Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-5nwft Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-31T22:47:56.161Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why time matters for understanding the ASM-LSM nexus in south-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2023

Jeroen Cuvelier
Jeroen Cuvelier*
Affiliation:
Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, 9000 Ghent, Ghent University, Belgium
*
Email: jeroen.cuvelier@ugent.be
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article highlights the importance of studying the politics of time in the copper and cobalt mining sector of south-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where a tense coexistence can be observed between artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) and large-scale mining (LSM). It is argued that inequality in ASM-LSM settings not only manifests itself spatially but also temporally. Faced with an uncertain future, ASM and LSM actors do not have the same capacity to control time and plan their futures. Drawing on data from several rounds of ethnographic fieldwork in Katanga's mining areas between 2005 and 2022, the article advocates an approach which pays more attention to issues of time and temporality in places where large-scale forms of mineral extraction clash with small-scale ones.

Keywords

anthropology of miningCongolese Copperbelttemporality
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 61 , Issue 2 , June 2023 , pp. 189 - 208
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Research for this paper was funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), grant number 12N2321N. The author wants to thank two anonymous reviewers of JMAS for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

References

REFERENCES

Askland, H.H. 2018. ‘A dying village: mining and the experiential condition of displacement’, The Extractive Industries and Society 5: 230–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baas, S., Hooff, L., Koopman, W., Lopez, A.M., McBrien, J. & Veenhoven, N.. 2020. ‘On futures’, Etnofoor 32, 1: 123–38.Google Scholar
Beckert, J. 2013. ‘Imagined futures: fictional expectations in the economy’, Theory and Society 42, 3: 219–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calvao, F., Mcdonald, C.E. & Bolay, M.. 2021. ‘Cobalt mining and the corporate outsourcing of responsibility in the Democratic Republic of Congo’, The Extractive Industries and Society. <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2021.02.004>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassiman, A., Eriksen, T.H. & Meinert, L.. 2022. ‘Pandemic precarity’, Anthropology Today 38, 4: 1–2.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Côte, M. & Korf, B.. 2018. ‘Making concessions: extractive enclaves, entangled capitalism and regulative pluralism at the gold mining frontier in Burkina Faso’, World Development 101: 466–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coyle, R.L. 2020. Fires of Gold: law, spirit, and sacrificial labor in Ghana. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuvelier, J. 2017. ‘Money, migration and masculinity in Katanga (DR Congo)’, Review of African Political Economy 44, 152: 204–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuvelier, J. 2020. ‘Making sense of repressive actions against artisanal miners in South-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.’ Ghent: GIC Network, Congo Research Briefs nr. 6.Google Scholar
Day, S., Papataxiarchis, E.E. & Stewart, M.E.. (eds) 1999. Lilies of the Field: marginal people who live for the moment. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
De Boeck, F. 2001. ‘Garimpeiro worlds: digging, dying and hunting for diamonds in Angola’, Review of African Political Economy 28, 90: 549–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D'Angelo, L. & Pijpers, R.. 2018. ‘Mining temporalities: an overview’, The Extractive Industries and Society 5: 215–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Declercq, R. 2019. ‘Red fever: natural resource companies and the global copper mining frontier 1890–1939’, in Joseph, S., ed. Commodity Frontiers and Global Capitalist Expansion: social, ecological and political implications from the nineteenth century until today. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 215–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Hemptinne, J.-F. 1926. ‘Les mangeurs de cuivre du Katanga’, Congo 1, 3: 371–403.Google Scholar
Engwicht, N. 2018. ‘“It can lift someone from poverty”: imagined futures in the Sierra Leonean diamond market.’ The Extractive Industries and Society 5, 2: 260–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Espion, B. & Provost, M.. 2021. Trabeka – General contractor in Africa and Belgium (1924–39), in Mascarenhos-Mateus, J. & Pires, A.P., eds. History of Construction Cultures vol. 1. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 530–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. 1940. The Nuer: a description of the modes of livelihood and political institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Fabian, J. 1990. History from Below: the vocabulary of Elisabethville by André Yav. Text, Translation and Interpretive Essay. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fent, A. & Kojola, E.. 2020. ‘Political ecologies of time and temporality in resource extraction’, Journal of Political Ecology 27: 819–938.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geenen, S. 2014. ‘Dispossession, displacement and resistance: artisanal miners in a gold concession in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo’, Resources Policy 40: 90–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geenen, K. 2020. ‘Gnawing away at the city: narratives of domestic precarity in a Congolese mining town’, African Studies Review 64, 2: 1–22.Google Scholar
Global Witness. 2006. Digging in Corruption: fraud, abuse and exploitation in Katanga's copper and cobalt mines. Washington: Global Witness Publishing Inc.Google Scholar
