Paper short abstract:

From archival traces of dust-prevention policies to an ethnography of daily life around gold pits, this paper places current iterations of granular substances (i.e. sand, dust) in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo against a wider colonial and post-colonial history.

Paper long abstract:

For an artisanal miner in Kamituga, South-Kivu, the texture of a sandy subsoil is an indicator of the potential presence of gold. Sand may indicate wealth. When gold pits ‘vibrate’ (produce), muddy sand will be unearthed and crushed. In this process of retrieving auriferous 'sand', waste rock turns dry and its granular size becomes smaller. This produces a harmful, airborne, and less visible residual. Examining a miner’s lung, we find, in the words of the 18th century doctor Ramazzini, “sand-like substances” (silica), becoming only ‘perceptible’ through the depiction of lesions on X-ray scans, bloody sputum, and eventually the diagnosis of silicosis.

Drawing from archival research and extensive fieldwork in the region, this paper first digs into an often-forgotten trace of Belgian colonial history: the place of dust prevention in colonial policies of hygiene. Next, it swerves into the present. Colonial infrastructures have turned into abject ruins, but sand-clouds and other toxic fumes are on the rise in the artisanal miner’s use of crushers, drills, and engines. Finally, it travels out of the workplace. Dust-clouds flare up underneath trucks transporting valuable ‘sand’ on decrepit colonial roads. Travelers on foot cover their orifices or take shortcuts to avoid larger ones.

Irrespective of its chemical composition, talk and attunements in Congolese mining towns often revolve around ‘granular’ substances (flour, dust, powder, “schmoke”, sand). Wavering between a harmful and a valuable presence, this paper places these elements into a wider history of colonial policies and infrastructures, and post-colonial technologies and embodied tactics.