mijnwerkers in Limburg: Een sociale geschiedenis (pp. 568–599). Nijmegen: Vantilt.Google Scholar
Plate, L. & Smelik, A.
(2013) Performing memory in art and popular culture: An introduction. In A. Smelik & L. Plate (Eds), Performing memory in art and popular culture (pp. 1–22). London/New York: Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Redecker, E. von
(2017) Gender parody. In B. Papenburg (Ed.), Gender: Laughter (pp. 279–292). Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA.Google Scholar
Roels, L.
(2008) “In Belgium, women do all the work”: De arbeid van vrouwen in de Luikse mijnen, negentiende-begin twintigste eeuw. Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis, 1–21, 45–86.Google Scholar
(2014) Het tekort: Studies over de arbeidsmarkt voor mijnwerkers in het Luikse kolenbekken vanaf het einde van negentiende eeuw tot 1974. Hilversum: Verloren.Google Scholar
Rolston, J. S.
(2014) Mining coal and undermining gender: Rhythms of work and family in the American West. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rutten, W.
(2011) Buitenbeentjes: Nederlandse kompels in de Luikse kolenmijnen na de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Studies over de sociaaleconomische geschiedenis van Limburg, 561, 3–53.Google Scholar
Stjernholm, K. & Cornips, L.
(2020) Dialect speaking working-class women in the media. OSLa: Oslo Studies in Language, 11(2), 429–477. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Studietrip Heerlen
(2017) Urban Study Foundation. Retrieved December 14, 2020, from http://​urbanstudyfoundation​.nl​/heerlen
Tuupisch: Ontdek de Heëlesje Soul tijdens Cultura Nova
(2017) Ik ben in Heerlen: WAT NU?! Retrieved December 14, 2020, from http://​www​.ikbeninheerlenwatnu​.com​/tuupisch/
Vandebroek, H.
(2002) Het geslacht van de arbeid: Opvattingen over vrouwenarbeid in Belgische katholieke intellectuele kringen (1945–1960). Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven.Google Scholar
Weijer, M. van de
(2017) Herbestemming na de mijnsluiting, de ruimtelijke plangeschiedenis van Parkstad en het Emmaterrein, 1965–1997. Studies over de sociaaleconomische geschiedenis van Limburg, 621, 102–135.Google Scholar
Woolard, K.
(2018) Playing against peripheralization: A commentary. In L. Cornips & V. de Rooij (Eds), The sociolinguistics of place and belonging: Perspectives from the margins (pp. 115–124). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar