Reimagining the role of coal mining heritage in the context of the fortieth anniversary of the 1984–85 UK Miners’ strike, green energy transitions and the Carbocene

This paper considers the presentation of coal mining-related industrial heritage sites in the UK in the context of the conjuncture of the fortieth anniversary of the 1984–1985 UK miners’ strike, the closure of the last coal-fired power station in the UK and contemporary global transitions away from fossil fuels. In addition to the national coal mining museums in each of the devolved nations, I analyse a number of exhibitions, events and commemorations relating to the anniversary of the miners’ strike, considering their key messages or metanarratives. Given the circumstances leading up to and following the strike are widely acknowledged to have represented an extremely unjust historical energy and labour transition, I consider the potential contemporary role of such forms of industrial heritage in supporting communities and organisations in the transition away from fossil fuels, and the extent to which the existing suite of heritage narratives communicated by such institutions might in fact hamper or disincentivise such transitions. I do so as part of a broader reconsideration of the role of museums and heritage in the Anthropocene/Capitalocene, or to take Timothy Le Cain’s (2021) term, the Carbocene, and the context of global climate breakdown.