Global Incorporation and Local Conflict: Sierra Leonean Mining Regions

Abstract

This paper draws upon a world-system core-periphery framework to examine the nature and causes of persistent low-level conflict in Sierra Leonean mining regions. Conflict is endemic because of asymmetrical power relations between global core-state corporations and peripheral weak-state Sierra Leone, which are mirrored locally within its mining regions. Structural constraints inherent in these relationships generate and sustain socioeconomic, cultural and environmental inequities. The paper reveals the complex web of micropolitics in the mining locale core-periphery microcosm involving a weak state, exploitative corporations and oppressive traditional social hierarchies. The findings are relevant to effective policy making and conflict resolution.

Refining the preconditions of a social licence to operate (SLO): reflections on citizens’ attitudes towards mining in two Finnish regions

“…In the last 20 years the mining industry has been under pressure to contribute more positively to regional development (IIED 2002, 4;Gibson 2006, 334;Slack 2009, 83;Tuusjärvi 2013, 11). The global image of mining has been negative, with concerns raised in particular about the ability of the industry to manage environmental and social impacts (Clark & Cook Clark 1999;Hilson 2002;Cademartori 2002;Jenkins & Yakovleva 2006;Trebeck 2007;Eerola 2008;Holden & Jacobson 2008;Le Billion & Levin 2009;Taylor 2011;Urkidi 2011;Akiwumi 2012). The mitigation of the environmental impacts of mining has been approached mainly as a technological and engineering challenge (Clark & Cook Clark 1999, 190;Solomon et al 2008, 142;Richards 2009, xxi;Everingham 2012, 92).…”

Vulnerable populations affected by mining: Predicting and preventing outbreaks of physical violence

“…Nor do we suggest structural changes for the financing arrangements neoliberal economics critics who have linked these structures not to development but to violence in the mining sector (Akiwumi, 2012;Bebbington et al, 2008). Instead, we focus on mining-related conflict in the space at the local level between extractive resource operations (or sites) and proximate communities.…”

Dispossession, exploitation or employment? Youth livelihoods and extractive industry investment in Sierra Leone

“…It was not until much later in the 1960s, that emerging neo-Marxist concerns for underdevelopment in newly independent Third World countries drew on Marx's theory of primitive accumulation, which then paved the way for a long tradition of scholarship that explored the unequal relationships between 'core' and 'periphery' in the context of natural resource extraction (Frank, 1967;1969;Wallerstein, 1974). In more recent years, these concerns have once again returned to centre stage, largely in response to increasingly asymmetrical power relationships between global extractive industry corporations and weak peripheral nation-states (Akiwumi, 2012).…”