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- Convenors:
-
Blair Rutherford
(Carleton University)
Aisha Fofana Ibrahim (Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone)
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- Chair:
-
Sarah Katz-Lavigne
(University of Antwerp)
- Discussant:
-
Asanda-Jonas Benya
(University of Cape Town)
- Format:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Economy and Development (x) Gender, Sexuality & Intersectionality (y)
- :
- Philosophikum, S69
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
This panel engages with engendered terrestrial futures for African women involved in mining of any scale (e.g., artisanal, small-scale, large-scale) and in different ways (e.g., as labourers, investors, family members, community members) in a constantly changing world and shifting policy landscapes.
Long Abstract:
Future-thinking inflects most scholarly and policy analyses of women and mining in Africa as they lay out pathways to a desirable future. Such a future tends to emerge out of framings of diverse domains such as cultural, economic and health conditions, governance and authority practices, conjugal and family relations, and ecological dynamics, among others, through assessments of how such progress can emerge for women within or beyond mining (of different scales). Future-oriented reflections may also emerge in the narratives of African women who mine or who interact with mining activities as these women often seek some sort of betterment through mining or its cessation. Both forms of future-thinking - the analysts of African women and mining and the women themselves involved in mining - often acknowledge or grapple with various uncertainties, risks, and contingencies that emerge from the political ecology of mining (from, e.g., markets, environments, social conditions, politics), which are even greater since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the wider recognition of adversities (and paradoxical promises) emerging from climate change.
This panel calls for papers that engage with the varied gendered future-making imaginaries and materialities involving women and/in mining in Africa. They could be theoretical explorations or empirical studies from any discipline that examine some aspects of such engendered terrestrial futures for African women involved in mining of any scale (e.g., artisanal, small-scale, large-scale) and in different ways (e.g., as labourers, investors, family members, community members), in a constantly changing world and a shifting policy landscape.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 June, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the links between local content, empowerment, and gender in Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It argues targeting women in TVET and SME capacity building will improve their direct and indirect participation in large-scale mining.
Paper long abstract:
The African Mining Vision (AMV) specifically calls for the empowerment of women in order to ensure gender equality. Yet, gender is an overlooked area when it comes to economic empowerment and local content policies in the mining sector. Few, if any, local content laws and regulations for the extractive industries in Africa contain specific provisions related to gender equity or female empowerment. While women play larger roles in informal activities, including related services and in artisanal and small-scale mining, formal employment in resource extraction is traditionally male-dominated. However, the negative impacts of mining, especially in terms of social disruption and dislocation, environmental degradation and loss of livelihood, are more likely to be felt by women. This paper explores the links between local content, empowerment, and gender with respect to Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Using a review of relevant legislation and policies and key informant interviews, it is argued these governments are missing out on opportunities to target women in TVET and SME capacity building. Improving women’s direct participation in large-scale mining and the participation of women-owned businesses in the mining sector will encourage gender equity and better fulfill the development objectives of these countries and of the AMV. Overall, governments must pursue a holistic approach to gender in legislation, regulation, policy, education and training in order to maximize the benefit from the extractive industries.
Paper short abstract:
Future visions of many women who work in geothermal energy in Kenya revolve around direct use. Instead of the ambition to generate “power for the nation”, these experts are driven by a vision of mining hot water to increase food security and lessen the burden on women and children in rural areas.
Paper long abstract:
Future visions of many women who work in geothermal energy in Kenya revolve around direct use. These experts are driven by a vision of mining hot water to increase food security and lessen the burden on women and children in rural areas, even more than by their mandate of generating “power for the nation”. Geothermal resources can be utilized to generate electricity by drilling deep into the Earth and using the energy of the resulting hot fluids to drive turbines and heat exchangers. The potential uses of the mined matter depend on the temperature of the geothermal reservoir: Even if the well-produced fluid is too cool for power generation, it can still be used to f. e. heat greenhouses, dry grains, pasteurize milk or pursue aquaculture. In Kenya, women and children are traditionally responsible for gathering biomass, water and food. Many women who are now working in parastatal electricity generating or steam producing agencies as engineers, scientists or project managers have vivid memories of their mother’s labor and tell stories about performing these tasks themselves during their childhood. Their visions of a geothermal future include direct uses of hot water since this can directly impact lives of Kenyans who live close to the geothermal heat mining sites, while power lines mainly pass over villages on their way to bigger cities. This article employs ethnographic observations, qualitative, in-depth interviews and informal conversations with Kenyan women working in the geothermal sector to explore gendered visions of energy futures.
