After more than three decades of economic malaise, many African countries are experiencing an upsurge in their economic fortunes linked to the booming international market for minerals. Spurred by the shrinking viability of peasant agriculture, rural dwellers have been engaged in a massive search for alternative livelihoods, one of the most lucrative being artisanal mining. While a burgeoning literature is acknowledging the spread of artisanal mining, this book is the first to probe its societal impact and potential for extending economic opportunity and participatory forms of democracy....
After more than three decades of economic malaise, many African countries are experiencing an upsurge in their economic fortunes linked to the booming...
Juxtaposing literatures on urbanisation and mining at a time when small-scale artisanal as well as large-scale mining operations are transforming many African economies, this book focuses on the interplay of Sub-Saharan Africa mining and urbanisation in the context of global shifts in capital and labour flows. Classically, urbanisation has been identified with industrial expansion, but mining is a distinct subset of industrial activity, involving artisanal and large-scale mining. Case studies of a wide variety of countries with long historical experience of large-scale mining (South...
Juxtaposing literatures on urbanisation and mining at a time when small-scale artisanal as well as large-scale mining operations are transforming many...