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- Convenors:
-
Sabine Luning
(Leiden University)
Robert Jan Pijpers (University of Hamburg)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Anthropology (x) Futures (y)
- Location:
- Neues Seminargebäude, Seminarraum 16
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 31 May, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
This CRG panel ‘Resource Extraction in Africa’ invites scholars working on resource extraction to show results of their multimodal (notably visual) research practices and discuss the ethical and methodological considerations for their research strategies.
Long Abstract:
In current studies on mining, we witness an increase in the use of visual methods, often as part of collaborations between members of mining communities and researchers.
This is motivated by a broader trend in anthropology, where oppositions between ‘writing culture’ and making ethnographic films, have broken down, but also by two specific characteristics of research on (small-scale) mining. Firstly, since small-scale mining is often carried out at the margin of legality, voices and views of miners are overlooked. To counter hegemonic perspectives, methods such as ‘photovoice’ foreground alternative ‘visual storytelling’, highlighting predicaments in the present, but also promises for the future. Secondly, the proliferation of visual methods is understandable for a research field which is defined volumetrically: Underground extractive work and geological structures cannot be seen above ground. Visualization of underground work and geological lay-out – in collaborative film making, in drawing, in photography – has specific value in this context.
But do miners want to be seen and how? What are the visual cultures they participate in, what are the ‘politics of seeing’ when mining endeavours may be sustained more successfully by staying out of sight?
This panel invites scholars to show results of their multimodal research practices and discuss the ethical and methodological considerations for their research strategies. Panellists can show outcomes of their work and/or present a paper detailing research engagements. A key question this panel addresses: how do these visual ways of working allow to move beyond stereotypes and to envision mining futures ‘otherwise’?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 31 May, 2023, -Kamundala Byemba (University of Zurich)
Paper short abstract:
This paper emphasizes the value of immersive art in giving raw material producers and consumers a voice about the main benefits and challenges of artisanal gold labour. Zooming into the global gold supply chain framework, this paper uses a cutting-edge multidisciplinary approach.
Paper long abstract:
We are living in the digital age, an age when our lives are becoming more and more dependent on devices like (laptop) computers, cameras, and smartphones to lead our technological lives. These devices cannot function without rare minerals. While the quality, price, and origin of these rare minerals are given attention, less attention is paid to those who produce them, particularly artisanal miners. Artisanal miners, who are seen as the most vulnerable actors in the global gold supply chain, lack the means to communicate their concerns and gain a voice in this buyer-driven global value chain. This paper combines data gathered in Kamituga through ethnographic filmmaking and 3D scans of gold shafts that helped in the creation of an immersive art space. Moreover, the immersive art pushed the global audience to think concretely about more sustainable and transparent gold value chains. Specifically, it offered participants from the downstream of the gold supply chain the chance to not only experience the living and working conditions upstream of the gold chain but also to leave their voices and perspectives. In this sense, the paper concludes by advocating for a rethinking of ongoing initiatives that aim to formalize the artisanal gold supply chain. It argues that the improvement of working conditions of artisanal miners should be considered as part of the key component of the artisanal gold formalization process in the Eastern DR Congo. It does this by reflecting on the views of both upstream and downstream actors as well as local realities.
Joseph Mujere (University of York)
Paper short abstract:
“Waiting in a Platinum City” –is a documentary film produced by Joseph Mujere in collaboration with Simon Gush and News from Home . It uses waiting as a lens to explore the everyday struggles of residents of informal settlements on the margins of platinum mines in Rustenburg, South Africa.
Paper long abstract:
“Waiting in a Platinum City” – is a documentary film produced by Dr Joseph Mujere in collaboration with Simon Gush and News from Home. The documentary film uses waiting as a lens through which to explore the everyday struggles of residents of informal settlements on the margins of platinum mines in Rustenburg town in South Africa. It demonstrates how waiting is a key feature of residents’ encounters with mining companies, the local municipality as well as grassroots structures in their struggles over jobs and basic amenities. The documentary film captures how waiting in informal settlements is not characterized by passive acquiescence but is often an engaged activity that is informed by residents’ reflexive responses to the different structures and regimes of waiting. The documentary film demonstrates how visual methods such as collaborative documentary films can enhance our understanding of experiences of mining communities.
