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Paper short abstract:

Focusing on African extractive technologies, this paper mobilizes ethnographic engagements to examine the thin line between re-purposing, appropriation, and 'frugal' innovation. In searching for a more grounded alternative to frugal innovation, what do other modes of inquiry might pop up?

Paper long abstract:

Consider the role small (China-made) engines, play in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the past two decades, its import not only impacted agriculture, but also ways of artisan and small-scale mining. In the Kivu region of DR Congo, small-scale machinery (ball mills, air compressors, pumps) boosted revenues by affording extractive deepening in unbreathable (underwater or underground) workspaces. From a different vantage point, however, engines also require repair work, maintenance, apprenticeship, improvisation, and adaptation. Mechanization requires craftsmanship and care. Yet, what can Congolese ingénieurs teach us about their technology? What perspective on development do they hold? And can ways of extraction be considered useful within ongoing debates of degrowth? What can be extracted, what are the tailings, and what can be wasted at this intersection?

This paper mobilizes multiple ethnographic interlocutions (collected over long-term fieldwork and archival research) surrounding African socio-technical dynamics to critically engage with the following notions: technological choices, frugal innovation, and appropriate (and/or convivial) technologies. A first interlocution focuses on hard rock mining and the challenges of aeration and stone crushing. Although ingénieurs’ often place themselves in prolongation to colonial (often improvised) ways of extraction, their current (appropriated) techniques afford thinking with the re-purposing of vernacular material, colonial debris, and the translation of pre-colonial metallurgical skills. What assumptions on development do their practices preclude and can they help us 'unthink development'?

A second case engages with alluvial mining (kazabula). Starting as forms of free diving for diamonds during the Mobutu era (late 1970s) in the Kasai region, over time kazabuleurs 'innovated' their set-up and currently dive with artificial air supply in the Kivu region. From the outset their ways seem ‘frugal’. Yet, can more ethnographically grounded notions, such as souple (flexible), give a more valid alternative to start (re-)thinking or valorize what is going on in the Congolese hinterland?