Small-scale gold mining and development

An international workshop, VU University Amsterdam, 
28-29 March 2008 

Location: 
VU University
Social and Cultural Anthropology
Metropolitan Building, room Z009
Buitenveldertselaan 3, Amsterdam (opposite tram-stop VU-campus)

Program

route

Across the world, gold mining is on a high, due to the rising value of the gold on the global market, and the subsequent accelerated efforts to discover new sites to explore and exploit. Small-scale gold mining as well as large companies cause gold rushes in many places, but especially in remote and less developed regions in the hinterlands of Western Africa, the Amazon and Guyana Shield, and Papua New Guinea. The effects of their actions are economic growth, labor opportunities, and prospects for poor rural populations to enter modernity; but also environmental degradation, unregulated migration streams, the generation of (ethnic) conflict, and a rise in violence in general, among other processes.
 
In this expert workshop the focus is on the encounter of different images of ‘development’ that are held by the many actors involved in these gold rushes and gold mining generally. These actors vary from local dwellers to national and migrant gold diggers, urban entrepreneurs, to foreign companies and technicians and (representatives of) national states. We want to discuss the cultural and economic construction of local gold fields and the (imagined) benefits of mining, by ethnically, politically, and socially different actors. The aim of the meeting is to assess discussions on development in the specific case of this much-valued natural resource and how these relate to the quest for human security and the agendas of local actors, their material needs and cultural aspirations. By bringing together scholars who work in different regions and cultures, theories and analyses can be tested and compared across multiple cultural, political and social contexts.

More information and registration:

e-mail Marjo de Theije or Judith Kolen at 
gold.development@gmail.com 
Telephone: +31205986705

Format of the expert workshop
Presentations
Call for Papers Gold