Paper short abstract:

An examination of recent responsible ASM gold mining and ethical gold sourcing programmes and the extent to which these demonstrate the global mobility of responsible and ethical ASM mining ideals.

Paper long abstract:

The first decade of the twenty-first century saw the emergence of two compatible initiatives in different continents: responsible artisanal and small-scale gold mining in South America and the ethical sourcing of gold in Europe. Due to the efforts of leading ethical activists, by the end of the decade these two initiatives had linked up, eventually resulting in the international Fairtrade and Fairmined Gold certification programme. Despite initial hopes that this ambitious scheme would capture a significant percentage of the retail gold jewellery market in the target countries and eventually assist subsistence gold miners across the developing world, within four years the partnership had collapsed. The two resulting (and now competing) programmes then both attempted to expand internationally into Africa and Asia, with mixed results. This paper will present the key events in this history, referring to the author's ethnographic research over the past decade amongst responsible mining campaigners and ethical gold activists, including engagement with representatives from both initiatives and leaders from the mining communities involved. It will then consider how this material illustrates the extent of, drivers behind, and limitations to the global mobility of responsible and ethical artisanal and small-scale gold mining ideals.

Paper short abstract:

Investors and consumers need information on mining sites, either where 'their' gold is extracted, or where it is sourced. How are mining sites framed, and connections represented to far-flung audiences? Attention is given to issues of scale, and oscillations between embedding and dis-embedding.

Paper long abstract:

Mining areas in West Africa bring together vast fields of actors; professionals from mining companies, state officials, farmers, artisanal miners, traders, local authorities, community members etc. Information on what happens in these areas has to travel to different far-away audiences. Focusing on two cases, the paper compares processes of connecting mining areas to far-flung audiences. It wants to foreground the selection of specific images and idioms in practices of framing. The analysis shows how the moral underpinning of frames articulate with the production of exclusion and externalities.

In the first case, the audience is made up of potential investors in mining companies in Burkina, in the second the targeted audiences are potential consumers of 'fair' gold jewelry. Both types of representation can be seen as attempts to portray the source of 'their' gold. Investors are informed about how gold is situated in 'their' concession, consumers are presented with images about the origin of 'their' future jewelry. For investors, the local setting will be framed in mere geological potential (e.g deposits), a space devoid of social life. NGO's, such as Solidaridad, tune in on the local social setting and particularly the hardships of artisanal miners. In the figurative choice 'between a rock and a hard place', companies focus on rock, NGO's on the hard place. The analysis scrutinizes how the portrayal of global connections to mining sites relates to issues of scale, and oscillations between embedding and dis-embedding.

Paper short abstract:

Following the proposition of an open pit gold mine in a small Quebec town, this presentation focuses on how it turned from private initiative into public policy - erasing projects that preexisted it - and how its plans and promises eventually contrasted with the lived experiences of local dwellers.

Paper long abstract:

In 2006, the small traditional Quebec mining town of Malartic was facing one of its worst crisis. With local industries shutting down, it turned itself towards an ambitious project to diversify the local economy. However, it all suddenly changed when, that same year, a junior mining company presented to the community its project for a major local open pit gold mine - to be located downtown, forcing the removal of 200 of its buildings. Immediately dividing the local community, the project developed its persuasiveness through a discourse evoking jobs, stability and life quality. Months afterwards, the local mayor adopted the company's discourse, abandoned the economy diversification plan and turned the open pit mine into a major public policy. The purpose of this paper is to follow this public policy made ad hoc and its trajectory of promises in contrast with the lived experiences of local dwellers. How the project's impacts wouldn't take into account impacts that were already taking place such as the damaging of social tissues after locals strongly divided themselves between a "for" and an "against" side. While official documents focused on numbers and standards, actual experiences varied widely, from "allergic reactions" to daily blasts, lost businesses due to traffic re-routing, neighbours mutually accusing themselves of treason following secret deals with the company, and disputes around what causes cracks in houses near the mine.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how expert knowledge on artisanal mining is produced by mining companies and consultancies and deployed against miners, even as it purports to benefit them. It is based on fieldwork conducted with ruby miners, traders and consultants in Mozambique, Thailand and Europe.

Paper long abstract:

