Amalgamation

Social, technological, and legal entanglements in small-scale gold-mining regions in Colombia and Suriname

Bibliographic Data

ID8944488
AuthorsJesse Jonkman (0000-0003-3270-3520, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, corresponding author), Marjo De Theije (0000-0001-9382-6044, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Year2021
Volume128
Pages202-212
Publication date2021-11-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeoforum (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7185 • E-ISSN: 1872-9398
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.10.017
OpenAlexW3215790883
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited51

Popular and scholarly accounts often describe small-scale gold mining as a conflict-ridden economy that takes place in regions where state law is lacking. Our long-term ethnographic research in Colombia and Suriname has shown that stakeholder agendas in the goldfields, although often at variance, also come together in unexpected compromises and entanglements. We therefore propose to think of small-scale gold mining as an activity of not only conflict, but also of amalgamation; that is, as an activity that brings presumably adversary actors, labor practices, and governance systems together in temporary moments of conviviality. We present a three-pronged ethnographic analysis to sustain our proposition, thereby conceptualizing amalgamation as a social, technological, and legal phenomenon. First, we show that mining regions are characterized by social amalgamation; that is to say, by continuous compromises between the competing agendas of stakeholders. Second, we zoom in on technological amalgamation. We set out that technological differences that provoke hostility and conflict also have a more productive side, as miners employing various methods depend on each other in the process of gold extraction. And third, we provide illustrations of legal amalgamation that serve to highlight that the socio-political organization of small-scale gold mining, while largely happening outside the legal framework, comes into being through the symbolism and material infrastructure of the state

Corporate governance · Economics · Ethnography · Geography · Gold mining · Law and economics · Management · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scale (ratio · Sociology · State (computer science · Law · Mining and Resource Management · Natural Resources and Economic Development · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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