Paper short abstract:

This article argues that the dominant approach to the mining sector in economic development is Eurocentric and, based on findings from AngloGold Ashanti in Obuasi, that a dependency research programme can better explain uneven outcomes observed.

Paper long abstract:

The article starts by laying out how the dominant approach to mining in development can be considered Eurocentric. To do so, it also introduces the idea of decolonization and Eurocentrism and the specific approach of this paper. As Ghana is important for understanding the dominant approach because the countries’ mining sector reforms have often been held up by international financial institutions as a successful model to follow for other countries in the global South, we focus specifically on how mining reform has been conceived of and implemented in Ghana in. Second, the article lays out an alternative way of understanding mining in the periphery through an expanded research programme of dependency theory. This is an important contribution because the paper situates dependency theory within a decolonisation framework and goes beyond the simplistic and stereotyped versions of dependency theory. We argue that mining is particularly useful to study through a dependency perspective, given its localized grounded operations that exist within national and global structures of accumulation. Third, the paper analyses mining by AngloGold Ashanti in Obuasi, Ghana, through the perspective of a dependency research programme, drawing on archival and field work. Generally, we find that AGA investments in Obuasi has not led to the progressive upgrading and modernisation that the dominant view of economic development would expect. Rather, the case study shows that the relationship between capital and labour has been violent, uneven, and contradictory throughout history. What’s more, the case study demonstrates the importance of power relations between (global) capital, the state, and labour for understanding how global structures of accumulation reproduce unevenness locally and globally. Finally, the paper concludes with some general reflections around what these theoretical discussions and empirical findings mean for the field of economic development at large.