Paper short abstract:
This paper uses the term ‘complicated futures’ to explain how women’s concerns in ASM, if not addressed, engender their livelihoods in future. I argue from the sociolegal perspectives to make a case for institutional and legal support for African women in the ASM industry.
Paper long abstract:
Despite the fact that artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) offers diverse livelihood opportunities for women in rural landscapes, it is fraught with cultural, economic and health issues. And its governance and authority practices exclude women from high-valued works or positions in the sector. Moreover, mining materialities marginalise women, and with weak institutional support, the future of women building livelihood in ASM is at risk as women continue to ‘occupy the fringes’ of the ASM hierarchies and organisational structure. The gender dimensions of mining are making it difficult to address economic, social, legal, health and safety issues women encounter. As such, this engenders women’s livelihood and economic status in future. Thus, this paper uses the term ‘complicated futures’ to explain how women’s concerns in ASM, if not addressed, engender their livelihoods in future. I, therefore, argue from the sociolegal perspectives to make a case for institutional and legal support for African women in the ASM industry. Analysing women’s struggles and concerns in the industry from the sociolegal lens offers a different picture to address them and the deep-rooted masculinities and gender norms in mining spaces.
Paper short abstract:
This paper offers a comprehensive review of the burgeoning literature on African women and artisanal and small-scale mining. It positions women’s increasing involvement in ASM activities in varied forms, roles and geographic contexts as well as discusses the future of women’s position in the sector.
Paper long abstract:
This paper offers a comprehensive review of the burgeoning literature on African women and the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector. It positions women’s increasing involvement in ASM activities in varied forms, roles and geographic contexts as well as discusses the future of women’s position in the sector. Through an interdisciplinary lens, the paper maps out the major thematic areas where research on African women and the ASM sector has been done and highlights research gaps that needs crucial academic and policy considerations. The paper builds on Lahiri-Dutt’s (2022) review on women and the extractive sector in general and Paschal and Kauangal’s (2023) systematic review of women’s position in ASM in sub-Saharan Africa. It illuminates the ‘depth and breadth’ of current ASM scholarship on women and gender issues on the African continent. Finally, the review highlights avenues for future research on women and ASM in Africa including women’s work-life balance, leadership and managerial positions, entrepreneurial opportunities, sustainability practices, ASM-induced involvement in local politics as well as environmental governance and management.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines strategies used by women to thrive in artisanal gold mining in Tonkolili District as well as their future in the sector in relation to the extensive use of excavators and the newly enacted Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act 2022.
Paper long abstract:
Precarity has and continues to be central to women’s experiences in artisanal gold mining in Tonkolili. Nevertheless, a few women have been able to beat the odds and thrive in this sector in the face of immense gendered expectations and discrimination. This paper examines the strategies used by these women to transgress these challenges and become successful entrepreneurs in their communities. It also examines the centrality of (in)access to finance in the futures of women’s growth in artisanal mining in Tonkolili and argues that in the future women, on the one hand, will find it difficult to survive in the sector because of extensive use of excavators, the capital intensiveness of the process and the push for formalization but on the other hand, may thrive if they are able to exert their agency and push for the full implementation of the section on financial inclusion for women and access to finance in the recently enacted Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act, 2022.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores gendered representations of mining futures within the transnational sustainable mining policy assemblage, alongside the gendered contingencies of women's ASM livelihoods in Mozambique and Kenya shaped by familial relations, expectations and normative enactments.
Paper long abstract:
The futures of mining are many, or so it would seem from the growing assemblage of transnational initiatives to establish mining's promise of sustainability. Sometimes mining sustainability is configured as circular; an endless possibility of hope, progress and shared benefit. Other times, mining has a delimited future, requiring present planning to achieve a balanced, but sanguine, future resolution. In yet other accounts, the environmental future wrought by mining is a heavy, dark promise of a disaster foretold. These varied futures intermingle with what is often taken to be mining's inherent contingency, with geology, investment capital, markets, or wider legal environments combining to produce this sector as ripe with simultaneous potential for risk or reward. This paper explores gendered representations of mining's multiple futures as they circulate within the sustainable mining policy assemblage, and in the livelihoods of women artisanal gold miners in Manica, Mozambique and Migori, Kenya. The contingency of women's gold mining livelihoods are compounded by their positioning within gendered models of family structures. We consider different features of the gendered "social work" of work for these women, showing how this economic activity is often implicated in familial decisions and assessments. In this analysis, we critically examine the tendency to emphasize only law and legal authority as the principal vehicles by which a future hinged to a changed present is said to be possible by ethnographically showing how this economic activity for both women and men is often implicated in familial decisions and assessments.