The lifeways of small-scale gold miners: Addressing sustainability transformations

Eleanor Fisher*, Marjo de Theije, Carlos H.X. Araujo, Jorge Calvimontes, Esther van de Camp, Lorenzo D'Angelo, Cristiano Lanzano, Sabine Luning, Luciana Massaro, Januária Mello, Alizèta Ouédraogo, Robert J. Pijpers, Raíssa Resende de Moraes, Christophe Sawadogo, Margaret Tuhumwire, Ronald Twongyirwe

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Small-scale gold mining sustains millions of people's lives and yet it stimulates environmental harms and social conflicts. Global environmental crises drive calls for fundamental change to how people live on the planet. For small-scale gold mining, this raises questions about whether current dynamics can provide a basis for sustainability transformations. Proposing the notion of gold lifeways to focus on the lived experience of mining and gold resources as relational phenomena, we ask what sustainability looks like from different miners’ perspectives and probe the practice dynamics of current transformation. Our methodology is social science-led and transdisciplinary. From multi-sited and trans-regional research between South America and Africa, we draw cases from Suriname, Guinea Conakry, and Uganda. Our study finds that gold lifeways give expression to different strands of sustainability: sustaining everyday life in mining; discourses framing mining practices; and government repression of mining. Hence, as our empirical data demonstrates, miner perspectives on sustainability gain content not in isolation, but as part of gold lifeways embedded within different contexts and shaped by societal dynamics. Ultimately, the transformative potency of small-scale gold mining is located in personal lives and precarious dynamics rather than glittering promises of a sustainable future.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102724
Pages (from-to)1-13
Number of pages13
JournalGlobal Environmental Change
Volume82
Early online date29 Aug 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Belmont Forum and NORFACE Joint Research Programme on Transformations to Sustainability, co-funded by DLR/BMBF, ESRC, FAPESP, ISC, NWO, VR, and the EC through Horizon 2020 (grant number: 462.17.201) under the project ‘Sustainability Transformations in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining: Trans-regional and Multi-Actor Perspectives’ (‘Gold Matters’) (2018 – 2022). Eleanor Fisher and Cristiano Lanzano acknowledge the support of the Nordic Africa Institute.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s)

Funding

This work was supported by the Belmont Forum and NORFACE Joint Research Programme on Transformations to Sustainability, co-funded by DLR/BMBF, ESRC, FAPESP, ISC, NWO, VR, and the EC through Horizon 2020 (grant number: 462.17.201) under the project ‘Sustainability Transformations in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining: Trans-regional and Multi-Actor Perspectives’ (‘Gold Matters’) (2018 – 2022). Eleanor Fisher and Cristiano Lanzano acknowledge the support of the Nordic Africa Institute.

FundersFunder number
Economic and Social Research Council
European Commission
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Horizon 2020462.17.201
Horizon 2020
Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of Tasmania

    Keywords

    • Gold lifeways
    • Materiality
    • Small-scale gold mining
    • Sustainability transformations
    • Transdisciplinary

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