Terrils, or How Power Relations Shape Subjectivities in Wallonia’s Ruins of Capitalism

Jeremy Lienaert, PHD

Coal extraction in Wallonia, the southern region of Belgium, ended more than half a century ago, leaving behind over 500 "Terrils" or coal slag heaps (Valisena, 2022): artificial hills formed from mining waste. Far from being inert remnants of the industrial past, these landscapes continue to shape the region’s social, ecological, cultural, and political dynamics. Today, their soils provide habitats for a diversity of species, attract associations, public authorities, private developers, residents, and other users who assign different meanings and purposes to them, which sometimes come into conflict.

Once regarded simply as industrial waste, Terrils are now reframed as natural areas (Piret, 2006) requiring protection (Delcourt & Hauteclair, 2011), symbols of post-mining identity, recreational spaces, heritage sites, drivers of regional attractiveness (Adam, 2020; Pinson, 2020), or even resources for renewed extraction or energy development, all while serving as living environments for numerous human and non-human beings. These overlapping uses and narratives invite us to question the categories through which such landscapes are understood. While Terrils are often approached either as industrial heritage or as “ruins of capitalism” (Tsing, 2015; Bianchi, 2021; Lepers, 2025)), neither perspective fully captures the diversity of their trajectories or the tensions (Wadbled, 2022) shaping their futures. Terrils can become resources for contemporary capitalism even as they sustain alternative practices, attachments, and forms of resistance. These tensions reveal the power relations that shape how we perceive and understand such landscapes, thereby giving rise to new “processes of subjectivation” (Foucault, 2014 ; Bisoka et al., 2019).

Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork, 80 user testimonies, an analysis of 300 press articles, and a multispecies approach, this inaugural presentation of the Society for Human Ecology Speakers Series will explore what Terrils can teach us about another dimension of subjectivity: how subjectivities emerge through power struggles and, in turn, shape how we perceive emblematic sites that form an integral part of a territory. It will examine how ideas and categories that appear natural or self-evident are, in fact, produced through power relations; how these relations evolve and are continually reconfigured; and how they generate inequalities, sustain oppression, and simultaneously give rise to resistance.

To ensure that our community all over the world can attend this talk, we have created two time slots. Please note that both sessions are the same. Register for the one that makes the most sense for your time zone.

Webinar Option 1 DATE: 22 September 2026 TIME: 08:00 GMT Register

Webinar Option 2 DATE: 29 September 2026 TIME: 15:00 GMT Register