Diggin for a Living

Description: Digging for a Living
1997
15 minutes. Linda Burgen, Jeremy Bussey, Chastity Harris, Mathew Pritchard

Through interviews with laid off miners, Digging for a Living explores what happens to communities and individuals as the mining industry drastically reduces the level of its operations. Unemployed miners discuss the difficulties of a lowered standard of living, answering to their families’ economic expectations and the emotional difficulties of unemployment. The interviews reveal the east Kentucky coalfields economic dependence of the mining industry and the results when the industry withdraws its support