Formalizing artisanal and small-scale mining: Whither the workforce?

Verbrugge, Boris; Besmanos, Beverly

doi:10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.01.008

Cited by 113 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(58 reference statements)

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“…However, little literature in Asia has focused on power dynamics in regulating and representing artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), a segment of the mineral economy that presents complex and often very different -yet relatedsocioeconomic and environmental challenges Verbrugge and Besmanos, 2016). In examining mining in West Africa, Maconachie (2014) raised questions about how spaces of participation and spatial metaphors are understood in the extractive sector, profiling the importance of research on artisanal mining that uses spatial lenses to interrogate extractive sector development agendas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land and ‘space’ for regulating artisanal mining in Cambodia: Visualizing an environmental governance conundrum in contested territory

Spiegel

2016

Land Use Policy

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Globally, land use competition in mining areas is coming under increased scrutiny, leading to critical debates about inter-related physical and political "spaces" for environmental governance. By signing a global treaty called the Minamata Convention on Mercury, governments worldwide have conveyed a commitment to formalizing or regulating informal artisanal gold mining as part of an environmental governance strategy. Drawing on a case study of disputed gold mining territory in Kratie Province, Cambodia, this article examines how commitment to the Minamata Convention presents a conundrum given the government's prioritization of larger-scale concessions in land use policy. In most mineralrich regions of Kratie and other provinces, mineral exploration and/or mining rights -and other kinds of resource concessions -have already been granted to established companies and powerful actors, leaving ambiguous physical and political space for licensing artisanal mining. The article explores contested representations of mining as found in provincial government maps and civil society groups' cartoon illustrations, unpacking how competing mandates in the mining sector have created dilemmas for regional environmental governance as complex land-use conflicts between artisanal miners and larger companies have unfolded. Diverse competing claims to resources in Kratie illustrate the need to move beyond framings of the Minamata Convention as a technical implementation challenge in order to carefully appreciate the power dynamics inherent in divergent ways of visualizing "productive space" in mining regions. Contributing to recent scholarship in this journal on contested land use governance in Cambodia, the article calls for unpacking complexities of formally "making space" for artisanal mining in contested territory. At a wider conceptual level, the analysis highlights the importance of sensitively challenging common de-territorialized depictions of land use formalization that oversimplify the dialectical and contextually idiosyncratic interplays between political and physical space.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land and ‘space’ for regulating artisanal mining in Cambodia: Visualizing an environmental governance conundrum in contested territory

Spiegel

2016

Land Use Policy

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“…Pressured from external forces, rural communities are negotiating the free market and the state to make the best of constraining and enabling opportunities, accessing knowledge, resources and vistas of rights (Bebbington 1996). Following this argument, one can argue that rural communities, ousted by extractivism of states and international agencies, are adapting to the political economy of mineral extraction, and derive some benefits from the forces that are undermining their well-being (Verbrugge 2016). …”

Section: Diversity and Difficulties Of Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the microartisanal side, ASGM can involve relatively independent peasant miners working marginally productive alluvial gold tracts, experiencing high levels of vulnerability and holding subordinate livelihood positions within the local agrarian economy, but who also find support through non-market access to gold and other market or subsistence-based ecological resources. Towards the more medium-scale end of the spectrum, informal goldmining moves into more complex organisational and hierarchical labour arrangements, working deeper and more valuable alluvial, hard rock or riverine deposits with more significant levels of technology, investment and debt relations and operations linked to powerful business interests and political patrons (Verbrugge 2014a;Verbrugge and Besmanos 2016). This form of mining can even involve transnational capital connections.…”

Section: The Diversity Of Asgm Assemblages and Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between the Plough and the Pick: Informal, artisanal and small-scale mining in the contemporary world

Lahiri‐Dutt¹

2018

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“…The impetus behind research aimed at articulating more clearly ASM's linkages with farming and/or validating that many of its activities are ‘poverty‐driven’ has been to challenge the prevailing view that the sector is populated exclusively by entrepreneurs. Claims made by Fisher (), Verbrugge and Besmanos () and others that ASM communities are heterogeneous in their composition, populated by enterprising businessmen and individuals with skills, are by no means a revelation. They reinforce what researchers have been drawing attention to, both implicitly and explicitly, for many years (see, for example, Hilson and Maponga ; Van Bockstael ).…”

Section: Informal Artisanal and Small‐scale Mining ‘Spaces’mentioning

confidence: 99%

Formalising artisanal and small‐scale mining: insights, contestations and clarifications

Hilson

Maconachie

2017

Area

113

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In recent years, a number of academic analyses have emerged which draw attention to how most artisanal and small‐scale mining (ASM) activities – low‐tech, labour‐intensive, mineral extraction and processing – occur in informal ‘spaces’. This body of scholarship, however, is heavily disconnected from work being carried out by policy‐makers and donors who, recognising the growing economic importance of ASM in numerous rural sections of the developing world, are now working to identify ways in which to facilitate the formalisation of its activities. It has rather drawn mostly on theories of informality that have been developed around radically different, and in many cases, incomparable, experiences, as well as largely redundant ideas, to contextualise phenomena in the sector. This paper reflects critically on the implications of this widening gulf, with the aim of facilitating a better alignment of scholarly debates on ASM's informality with overarching policy/donor objectives. The divide must be bridged if the case for formalising ASM is to be strengthened, and policy is to be reformulated to reflect more accurately the many dimensions of the sector's operations.

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Formalizing artisanal and small-scale mining: Whither the workforce?

Cited by 113 publications

References 43 publications

Land and ‘space’ for regulating artisanal mining in Cambodia: Visualizing an environmental governance conundrum in contested territory

Land and ‘space’ for regulating artisanal mining in Cambodia: Visualizing an environmental governance conundrum in contested territory

Between the Plough and the Pick: Informal, artisanal and small-scale mining in the contemporary world

Formalising artisanal and small‐scale mining: insights, contestations and clarifications

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