The Moral Politics of Gendered Labour in Artisanal Mining in Sierra Leone

Abstract

Drawing on current anthropological approaches to labour, this article examines some of the moral politics mobilized around women and artisanal mining in policy-inflected scholarship with reference to particular gold mining zones in Tonkolili district, Sierra Leone. In so doing, the article proposes that such a focus on labour not only allows one to appreciate how sentiments concerning (im)proper behaviour infuse wider policy proposals to amend social arrangements in regard to what is called 'artisanal mining', but it also offers insight into some of the enduring moral politics helping to constitute women as 'family workers' in the actual artisanal gold mining zones. The article suggests that examining the overlapping moral politics constituting women's labour practices provides a more supple understanding of the contested economic possibilities for women in this livelihood practice.

Analysis of the Spatio-Temporal Evolution of Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Central Ivory Coast, West Africa

“…The second component of the artisanal miners is constituted of women (02 to 03 persons) responsible for washing the ore supplied by the well diggers (Ibrahim et al, 2020;Rutherford, 2020). In general, the artisanal miners work under the close supervision of the representatives of the land owner and of the "site manager" whose role is to prevent the theft of the gold produced.…”

Migration, authority and the gendered organization of labour in artisanal gold mining in Sierra Leone (and Mozambique)

“…As in all production work, the organization of labour is crucially important in artisanal gold mining (Verbrugge and Besmanos 2016;Rutherford 2020). Like access itself to the artisanal mining sites, labour relations may require working through relations of (inter)dependence.…”

“…While this payment often did not lead to much money, the job of transporting ore from open pits to the top was sought after by many women. Most women said that getting such work required having a husband or brother or male friend among the diggers or as the supporter (Rutherford 2020). While married women's work in the mining areas often provided much-needed access to income for the household, particularly if their husbands were mining and currently not processing the gold (and thus had no ore to sell to get money), this possible conjugal interdependency for household income (see, e.g., Bryceson et al 2013; did not negate the fact that husbands often asserted authority over what work their wives did in the mines and at home (Ibrahim et al 2020).…”