Cristiano Lanzano
Biographic Data
| ID | 824229 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cristiano Lanzano |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cristiano |
| FAMILY NAME | Lanzano |
| SIGNATURE | LANZANO C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Nordic Africa Institute |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0481-5250 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 82 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
With gold, it’s never over’. Remainders and the moral economy of artisanal mining in Burkina Faso
This article focuses on the work and sharing practices of gold miners in Burkina Faso as a case to highlight the importance of remainders in the artisanal mining economy. Through a continuous process of identifying valuable ores and discarding leftovers, miners create opportunities for the future reprocessing of remainders from past mining activities. This act of (re)processing remainders can become central, especially when specific techniques – …
Soft Infrastructures: Mediating Labor Mobilities Across and Between Secondary Cities in West Africa
How are mobilities mediated in contexts where the movement of people has a long and central history, and how do we account for their gendered, generational, and classed differentiation? Through the concept of soft infrastructures, we suggest that the facilitation of regional labor mobilities in West Africa rely to a considerable extent not only on personal social networks, but on broadly shared cultural notions of friendship, solidarity, and occu…
Moral economies of capitalism in Africa
Moral economies of distribution and redistribution in Africa: The right and wrong of who gets (and gives) what and why
The lifeways of small-scale gold miners: Addressing sustainability transformations
Small-scale gold mining sustains millions of people's lives and yet it stimulates environmental harms and social conflicts. Global environmental crises drive calls for fundamental change to how people live on the planet. For small-scale gold mining, this raises questions about whether current dynamics can provide a basis for sustainability transformations. Proposing the notion of gold lifeways to focus on the lived experience of mining and gold r…
Citizenship Matters: Explorations into the Citizen-State Relationship in Africa
Citizenship is a universal legal concept and norm. But its meaning and impact differ. Its codification and implementation are shaped by historical trajectories, political systems and state/government relations with members of society. State policy affects perceptions of citizenship and civic behaviour by those governed. This paper engages with current challenges relating to citizenship in Africa South of the Sahara. It centres on academic and pol…
Coyle Rosen Lauren. — Fires of Gold. Law, Spirit, and Sacrificial Labor in Ghana
At the heart of the Ashanti region in southern Ghana, the town of Obuasi hosts one of the largest industrial gold operations in the country and the whole African continent, now owned by the AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) mining conglomerate. As a consequence, the town is at the center of intense migration flows, financial investments and political projects, linked not only to the formal economy of AGA’s extractive operations but also to the mining activ…
Who owns the mud? Valuable leftovers, sociotechnical innovation and changing relations of production in artisanal gold mining (Burkina Faso)
The expansion of artisanal gold mining has contributed to agrarian change in most of the global South—including West Africa: the sector offers interesting examples of technological and socio‐economic change, reflecting broader dynamics in the political economy of mining. In this article, we rely on our multisited ethnography to show how innovations in gold processing—particularly, the shift from mercury‐based to cyanide‐based techniques—reconfigu…
Interdisciplinarity and the future of development studies after the 2019 Nobel Prize in economics
The 2019 Nobel prize for Economics consecrated A. Banerjee, E. Duflo and M. Kremer’s hegemony on development economics. The emphasis they put on field experiments and randomized control trials (RCTs) matched the emphasis on evidence-based policies and on evaluation that dominated the development sector in the same years. Here, we take inspiration from the debates generated by the 2019 Nobel prize to reflect on the future of development studies. W…
Transforming matters: Sustaining gold lifeways in artisanal and small-scale mining
The cyanide revolution: Efficiency gains and exclusion in artisanal- and small-scale gold mining
Since its advent at the end of the nineteenth century, cyanide processing facilitated the intensification and global expansion of industrial gold mining. Today, there are important indications that artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is on the verge of a similar cyanide revolution: while ASGM is typically associated with mercury-based processing, mercury amalgamation is increasingly replaced with, or complemented by, cyanidation. Relying…
