A Ritual Geology

Gold and Subterranean Knowledge in Savanna West Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID8092286
AuthorsRobyn D’avignon (corresponding author), ROBYN D'AVIGNON
Year2022
Publication date2022-06-10
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueA Ritual Geology (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/9781478023074
OpenAlexW4290803737
ISBN9781478023074
LanguageEN
Citations received17

Set against the ongoing corporate enclosure of West Africa’s goldfields, A Ritual Geology tells the untold history of one of the world’s oldest indigenous gold mining industries: Francophone West Africa’s orpaillage. Establishing African miners as producers of subterranean knowledge, Robyn d’Avignon uncovers a dynamic “ritual geology” of techniques and cosmological engagements with the earth developed by agrarian residents of gold-bearing rocks in savanna West Africa. Colonial and corporate exploration geology in the region was built upon the ritual knowledge, gold discoveries, and skilled labor of African miners even as states racialized African mining as archaic, criminal, and pagan. Spanning the medieval and imperial past to the postcolonial present, d’Avignon weaves together long-term ethnographic and oral historical work in southeastern Senegal with archival and archeological evidence from Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Mali. A Ritual Geology introduces transnational geological formations as a new regional framework for African studies, environmental history, and anthropology

African studies · Agrarian society · Agriculture · Archaeology · Colonialism · Ethnography · Ethnology · Geography · Gold mining · History of Africa · Indigenous · Sociology · African Studies and Ethnography · Anthropology · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · Cultural Identity and Heritage · Ecology · History

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Open DOIOpen Access