'Choking for a smoke': The embodiment of working class history in the life stories of smokers in an ex-mining village in the North East of England

Despite moves towards considering the social context of smoking, public health has little understanding of smoking and other health behaviours in relation to the political and industrial history of place. I carried out an ethnographic study of a stigmatised white working class former coal-mining village in North Eastern England with high levels of smoking, deprivation and ill health. The study included eight months of participant observation in a Working Men's Club, the recording of the life story narratives of 25 residents (each with a 20-years-plus smoking history), extensive contact with and research into four generations of local families, as well as documentary and historical research into the industrial and political background of the village and the region. In this presentation, I examine the participants' embodied experience of smoking and social class, with reference to (1) the macro-level of the post-industrial history of the village, including loss of jobs, status, housing, population and political voice; (2) the meso-level of experience and understanding of health and illness, with particular reference to ex-miners' occupational exposures and compensation claims, respiratory disease and tobacco use; (3) the micro-level of social class embodied in individual lives through the lived emotions of anger, shame and frustration. Parallels with other ex-coalfield communities (including Appalachia) are drawn, and implications for public health policy and practice are highlighted.