Des « puits burkinabè » en Haute Guinée: Processus et enjeux de la circulation de savoirs techniques dans le secteur minier artisanal
Resumé L’extraction artisanale de l’or en Afrique de l’Ouest mobilise des savoirs techniques et entraîne des innovations qui traversent les frontières, du fait de la mobilité des orpailleurs qui se déplacent rapidement entre les zones aurifères. Nous présentons ici le cas d’un site minier artisanal en Haute Guinée, situé dans une région où l’orpaillage a une histoire très ancienne et est régi par des institutions coutumières : l’afflux récent d’o…
Gold digging and the politics of time: Changing timescapes of artisanal mining in West Africa
Entrepreneurs de la frontière: Le rôle des comptoirs privés dans les sites d'extraction artisanale de l'or au Burkina Faso
Au Burkina Faso, le secteur aurifère est en plein essor et les sites d'extraction artisanale en sont une composante importante. Si l'exploitation artisanale échappe en large partie aux tentatives de contrôle par la législation formelle, des formes variées de gouvernance réelle se mettent en place pour assurer la régulation de la vie et du travail dans les sites d'orpaillage. Dans le cas présenté ici, un rôle central est assumé par les représentan…
Gold digging and the politics of time: Changing timescapes of artisanal mining in West Africa
The cyanide revolution: Efficiency gains and exclusion in artisanal- and small-scale gold mining
Since its advent at the end of the nineteenth century, cyanide processing facilitated the intensification and global expansion of industrial gold mining. Today, there are important indications that artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is on the verge of a similar cyanide revolution: while ASGM is typically associated with mercury-based processing, mercury amalgamation is increasingly replaced with, or complemented by, cyanidation. Relying…
Entrepreneurs de la frontière: Le rôle des comptoirs privés dans les sites d'extraction artisanale de l'or au Burkina Faso
Au Burkina Faso, le secteur aurifère est en plein essor et les sites d'extraction artisanale en sont une composante importante. Si l'exploitation artisanale échappe en large partie aux tentatives de contrôle par la législation formelle, des formes variées de gouvernance réelle se mettent en place pour assurer la régulation de la vie et du travail dans les sites d'orpaillage. Dans le cas présenté ici, un rôle central est assumé par les représentan…
The lifeways of small-scale gold miners: Addressing sustainability transformations
Small-scale gold mining sustains millions of people's lives and yet it stimulates environmental harms and social conflicts. Global environmental crises drive calls for fundamental change to how people live on the planet. For small-scale gold mining, this raises questions about whether current dynamics can provide a basis for sustainability transformations. Proposing the notion of gold lifeways to focus on the lived experience of mining and gold r…
Transforming matters: Sustaining gold lifeways in artisanal and small-scale mining
Moral economies of capitalism in Africa
Citizenship Matters: Explorations into the Citizen-State Relationship in Africa
Citizenship is a universal legal concept and norm. But its meaning and impact differ. Its codification and implementation are shaped by historical trajectories, political systems and state/government relations with members of society. State policy affects perceptions of citizenship and civic behaviour by those governed. This paper engages with current challenges relating to citizenship in Africa South of the Sahara. It centres on academic and pol…
Moral economies of distribution and redistribution in Africa: The right and wrong of who gets (and gives) what and why
Entrepreneurs de la frontière: Le rôle des comptoirs privés dans les sites d'extraction artisanale de l'or au Burkina Faso
Au Burkina Faso, le secteur aurifère est en plein essor et les sites d'extraction artisanale en sont une composante importante. Si l'exploitation artisanale échappe en large partie aux tentatives de contrôle par la législation formelle, des formes variées de gouvernance réelle se mettent en place pour assurer la régulation de la vie et du travail dans les sites d'orpaillage. Dans le cas présenté ici, un rôle central est assumé par les représentan…
Des « puits burkinabè » en Haute Guinée: Processus et enjeux de la circulation de savoirs techniques dans le secteur minier artisanal
Resumé L’extraction artisanale de l’or en Afrique de l’Ouest mobilise des savoirs techniques et entraîne des innovations qui traversent les frontières, du fait de la mobilité des orpailleurs qui se déplacent rapidement entre les zones aurifères. Nous présentons ici le cas d’un site minier artisanal en Haute Guinée, situé dans une région où l’orpaillage a une histoire très ancienne et est régi par des institutions coutumières : l’afflux récent d’o…
