Mining Work, Family and Community: A Spatially-Oriented Approach to the Impact of the Ravensthorpe Nickel Mine Closure in Remote Australia

Abstract

While changes in work and employment practices in the mining sector have been profound, the literature addressing mining work is somewhat partial as it focuses primarily on the workplace as the key (or only) site of analysis, leaving the relationship between mining work and families and communities under-theorized. This article adopts a spatially oriented, case-study approach to the sudden closure of the Ravensthorpe nickel mine in the south-west of Western Australia to explore the interplay between the new scales and mobilities of labour and capital and work-family-community connections in mining. In the context of the dramatically reconfigured industrial arena of mining work, the study contributes to a theoretical engagement between employment relations and the spatial dimensions of family and community in resource-affected communities.