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This article studies the transformative nature of “artisanal frontier mining” in view of Sub Saharan Africa’s mining history. Artisanal gold production has generated livelihood earnings for millions of people in SubSaharan Africa. Yet we must go beyond a study of artisanal mining as an individual livelihood choice and consider the sector’s internal dynamics. In this sense, the concept of “labour transformation” is helpful. It refers to a process in which individuals’ skill acquisition, economic exchange, psychological re-orientation and social positioning evolve towards a shared occupational identity and collective professional norms, leaving considerable scope for self-governance amongst artisanal miners. This process is captured in the notion of the “frontier”, which in our case refers to occupational rather than geographic locational change. However, the frontier is necessarily of limited temporal duration given the existence of gold as a non-renewable resource, the depth of the gold supply sinking beyond the exploratory and extractive reach of artisanal miners, and the expanding interests of foreign mining corporations and the state. Our argument is illustrated through a comparison of the artisanal mining experiences of two neighbouring countries, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), whose artisanal labour patterns are remarkably similar to each other despite their very different national political contexts and the DRC’s recent experience of conflict mineral production. OVER THE PAST TWO DECADES, Africa’s rising economic performance has been largely dependent on the exploitation of its oil and mineral wealth. Yet this mining boom was primarily based on largescale corporate mining, for which foreign private capital and African government elites were the * Deborah Fahy Bryceson (dfbryceson@bryceson.net), Honorary Research Fellow, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh. Sara Geenen (sara.geenen@uantwerpen.be), post-doctoral FWO fellow, Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp. This article is based on research in Tanzania (Bryceson 2005-2012) and the DRC (Geenen 2008-2012). We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the United Kingdom’s Department of International Development and the Economic and Social Research Council RES-167-250488 as well as the Belgian Research FoundationFlanders, the Flemish Interuniversity Council and the Institute of Development Policy and Management at the University of Antwerp. Special acknowledgement goes to Dr Jesper Bosse Jønsson, the late Prof. Ndalahwa Madulu and the Tanzanian UPIMA team for their collaboration and to all members of the CEGEMI team at the Université Catholique de Bukavu (DRC). 2 major beneficiaries. 1 The aim of this article is to draw attention to African artisanal mining, which is labour-intensive mineral extraction on the basis of minimal capital investment, the use of manual tools and devices or simple portable machinery. 2 Such artisanal mining activities afford direct benefit in the form of employment, skills and management capability to considerable numbers of people. Figures are hard to come by but Karen Hayes estimates that 9 million miners and 54 million non-miners derived economic benefit from artisanal mining. 3 As African artisanal mining gathered momentum during the 1980s and 1990s, academic enquiry was relatively negligible. 4 During the latter half of the 1990s development, NGOs and donor agencies, notably the World Bank, the United Nations and the International Labour Organization, entered the scene, emphasizing artisanal mining’s social and environmental impact, its “informality” and relationship with poverty, and trying to shape policy. 5 Since 2000, Gavin Hilson has taken the lead in introducing development studies concepts into the analysis of artisanal and small-scale mining, beginning with a seminal edited collection examining its socio-economic impacts and a proliferation of articles on an array of development studies themes including poverty alleviation, livelihood diversification and good governance. 6 Current documentation of African artisanal mining stresses its significance as an economic livelihood, with far less attention drawn to 1 Bonnie Campbell, ‘Corporate social responsibility and development in Africa: Redefining the roles of public and private actors in the mining sector’, Resources Policy 37, 2 (2012), pp. 138-43; Roger Moody, Rocks and hard places: The globalization of mining (Zed Books, London, 2007). 2 Deborah Fahy Bryceson and Jesper Bosse Jønsson, ‘Mineralizing Africa and artisanal mining’s democratizing influence’, in Deborah Fahy Bryceson, Eleanor Fisher, Jesper Bosse Jønsson and Rosemarie Mwaipopo (eds), Mining and social transformation in Africa (Routledge, Abingdon, 2014), pp. 1-22. 3 Karen Hayes, ‘Artisanal and small-scale mining and livelihoods in Africa’ (Amsterdam, Common Fund for Commodities, 2008). 