Halvaksz, J.A. II. 2008. ‘Whose closure? Appearances, temporality and mineral extraction in Papua New Guinea’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14, 1: 21–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harms, E. 2013. ‘Eviction time in the new Saigon: temporalities of displacement in the rubble of development’, Cultural Anthropology 28, 2: 344–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hilson, G., Yakovleva, N. & Banchirigah, S.M.. 2007. ‘To move or not to move: reflections on the resettlement of artisanal miners in the Western region of Ghana’, African Affairs 106, 424: 413–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hilson, G., Sauerwein, T. & Owen, J.. 2020. ‘Large and artisanal scale mine development: the case for autonomous co-existence’, World Development 130, 104919.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hönke, J. 2009. ‘Transnational pockets of territoriality. Governing the security of extraction in Katanga (DRC).’ Leipzig: Working Paper Series of the Graduate Centre Humanities and Social Sciences of the Research Academy nr. 2.Google Scholar
Iparraguirre, G. 2016. ‘Time, temporality and cultural rhythmics: an anthropological case study’, Time & Society 25, 3: 613–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johansson de Silva, S., Strauss, T. & Morisho, N.. 2019. The Mutoshi Pilot Project. Local economic impact of a project aimed at formalizing artisanal and small-scale mining. Online publication obtained from the Trafigura website: <www.trafigura.com/responsibility/responsible-sourcing/mutoshi-pilot-project>, accessed 3 June 2021.Google Scholar
Kennes, E. 2000. ‘Le secteur minier au Congo: déconnexion et descente aux enfers’, L'Afrique des Grands Lacs: Annuaire 1999–2000: 305–48.Google Scholar
Kesselring, R. 2018. ‘At an extractive pace: conflicting temporalities in a resettlement process in Solwezi, Zambia’, The Extractive Industries and Society 5, 2: 237–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kneas, D. 2018. ‘Emergence and aftermath: the (un)becoming of resources and identities in Northwestern Ecuador’, American Anthropologist 120, 4: 752–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopytoff, I. (ed.) 1987. The African Frontier: the reproduction of traditional African societies. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Lekime, F. 1992. Katanga: pays du cuivre. Verviers: Editions Gérard & Co.Google Scholar
Luning, S. 2012. ‘Corporate social responsibility (CSR) for exploration: consultants, companies and communities in processes of engagements’, Resources Policy 37, 2: 205–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luning, S. & Pijpers, R.. 2017. ‘Governing access to gold in Ghana: in-depth geopolitics on mining concessions’, Africa 87, 4: 758–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Makori, T. 2019. ‘Artisanal mines, governance and historical generations in the Congolese Copperbelt.’ Toronto, PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Moore, J. 2000. Sugar and the expansion of the early modern world economy: commodity frontiers, ecological transformation, and industrialization. Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 23, 3: 409–33.Google Scholar
Morosanu, R. & Ringel, F.. 2016. ‘Time-tricking: a general introduction’, Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 34, 1: 17–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perks, R. 2011. ‘Can I go?’ – Exiting the artisanal mining sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo’, Journal of International Development 23: 1115–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petit, P. 2000. ‘“Va manger les arbres de la brousse!”. Les hommes, les esprits et leurs espaces chez les Luba du Katanga’, Civilisations 47, 1/2: 143–63.Google Scholar
Pijpers, R.J. 2016. ‘Mining, expectations and turbulent times: locating accelerated change in rural Sierra Leone’, History and Anthropology 27, 5: 504–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubbers, B. 2009. ‘The story of a tragedy: how people in Haut-Katanga interpret the post-colonial history of Congo’, Journal of Modern African Studies 47, 2: 267–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubbers, B. 2013. Le Paternalisme en Question: les anciens ouvriers de la Gécamines face à la liberalization du secteur minier Katangais (RD Congo). Paris: L'Harmattan; Tervuren: Musée Royale de l'Afrique Centrale.Google Scholar
Rubbers, B. 2019. ‘Mining towns, enclaves and spaces: a genealogy of worker camps in the Congolese Copperbelt’, Geoforum 98: 88–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rumsey, A. & Weiner, J.. (eds) 2004. Mining and Indigenous Lifeworlds in Australia and Papua New Guinea. Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing.Google Scholar
Scott, J. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: hidden transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, J. 2011. ‘Tantalus in the digital age: coltan ore, temporal dispossession, and ‘movement’ in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’, American Ethnologist 38, 1: 17–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsing, A.L. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Verbrugge, B. & Geenen, S.. 2019. ‘The gold commodity frontier: a fresh perspective on change and diversity in the global gold mining economy’, The Extractive Industries and Society 6, 2: 413–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, A. 2003. ‘Hot money and daring consumption in a Northern Malagasy sapphire mining town’, American Ethnologist 30, 2: 290–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werthmann, K. 2012. ‘Gold mining in Burkina Faso since the 1980s’, in Werthmann, K. & Grätz, T., eds. Mining Frontiers in Africa: anthropological and historical perspectives. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 119–32.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. 2014. ‘Mining memories in a rural community: landscape, temporality and place-identity’, Journal of Rural Studies 36: 22–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar