Anthropological Exercises in Postindustrial Reflexivity

Abstract

In 1986, the biggest and most productive European coal mine, Zollverein in Essen, was shut down after almost one and a half centuries of operation. Seven years laterthe remaining part of this huge industrial complex, the coking plant, was also turned off. This gigantic machine, a powerful, if not omnipotent, social actor that directly and sometimes brutally shaped the existence of millions of people over decades and generations in Germany, Europe, and all over the world, was silenced forever.