biographical research, coal mining, economic transformation, strategies of adapting, qualitative research

For more than 100 years, the Ostrava region in the north-east of today’s Czech Republic was shaped by coal mining and heavy industry not only in socioeconomic but also in cultural terms. The work of the coal miners was not only physically demanding but also created the myth of hard-working men which played an important role during the communist era. After the political and economic transformation in the 1990s, coal mining became a losing business and the employees of the coal mining and heavy industry lost their jobs as well as their social status. The project presented in this article aims to reconstruct the personal experiences of coal miners and deals with their strategies of adapting to the new economic and societal conditions. To achieve this goal, the research team is using qualitative methodology in the form of biographical interviews.