4 Notable exceptions were: Seithy Loth Chachage, ‘The meek shall inherit the earth but not the mining rights: Mining and accumulation in Tanzania’, in Peter Gibbon (ed.) Liberalised development in Tanzania (Institute for African Studies, Uppsala, 1995), pp. 37-108; Filip De Boeck, ‘Domesticating diamonds and dollars: Identity, expenditure and sharing in Southwestern Zaire (1984-1997)’, Development and Change 29 (1998), pp. 777-810. 5 Jeffrey Davidson, ‘The transformation and successful development of small-scale mining enterprises in developing countries’, Natural Resources Forum 17, 4 (1993), pp. 315-26; Mamadou Barry, ‘Regularizing informal mining: A summary of the proceedings of the International Roundtable on Artisanal Mining’ (Washington D.C., 17-19 May 1995, Available from www.commdev.org/regularizing-informal-mining-summaryproceedings-international-roundtableartisanal-mining (accessed 14 January 2013)); UN, ‘Recent developments in small-scale mining: a report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations’, Natural Resources Forum 20, 3 (1996), pp. 215–225; Wilson Mutagwaba, Rose Mwaipopo and A.L. Mlaki, ‘The impact of technology on poverty alleviation: The case of artisanal mining in Tanzania’ (REPOA Research Report no. 97.2, Dar es Salaam, Inter Press Tanzania Ltd, 1997); ILO, ‘Social and labour issues in small-scale mines: Report for discussion at the tripartite meeting on social and labour issues in small-scale mines’ (Geneva, ILO, 1999); Thomas Henschel, Felix Hruschka and Michael Priester, ‘Global report on artisanal and small-scale mining’ (International Institute for Environment and Development, London, 2002). 6 Gavin Hilson (ed.), The socio-economic impacts of artisanal and small-scale mining in developing countries (London, Taylor & Francis, 2003); Gavin Hilson and Clive Potter, ‘Structural adjustment and subsistence industry: Artisanal gold mining in Ghana’, Development and Change 36, 1 (2005), pp. 103-131; Gavin Hilson, ‘Small-scale mining, poverty and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An overview’, Resources Policy 34 (2009), pp. 1-5; Gavin Hilson, ‘”Once a miner, always a miner”: Poverty and livelihood diversification in Akwatia, Ghana’, Journal of Rural Studies 26, 3 (2010), pp. 296-307; Gavin Hilson, ‘Artisanal mining, smallholder farming and livelihood diversification in rural Sub-Saharan Africa: An introduction’, Journal of International Development 23 (2011), pp. 1031-1041; Gavin Hilson, Richard Amankwah and Grace Ofori-Sarpong, ‘Going for gold: Transitional livelihoods in Northern Ghana’, Journal of Modern African Studies 51, 1 (2013), pp.109-137. 3 its normative evolution as a cultural way of life. 7 Another salient thematic strand focuses on the clash between small and large-scale mining’s land and mineral rights, which is in keeping with the sectoral perspective of this literature. 8 Overall, the policy-oriented nature of the literature gives salience to problem-solving and advocacy of artisanal miners’ interests. In this sense, ample use is also made of the concept of “informality”, arguing that the informal nature of artisanal mining activities hinders their efficiency and productivity. 9 Another problematic feature of artisanal mining that has received considerable attention in the literature at the turn of the twenty-first century is human rights abuses and forced labour in the context of conflict mineral production. In the brutal civil wars in Angola, 10 Sierra Leone, 11 and Liberia, 12 diamonds were sold to finance warlords’ activities, invading armies and insurgencies. In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the extraction and sale of coltan and gold enabled rebel groups as well as Congolese and foreign government forces to purchase arms and continue fighting over strategic mining sites and trade routes. 13 In these mines, people were forced to work and cede part of their production to the armed forces, as witnessed in many NGO reports by Global Witness, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Enough Project and others. 7 Sadia Mohammed Banchirigah, ‘How have reforms fuelled the expansion of artisanal mining? Evidence from subSaharan Africa’, Resources Policy 31, 3 (2006), pp. 165-71; Eleanor Fisher, ‘Occupying the margins: Labour integration and social exclusion in artisanal mining in Tanzania’, Development and Change 38, 4 (2007), pp. 735-60; Gavin Hilson (ed.) The socio-economic impacts of artisanal and small-scale mining. 8 Gavin Hilson, ‘Land use competition between smalland large-scale miners: A case-study of Ghana’, Land Use Policy 19, 2 (2002), pp. 149-56; Gavin Hilson, Nathalia Yakovleva and Sadia Mohammed Banchirigah, ‘”To move or not to move’: Reflections on the resettlement of artisanal miners in the Western Region of Ghana’, African Affairs 106, 424 (2007), pp. 413-436; Siri Lange, ‘Gold and governance: Legal injustices and lost opportunities in Tanzania, African Affairs 110, 439 (2011), pp. 233-252; Godfried Appiah Okoh, ‘Grievance and conflict in Ghana’s gold mining industry:

Artisanal frontier mining of gold in Africa: Labour transformation in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo