International project Gold Matters - small-scale gold miners inspire each other

Subject

Illegally working with pans and mercury for a gram of gold? The international research programme Gold Matters adjusts and nuances this one-sided view policymakers have of small-scale gold miners. The programme focuses on conversations with the gold miners themselves: how do they see their future? This focus can lead to new perspectives on sustainability and ways of working. ‘Amazement is very productive.’

New insights come up when cultural anthropologists Sabine Luning, Marjo de Theije and Esther van de Camp talk about the gold miners they met in various African and South American countries. The typical neoliberal, large-scale gold mining in Africa and South America might be the dominant form of mining, but there are also at least sixteen million people worldwide who depend on small-scale gold mining. It is therefore hardly surprising that some researchers have specialised in the study of this way of life.