Anna Frohn Pedersen (Aarhus University)
Paper short abstract:
One Gram of Gold is a participatory film project about the everyday as it is lived in Nyarugusu, an artisanal and small-scale gold mining village in Tanzania. The two miners, Raphael and Robert, guide us through the mining landscape, portraying the risks, uncertainties and dreams of mining.
Paper long abstract:
‘One gram of gold’ (15 min) is about gold — a global commodity shaping local livelihoods and landscapes across the world. It is a participatory film project that aims to move beyond an ethnocentric gaze on mining, giving voice to local perspectives and portraying the everyday as it is lived in Nyarugusu, a mining village in the northern part of Tanzania. Raphael Msya and Robert Mwenda, two miners from Nyarugusu, are the reporters, interviewing fellow miners and guiding us through the gold mining landscape - from the humid underground tunnels to the dusty processing sites. They not only show us the risks, challenges and uncertainties that are embedded in mining but also the hopes and dreams it invokes. Their stories highlight the ambiguities of a sector that is degrading landscapes and endangering lives, but at the same time crucial for providing a livelihood. Through its participatory format, the film challenges the roles of researcher and participant. Different from academic writing, it is not driven by a coherent argument, but allows for multiple stories to unfold. Yet, it is still an edited representation, presenting a small fraction of hours of footage. This aspect of participatory and collaborative filmmaking is rarely transparent and poses ethical questions pertaining to how we co-represent mining worlds through multimodal formats.
Link: https://filmfreeway.com/projects/2340806
Password: Nyargusu2019
Muriel Côte (Lund University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper reflects on the politics of seeing and being seen shaping the methodology of a research project preoccupied with socioenvironmental injustices fuelling current mineral supply chains through the case of certified gold.
Paper long abstract:
In recent years increased research attention has been paid to mineral extraction dynamics. Within this research a lot of attention has been placed on socioenvironmental injustices, from the vantage point of dynamics unfolding in mineral producing contexts. This has included studies on social and environmental impacts of extraction, resistance to mining, conflicts related to access to mining land, the informality that pervades among small-scale mining communities. Yet much less research has been conducted on the dynamics in mineral importing contexts that may shed light on these injustices. The paper offers reflections on the politics of seeing and being seen which may help understand why this has been the case.
I do this reflecting on the politics shaping methodological choices of a research project studying the challenges faced by up and downstream actors in institutionalising labour and environmental standards along the certified gold supply chain. This research positioning between up and downstream worlds incurred some dilemmas in navigating a politically engaged research positionality. I reflect on how visual methods help capture this politics of seeing and being seen through three political ”moments”: accessing, representing and advising the research ”field”. I situate this reflection within a wider conversation on the global acceleration of mineral extraction, the socioenvironmental injustices that fuel it, and what politically engaged research may look like.
Sabine Luning (Leiden University)
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses collaborative film projects in the Gold Matters project (http://gold-matters.org/) which resulted in two short documentaries, situated in northern Ghana and in Tarkwa (southwest). Both portray lives of miners working in-depth terrains also targeted by large-scale mining.
Paper long abstract:
In the Gold Matters project (http://gold-matters.org/), collaborations around visualizations of mining worlds have been central (Luning & Pijpers 2022). As part of these collaborations, we produced two mini documentaries in Ghana. The first takes place in northern Ghana and portrays the lives and future aspirations of three members of the mining community of Kejetia (Gbane). The second is situated in the southwestern mining town Tarkwa where narratives of miners and governors help to portray past, present and possible futures of gold mining in this old industrial mining town. Both documentaries show how small-scale mining is organized in articulation (underground) with large-scale mining and how this may create tensions, frustrate futures, but also carve out new opportunities for small-scale miners. In my paper I detail some aspects of the process of collaboration, and I will show one of the two documentaries.
Gold Matters in Kejetia (Gbane, Ghana)
Future Makers
Sabine Luning and Nii Obodai (Research, Script and Interviews)
Gideon Vink (Images and Editing)
Massihoud Barry (Sound)
.............
Gold Matters in Tarkwa (Ghana)
Taking Small-Scale Mining to the Next Level
Sabine Luning (Research, Script and Interviews)
Gideon Vink (Direction and Editing)
Souleymane Drabo (Images)
Massihoud Barry (Sound)
................
Reference
Luning, S. and R.J. Pijpers (2022) Drawing on Words and Images: Co-labour & Visualizing Gold Matters. Anthropology and Photography, Vol. 16.
https://www.therai.org.uk/images/stories/photography/AnthandPhotoVol16.pdf