Paper short abstract:

My paper considers a desire for ignorance within the conjuncture between international money flows and gold sold by ‘big bosses’ in Mongolia’s gold rush. The traders’ financial speculations show how gold and money are potent matters entangled with human and nonhuman forces in underground extraction.

Paper long abstract:

This paper considers the much sought-after conjuncture between international monetary flows and the large amounts of gold sold by the 'big bosses' in Mongolia's illegal gold trade. As an object, gold is implicated in multiple and competing regimes of value, knowledge, and expertise. Among those intimately familiar with the process of extraction, gold mining is seen to transgress fundamental taboos related to the land, making the generated mineral wealth fraught with fear and suspicion. As an object with 'black footprints', gold is said to bring misfortune to those who become part of its circulation. In order to be able to sell this potent object and avoid the receipt of 'dead money', the 'big bosses' express a desire for ignorance of the gold's origin among their Chinese trading partners. While recognizing that this ignorance renders their earnings less traceable in the event of police investigation, the 'big bosses' also have their own elaborate understandings of what role their monetary dealings play in the risky cosmoeconomy of the gold rush. Rather than trading in generalized inanimate objects of abstraction that are readily available for transaction, the 'big bosses' financial speculations demonstrate how both gold and money are potent matters entangled with various human and nonhuman forces involved in underground extraction.