Imaginations and practices of subterranean workplaces by gold miners in Busia, Eastern Region Uganda

Keywords: ASM, underground, Uganda, water, anthropology
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 4

Abstract

Volumizing the social is crucial in artisanal and small-scale gold mining. Underground, workplaces are co-created by gold miners, soil, rock and water. In Busia, Eastern Region Uganda, gold mining takes place in a residential area by miners who live there too. Here, thinking about the sustainability of their own activities is common among gold miners. Technologies, such as underground mining with timbered shafts, therefore speak to the imagination of many: “one day, we will walk all over Busia, but 300 feet down”, one miner told me. However, ambitions of a technology to be universally valued as more sustainable need to be problematised. Namely, a timbered shaft is easier to build in the dry ground of Geita, Tanzania, than in Busia’s subterranean that is abundant in groundwater and soft soil. Building on the vertical turn – recently taken in anthropology, geography and STS – this PhD research combines methods from anthropology and industrial ecology to bring up imaginations of, and practices in, volumes underground in Busia: through ethnographic fieldwork (five months), life cycle assessment, and scenario planning. Furthermore, drawings illustrate how groundwater differentiates and connects workplaces of gold miners; in co-labour with miners and a geologist, I explore how existing collaborations between neighbouring mining associations (e.g. exchanging machines, ideas and funds) might be extended to collaborations on underground matters (e.g. water and rock connections). Ethnographic fieldwork took place in July-October 2019 and January-March 2020 – additional research will take place in January-February 2022 if it is possible following the COVID-19 pandemic.