Deep Drilling: Tunnel Spaces as Gender Spaces

Abstract

Archaic ideas that women in tunnels lead to misfortune have resulted in the fact that until only recently no women were employed for tunnel construction work. The only woman who was welcomed is Saint Barbara. But in this paper I consider the construction sites of the tunnels not only as a space of miners and engineers working underground, but on life around the tunnel, when and where women come into view. The first tunnel through the Gotthard was built between 1872 and 1882. Today, the Gotthard region is being reconfigured through the tunnel construction sites of the New Rail Link through the Alps (NRLA). During the construction of the historical tunnel, the population of Goschenen in the North and Airolo in the South grew rapidly. Most of those who settled at the tunnel construction sites came from Italy; women were clearly in minority as all required lodgings and food. The division of labor showed gender-specific patterns that were strongly shaped also by family relationship patterns. Because the population of the provisional tunnel construction villages was interconnected both socially and economically, the majority of the men and women followed the construction sites as families or as groups of relatives. In this way, living and working in mutual exchange shaped the complex structure of this micro society. At the same time, the large number of incoming people created fear in the established village. Relations between the local community, now in the minority, and the temporary residents were marked by mistrust. Despite similarities, life at the tunnel construction sites of the Gotthard is very different today. Still only very few women work as engineers and none as miners. Because migrating in family groups has become rare, the tunnel spaces even more separated: the underground world of the men in the tunnel and the world above ground of the women at home.