Capital Comes North: Exploring the Discursive Challenges to International Solidarity among Nickel Miners in Sudbury, Ontario
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v11i3.4173Abstract
This article draws on twenty-six qualitative interviews with rank-and-file United Steelworkers
nickel miners in Sudbury, Ontario. It analyses some of the challenges to building international
solidarity at Brazilian-based multinational mining firm Vale. Engaging with labour geography and
labour movement renewal scholarship, the article explores how identity formation and
institutional structures interact to shape workers’ understandings of their interests and capacities.
In particular, it considers the impact of national identity as it arose in response to the issue of
foreign ownership during the interviews. The findings suggest that attempts by the union to
discursively reframe workers’ struggle against their new multinational employer have yet to fully
contend with the persistence of spatially bound forms of working-class identity and interests
among workers in the sample.
KEYWORDS: international solidarity; discursive framing; spatial interests; national identity; nickel mining
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