Gold digging and the politics of time: Changing timescapes of artisanal mining in West Africa
Who owns the mud? Valuable leftovers, sociotechnical innovation and changing relations of production in artisanal gold mining (Burkina Faso)
The expansion of artisanal gold mining has contributed to agrarian change in most of the global South—including West Africa: the sector offers interesting examples of technological and socio‐economic change, reflecting broader dynamics in the political economy of mining. In this article, we rely on our multisited ethnography to show how innovations in gold processing—particularly, the shift from mercury‐based to cyanide‐based techniques—reconfigu…
Interdisciplinarity and the future of development studies after the 2019 Nobel Prize in economics
The 2019 Nobel prize for Economics consecrated A. Banerjee, E. Duflo and M. Kremer’s hegemony on development economics. The emphasis they put on field experiments and randomized control trials (RCTs) matched the emphasis on evidence-based policies and on evaluation that dominated the development sector in the same years. Here, we take inspiration from the debates generated by the 2019 Nobel prize to reflect on the future of development studies. W…
Transforming matters: Sustaining gold lifeways in artisanal and small-scale mining
The cyanide revolution: Efficiency gains and exclusion in artisanal- and small-scale gold mining
Since its advent at the end of the nineteenth century, cyanide processing facilitated the intensification and global expansion of industrial gold mining. Today, there are important indications that artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is on the verge of a similar cyanide revolution: while ASGM is typically associated with mercury-based processing, mercury amalgamation is increasingly replaced with, or complemented by, cyanidation. Relying…
Citizenship Matters: Explorations into the Citizen-State Relationship in Africa
Citizenship is a universal legal concept and norm. But its meaning and impact differ. Its codification and implementation are shaped by historical trajectories, political systems and state/government relations with members of society. State policy affects perceptions of citizenship and civic behaviour by those governed. This paper engages with current challenges relating to citizenship in Africa South of the Sahara. It centres on academic and pol…
Coyle Rosen Lauren. — Fires of Gold. Law, Spirit, and Sacrificial Labor in Ghana
At the heart of the Ashanti region in southern Ghana, the town of Obuasi hosts one of the largest industrial gold operations in the country and the whole African continent, now owned by the AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) mining conglomerate. As a consequence, the town is at the center of intense migration flows, financial investments and political projects, linked not only to the formal economy of AGA’s extractive operations but also to the mining activ…
The lifeways of small-scale gold miners: Addressing sustainability transformations
Small-scale gold mining sustains millions of people's lives and yet it stimulates environmental harms and social conflicts. Global environmental crises drive calls for fundamental change to how people live on the planet. For small-scale gold mining, this raises questions about whether current dynamics can provide a basis for sustainability transformations. Proposing the notion of gold lifeways to focus on the lived experience of mining and gold r…
Moral economies of capitalism in Africa
Moral economies of distribution and redistribution in Africa: The right and wrong of who gets (and gives) what and why
Soft Infrastructures: Mediating Labor Mobilities Across and Between Secondary Cities in West Africa
How are mobilities mediated in contexts where the movement of people has a long and central history, and how do we account for their gendered, generational, and classed differentiation? Through the concept of soft infrastructures, we suggest that the facilitation of regional labor mobilities in West Africa rely to a considerable extent not only on personal social networks, but on broadly shared cultural notions of friendship, solidarity, and occu…
With gold, it’s never over’. Remainders and the moral economy of artisanal mining in Burkina Faso
This article focuses on the work and sharing practices of gold miners in Burkina Faso as a case to highlight the importance of remainders in the artisanal mining economy. Through a continuous process of identifying valuable ores and discarding leftovers, miners create opportunities for the future reprocessing of remainders from past mining activities. This act of (re)processing remainders can become central, especially when specific techniques – …
Political science (10 works) · Mining and Resource Management (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Sociology (4 works) · African Studies and Ethnography (3 works) · African Studies and Geopolitics (3 works) · Art (3 works)