Soft skills, hard rocks

Abstract

In 2007, Canada was the third-largest producer of diamonds in the world. Marketed as ethical alternatives to ”blood diamonds,” Canadian gemstones are said to go beyond basic “conflict-free” designations by providing northern Indigenous peoples with high-wage work and training. This article makes two connected points. First, it describes how the ethics of diamond mining are connected to the uneasy management of people groomed to do extractive work. Second, following the development and delivery of job training programs for Indigenous people over the course of the financial crisis of 2008–2009, this article reveals how mandatory “soft skills” courses attempt to adjust would-be worker speech to meet corporate norms in ways that were essential in maintaining the ethical sign value of subarctic stones.

Discussion: Language in nature resource economies

“…Language skills or lack of them are used to justify a particular organisation of mining work related to bodies, ethnicity and class (see, for example, Mesthrie this issue). In her research on diamond mines in Canada's Northwest Territories, Bell (2017) shows how soft skills training for indigenous people, including language skills, is used to groom people to do extractive work and hang on to the hope of getting a job in the future, while they are actually a surplus workforce. Similarly, multilingualism in mines can be valued, disregarded and managed in various ways.…”

“…These often overlap, compete and oppose each other, making both the governance and development of nature resource economies a volatile business. While exploitation and protection of air, water, and land are of continuing interest in the fields of ecology, law and geography, for instance, there are only a few studies that have examined language in nature resource economics (related to mining see, for example, Bell [2017], Brown [2008], Hiss [2017]). This is why the current special issue "Language in the mines" is a welcome and timely opening for research on the multiple ways that language matters in the extraction, circulation and protection of nature resources.…”