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Paper short abstract:

This paper invites an exploration of the notion of ‘ruin’ as it manifests within the context of coal mining, looking specifically at how notions of ruination and loss are experienced through relationships to water.

Paper long abstract:

This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork with residents in and around the small village of Wollar, situated in the north-western corner of the Hunter Coalfields in NSW. Wollar is today a ghost-town, hollowed of sociality and life after the aggressive purchasing of properties in the area by mining companies. Agricultural land and bushland have been replaced by large open cut mines and the few residents who still reside in the area grapple with a ruined landscape and the disempowering force of industry. But the impact of the mines is not only present in what has been lost and taken away. Their impact is also felt and endured through more subtle channels. Those whose lives and bodies have become entwined with the sandstone, bush, waterways, animals and sounds recognise changes in ways not captured by technical explorations and assessments. In this paper, I draw inspiration from decolonial scholarship and anthropological writing to look at how the mine’s environmental impacts on water constitute social impact beyond its material quality. I position water as a resource not only of pragmatic value but also of symbolic value in binding people and place together, and as a barometer for the emotional wellbeing of the community. I look at how experiences and emotions are embodied and ‘placial’, and how scars in the landscape become ‘marks of sorrow and betrayal, of the abuse of power and latent hazards’ (Storm 2014: 1) for those whose imagined futures have been lost in the process of mining.