A transnational gemstone mining company markets it products as responsibly sourced and trumpets its commitment to transparency, sustainability and corporate social responsibility. A human rights law firm has brought a suit against the company alleging years-long pattern of gross human rights violations perpetrated against villagers and artisanal miners on and around their ruby mining concession in Mozambique. A consultancy has advised the company on socially-sensitive management of issues related to artisanal miners, based on research conducted while the alleged abuses were occurring. Another consultancy prepared a "Competent Persons Report" for potential investors highlighting the difficulties associated with managing illegal artisanal mining on the company's concession. A third consultancy prepared a series of recommendations for artisanal mining policy in Mozambique on behalf of the World Bank. Their recommendations were framed in terms of women's empowerment, the prevention of child labor and environmental sustainability. However, the policies they proposed would make it nearly impossible for anyone to conduct small scale mining legally in Mozambique. This paper is based on multi-sited and multi-scalar ethnographic fieldwork conducted with ruby miners in Mozambique and ruby traders in Thailand as well as research to be conducted at the corporate offices of mining companies and consultancies across Europe. It explores how expert knowledge about sustainability, responsibility, transparency and traceability in mineral commodity chains is deployed against small scale miners, even as it purports to work for their benefit. It also explores how these claims are contested by miners, traders and others who would speak on their behalf.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how a global gold mining corporation seeks to obtain a 'social licence to operate' for its strongly contested projects in Colombia. It focuses on the role and experiences of local workers of the Community Relations Department in legitimising and defending the corporation.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I explore how mining multinational AngloGold Ashanti seeks to obtain a 'social licence to operate' for its gold mining projects in Colombia, at a time in which the mining sector is the subject of heated public debate in the country. I focus on a group of people who are central to this process at the local level: the community members who work for the Community Relations Department. They are in charge of building local corporate legitimacy, which involves convincing their fellow villagers of the benefits of mining, and defending the company and the mining project to them. In the words of their manager, they are 'mining evangelists'.

How do these 'villager-employees' position themselves towards 'their' company and 'their' community in the strongly polarised village context? How do they portray and defend the corporation to their community? How are they, and their work, perceived by other local actors? How do they justify their work to themselves and their social environment?

I address these questions on the basis of a year of multi-sited and multi-scalar ethnographic fieldwork with local Community Relations teams of AngloGold Ashanti in Colombia. This took me from the shiny Bogotá headquarters to the lush mountains of Antioquia and Tolima, and from community information meetings on the benefits of mining to large community mobilisations against mining. Drawing on insights from inside the corporation as well as from daily village life, I provide an in-depth insight into the deeply contested nature of the social licence to operate.

Paper short abstract:

This paper, based on the multisited fieldwork deals with the emic concept on 'risk' that exists among the Nepalese migrant workers living and working in the coal mines of Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya in Northeast India.

Paper long abstract:

The findings of the present paper is based on the multisited fieldwork in coal mines of Jaintia hills of Meghalaya, India. The perception of risk among the Nepalese coal mine migrant workers is anlaysed through the emic term 'jokhim'. The multiple risks they face in their everyday life such as risks of accidents, death in rat- hole mining as well as the risks related to their temporary living conditions in the make shifts camps have been discussed in this paper. It argues, Nepalese migrant workers speak more of their life in terms of encountering the risk while at work and camps but at the same time they manage their living and working in such conditions.

Jokhim, a Nepali word is synonymous to danger, is an emic term which not only means undesirable outcomes or future loss, but also the ever-present living and working conditions in the lives of Nepalese migrant workers.

Paper short abstract:

I discuss how in Turkana, in a context of an extractive project, moving resources, oil and meat, become powerful agents in shaping conflict at different scales fueled by powerful imaginaries of blood: that of the meat feeding the oil project, of the land (oil), of Turkana victims of cattle rustling.

Paper long abstract:

In Turkana, Kenya, Tullow oil runs an oil extractive project since 2012. In this marginalised semi-arid region, prior to oil, the only resource of value and pride was livestock. Turkana are traditionally nomadic pastoralists and livestock still inform the establishment of social relations and moral values. Due to moving expertise, in this case global standardised hygienic procedures, Tullow is feeding his enclaved employees with frozen meat bought and transported from far away Nairobi. The choice of not buying local meat is met with anger, frustration and resentment by the impoverished pastoralists, adding to a long list of conflicts that the oil has brought. This paper discusses the generative, positive and negative, power of moving resources. In this particular case, both the power of resources like meat and oil and the procedures and standards that regulate these resource movement that move from the centre (London and Nairobi) to the periphery (Turkana) and the other way around. This power manifests not only in the shaping of conflicts at different scales, but also in creating powerful imaginaries and perceptions of pollution and danger, of belonging and identity in the context of an extractive project.

Paper short abstract:

While mining environments are habitually characterized by intensified mobility of people and capital, this paper discusses how, in this mobile environment, particular forms of local rootedness (immobility) become more prominent.

Paper long abstract:

While mining environments are habitually characterized by increased mobility of people and capital, this paper discusses how particular forms of local rootedness (immobility) become more prominent.

When the iron ore mines of Marampa Chiefdom, Sierra Leone, reopened in 2006, the area quickly developed into major center of economic activity. Not surprisingly, besides the influx of foreign capital and labour, from across the country people moved to Marampa in search of jobs or other economic opportunities. In this environment, which was thus characterized by increased mobility dynamics, ideas of localness quickly emerged. Indeed, strengthened by an (inter)national discourse regarding ´local content´, an idiom of localness, and therefore an increased emphasis on those who are not mobile, took center stage. These ideas came to the fore, in particular, in debates and competition over particular opportunities, such as employments or forms of compensation for negative impacts. However, who or what qualifies as local is not always a straightforward give, but rather something open to negotiation.

Drawing upon the dynamics that emerged in Sierra Leone in the decade following the reopening of the Marampa iron ore mines, this paper shows that increasingly mobile and globally connected mining environments are, partly because of this, simultaneously marked by a ´return of the local´.