“Learn to blend in!”. A corpus-based analysis of the representation of women in mining

• Date: 18 September 2018
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-12-2017-0270
• Pages: 698-712
• Published date: 18 September 2018
• Author: Cathrine Norberg,Ylva Fältholm
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity, equality, inclusion

“Learn to blend in!”

A corpus-based analysis of the representation

of women in mining

Cathrine Norberg

Department of Arts, Communication and Education,

Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden, and

Ylva Fältholm

Department of Business Administration, Technology and Social Sciences,

Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden and

University of Gävle, Gävle, Sweden

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to contribute with increased knowledge about gender in mining

by exploring how women are discursively represented in texts produced by actors in the international

mining arena.

Design/methodology/approach –The study combines corpus linguistic methods and discourse analysis.

It implies a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses, where the former is used as the point of

departure for the latter, and where the material analysed is chosen on the basis of certain selected search

phrases. The source for the study is the web, and the search engine used for the retrieval of data is WebCorp

Live, a tool tailored for linguistic analysis of web material.

Findings –The analysis reveals that although the overarching theme in the women-in mining discourse

is that women are needed in the industry, the underlying message is that women-in-mining are perceived

as problematic.

Practical implications –The study shows that if mining is to change into a modern industry, the inherent

hyper-masculine culture and its effects on the whole industry needs to be problematised and made evident.

To increase the mere number of women, with women still heavily underrepresented, is not enough to break

gender-biased discrimination.

Originality/value –The research contributes with new knowledge about gender in mining by using a

method, which so far has had limited usage in (critical) discourse analysis.

Keywords Discourse analysis, Corpus linguistics, The web, WebCorp live, Women in mining

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

One major threat to global mining is that women do not find it attractive. Despite several

attempts to create mining communities that are attractive to both women and men, along

with initiatives to increase the number of women in the industry, mining continues to be

highly male centred with male-dominated projects and organisational structures (Tallichet,

2000; Eveline and Booth, 2002; Johansson and Ringblom, 2017). A commonly mentioned

problem is that mining areas are running the risk of developing into gender-segregated

fly-in/fly-out communities with both social and economic consequences (Carrington et al.,

2011; Pini et al., 2013; Saunders and Easteal, 2013).

It is, of course, evident that no profession is in itself typically male or female. The identity

of a job is something that is constructed and reinforced via repeated language usage, and

actualised in practices that are lived out on a daily basis (Baker, 2006; Perriton, 2009). As for

mining, historical conceptions of it as typically male persist and continue to inform it. One of

the challenges facing mining is thus to change prevailing gender constructions and

attitudes. To do this, increased knowledge about gender in the context of mining is needed.

So far, there is a rather extensive body of research focussing on men in mining and the

masculine ideals associated with the industry (e.g. Abrahamsson and Johansson, 2006;

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 37 No. 7, 2018

pp. 698-712

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-12-2017-0270

Received 1 December 2017

Revised 14 March 2018

15 April 2018

Accepted 27 April 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

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EDI

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