To Ricoeur the gap between past and present, the distance between the event and the act of recounting an event can be indicative of the “[…] the dialectic of presence and absence at the heart of the representation of the past, to which is added the feeling of distance proper to memories” (Ricoeur 2004: 414). This gap can be experienced as a loss of foundations for cultural identity as values and customs forged by a particular way of life is on the wane.
Otherwise it is this gap which solicits self-invention through differentiation from the traditional lifestyle.
Inspired by Ricoeur (1984: 68) I will now look at representation of the past as “the interplay between innovation and sedimentation”, substance as well artifice which might have a bearing on the rigor with which we pass a judgment on authenticity claims. We cannot expect it to be profound substance of a deep past exposed in a pristine state and brought forward in an unaltered form. Neither can we dismiss the obligation felt towards the “reality of the past”
(Ricoeur 1988) which is real regardless of the representation. The challenge is to recover the meaning of heritage even if we acknowledge that it is difficult to argue for a rehabilitation of cultural essence or a purely contingent set of signifying practices which shares no ground with the empirical real. The attempt to open up for a both-and conception of memory is Ricoeur’s contribution in the sense that it mediates between the extreme ends of substantial core as uninterrupted self-coherence and uncommitted floating signifiers.
In the last instance the vehicle of transmission which makes the past carry particular weight for Ricoeur (2004) is the notion of debt. We are committed by the debt we owe to the people of the past. This ethical dimension of heritage, to its favor, does not preclude the possibility of self-invention within forms of representing the past. In fact it has a direct bearing on the issue of the appropriate form of heritage for the future beyond the privileged first-person
perspective. This transition from ‘we’ to ‘they’ and the duration of the interval from living memory to a more abstract varies from case to case, but needless to say – it will occur at some point. For Ricoeur it is the figure of the other, who we may not have known, that calls us and commits us. This ethical obligation does not prescribe imitation or a blind repetition of inherited forms. While the idea of debt was inseparable from the notion of heritage; he underscores that productive imagination or an “interplay of sedimentation and innovation” is important to what he calls “traditionality” (Ricoeur 1984: 84). Traditionality describes the gap between the present and the past: “It signifies that the temporal distance separating us from the past is not a dead interval but a transmission that is generative of meaning” (Ricoeur 1988:
221).
The term can be tied to Ricoeur’s oeuvre, a “hermeneutic of redemptive reminiscence”
(Vandenberghe 2002: 64). Through memory some of the unfulfilled prospects of the historical past could be reactivated or redeemed for the future. This goes beyond the historiographical corrective of retrieving more detailed accounts of the past. “The duty of memory is the duty to do justice, through memories, to an other than the self” (Ricoeur 2004: 89). If we apply the notion of debt to the complex issue of ‘we’ as opposed to ‘they’ in the underground tour it is
clear that sedimentation and preservation of a distinct set of cultural traits is more prevalent than the universality of heritage. The preservation of localized identities is more pronounced than a view of heritage as a symbol of universality and shared meaning. A remote, dispersed form of ownership is downplayed for heritage as the grounded expression of the local ‘we’.
The transition from ‘we’ to ‘they’ is postponed and the sense of distance proper to memories is not allowed to take hold (yet).
The poststructuralist privilege given to the reader at the cost of the author challenges the unity of a historical source as it is continuously remolded by new interpretations in new contexts where outsider as well as insider can be beneficiaries in the process of commemorating a particular tradition. A similar development is evident in the way the meaning and ownership of heritage is universalized available as to downplay the local possessive dimension of heritage for the sake of universality where “your culture becomes everyone’s heritage”
(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2006: 162), or for the sake of stressing exchange value whereby “the most intimate moment into a commercial one” (Bendix 2002: 474). Both of these threats have a bearing on the way authenticity is understood in our context as a reaction against
commodification and generalization.
Clearly, Big Pit is set up for the outsider to experience the typical coal mining community, but it also serves the purpose of localizing the moral ownership of heritage resources firmly within the community context. When community, identity and heritage is challenged and when external professionals and experts impose on the way the local mining community understands its heritage, the representation is less likely to reverberate locally and instead yield ‘white elephants’. It may be treated too generally, it may be seen as a commodity or it may be claimed by outsiders with no personal relation to the subject matter. Thompson brings attention to the ways in which a heritage interpretation matters to a specific group with a specific shared history. His understanding of heritage stresses personal, occupational experience as key to the authenticity of the underground tour. It is a way of suggesting that the legitimacy of the form of coal mining heritage hinges on its consistency with the community perspective.
The issue of who is in the end responsible for the narration in coal mining heritage during the underground tour is anything but arbitrary. The qualities requested in the approach to authenticity at Big Pit is a proper understanding of pit life acquired through personal
experience rather than through secondary sources. This has resulted in the development of an apprenticeship scheme where future staff at Big Pit may attend training in a form which resembles coal mine training in the years of National Coal Board. Apprentices are trained in engineering, rescue operations as well as in guiding visitors around in the coal mine.
Currently two apprentices undergo this form of training to build a career in electrical engineering and mechanical engineering respectively. The difference between the current practice and training in the days of coal mining days is that training originally took eight months, will today take about three or four years to complete. The practice of offering training to future employers Big Pit is an attempt to assure that practical know-how is preserved as opposed to the passive knowledge of the industry. Beyond that it also aims to maintain and cultivate the distinct personality of the typical miner:
“We have two apprentices, one electrical engineering and one mechanical engineering apprentice and they... they are the same types as when I started in the colliery, the same types of boys, the same enthusiasms, you know, and they, they fit in quite well. And of course, they are then learning the banter, they’re getting used to listening to other people’s stories, you know, because there is a lot of guys talking about mining techniques and the know it all themselves, but they’ve learned of other people, or they’ve read stuff as well. But because they can say ‘I have worked underground on this machine’, it gives them authenticity” (Thompson 2012).
The stress on practice means that heritage preserves occupational skills and social competence in a trade that is by now virtually extinct. Although operation has been revived in some Welsh collieries they have often failed to remain profitable in the longer run. Millions of tons of coal are still buried under the surface which has spurred ad-hoc commercial ventures, recently seen in the revival of Aberpergwm Colliery and Unity mine in Neath Valley. The apprenticeships at Big Pit are clearly not fueled by market demands in the industry, but signal a commitment to secure an appropriate form of storytelling which does not require hiring actors. It is an attempt to forge continuity with the coal mining past, although the economic and cultural situation has changed tremendously. The stress on proper interpretation is warranted by a specific notion of authenticity that is tied to having been there and having seen it all, a form of authenticity of authority (Mohn, Strub and Wartemann 1997). This authoritative form of authenticating recent history cannot be sustained when the living representatives are no longer around. We can infer that it will be difficult to safeguard the public transmission of the memory mining heritage given these strict requirements on interpretation. In about 15 years or
so no real miner will be around to represent coal mining heritage as “living memory” (Walker 2008).