Artisanal gold mining at the margins of mineral resource governance: a case from Tanzania

Abstract

This article discusses the character of mineral resource governance at the margins of the state in Tanzania and the way artisanal gold miners are incorporated into mineral sector transformation. The landscape of mineral resource exploitation has changed dramatically over the past 20 years: processes of economic liberalisation have heralded massive foreign investment in large-scale gold mining, while also stimulating artisanal activities. Against this background, the article shows how artisanal gold miners are affected by contradictory processes: some have become integrated with state institutions and legal processes, while others, the large majority, are either further excluded or incorporated in ways that exacerbate insecurity and exploitation, underpinned by socio-economic inequalities. These processes are compounded by the actions of large-scale and medium-scale gold mining companies and by poor local governance. It is open to debate whether this will bring improved integration and welfare for artisanal mining communities or new forms of exclusion, although evidence suggests the latter.

1. INTRODUCTION

Across the African continent, processes of globalisation, economic liberalisation and political transformation have generated intense interest in Africa's mineral resources. Multinational mining companies, militias and rebels in various guises, business entrepreneurs, and many thousands of people seeking a meagre living and new riches all try to gain a share of the continent's mineral wealth. This transforms market dynamics and challenges states' capacities to govern.

In some parts of the continent, resources are exploited in relatively stable social and political situations where state institutions, laws and policies frame the governance context for mineral extraction. In others, attempts to gain control over mineral resources contribute to complex and violent conflicts, where the state is emasculated and replaced by fragmented forms of sovereignty (Mbembe, 2001). This article focuses on artisanal1 gold mining in Tanzania, whose mineral resources are governed in a context that is politically stable compared with that of troubled regions where processes other than those described here shape the character and dynamics of resource exploitation.

However, many factors – the way mineral resources are exploited in situations of political stability or upheaval, the claims groups of artisanal miners make over these resources, the relationships they form with different actors, and the way their mining activities embody local knowledge and practices – generate new localities for artisanal mining. These localities are associated with highly mobile populations who, through the labour of mining, trade and consumption, create multiple connections within regions, across administrative borders, and between rural and urban areas (for example, De Boeck, 1999; Walsh, 2003).

The differences between types of artisanal mining and mining localities across Africa are enormous – according to the mineral being exploited, the people involved, the context, and so on. However, the way these mining localities are associated with population mobility, illegality, poverty and exploitation makes artisanal mining a difficult terrain for policy, legislation and practical initiatives (see Dreschler, 2001; Labonne, 2002; Hilson, 2003). Recent policy measures have been moulded by the neoliberal prescriptions of institutions such as the World Bank and its promotion of a market-based approach to mineral sector development in Africa (Banchirigah, 2006). In the past, the focus was on large-scale mineral extraction; today, it is accepted that there is a role for artisanal and small-scale mining in Africa, with an emphasis on the need to integrate miners and formalise mining rights (Economic Commission for Africa, 1993; Suttill, 1995). Parts of the United Nations, such as the International Labour Organisation, have also been influential in informing the regulatory environment for artisanal and small-scale mining (International Labour Organisation, 1999).

These approaches translate into the policy and legislative environment of Tanzania through a technical and regulatory perspective that addresses artisanal miners as individualised small-scale entrepreneurs responsible for mining micro-enterprises. For the many thousands involved in artisanal mining who do not approximate to the model of the small-scale mining entrepreneur responsive to sectoral modernisation, and who do not possess a mineral licence, attributions of marginality can readily follow. These attributions stem from the way some see artisanal miners as uncontrollable people who disregard national laws and state authority (cf. Chachage, 1995; Hilson & Potter, 2003).

To situate neoliberal ideas of the artisanal miner as entrepreneur and to contextualise attributions of marginality, a view of the state and its relationship to artisanal miners is important. If, instead of conceiving it as a fixed entity with centralised political control over a determinate territory, one conceives it as something fluid and dynamic, then margins become necessary entailments of the state (Das & Poole, 2004). These margins serve as contexts in which state law and order has to be continually re-established and where the practices and politics of everyday life reconfigure the political, regulatory and disciplinary practices that constitute the state (Das & Poole, 2004). In the context of artisanal mining, margins emerge through a repertoire of practices and forms of organisation built up over time as people seek to make a living from this activity and states seek to exert authority over artisanal mining populations.

Where people's practices encounter the margins of state governance of mineral resources, this can create discontinuities that include conflicting values and normative relationships between groups of organisational actors (e.g. state representatives, multinational mining companies, artisanal miners), different bodies of mining knowledge, and contested rights to mineral resources (cf. Long, 2001:89–92). These discontinuities generate distinctive local ways of accessing mineral resources, associated with particular forms of mining organisation, power relations, exploitative relationships and collective ways of expressing grievances.

This distinctiveness can lead to people both resisting and negotiating with state representatives and other organisational actors, such as multinational mining companies. This, coupled with the way the state has sought to develop the artisanal mining sector through processes of integration, and the actions of multinational mining companies, among others, has the potential to cause serious contradictions in mineral sector development. It is therefore a challenge to capture something of the processes that either incorporate or exclude different groups of artisanal miners, and this is a central focus for this discussion. It means tracing, on the one hand, how state institutions and authority are extended to the margins of mineral resource governance, as state actors seek to integrate artisanal miners into the mineral sector, and, on the other, how people create spaces to make a mining livelihood through particular ways of engaging with organisational actors, of organising artisanal mining activities, and of operating at the margins of the law.

The following discussion presents a case of artisanal gold mining from Geita District in Mwanza Region, which covers part of the Lake Victoria Goldfield, whose gold reserves have attracted intense interest from both artisanal gold miners and large-scale multinational mining companies. This should be seen against the background of Tanzania's wealth of mineral resources: precious metals, gemstones, diamonds, base metals and the platinum group of metals, coal, agro-minerals, chemical minerals and industrial minerals. Some of these resources are geologically appropriate for artisanal extraction, others are not. A focus on gold mining in one locality can give only a partial picture, and this case does not claim to represent artisanal mining in Tanzania as a whole. Nevertheless, since gold extraction is highly significant for the national economy and constitutes about one-half of all artisanal activity, the case contributes to an understanding of change taking place in the country today.

To consider the character of mineral resource governance at the margins of the state and how it shapes processes of incorporation and exclusion, the article first describes mining sector development in Tanzania. It then presents three vignettes from a village in Geita District, as a methodological device to infer something of the nature of larger processes of mineral sector change and show how they affect artisanal miners (see Moore, 1987). These vignettes are used to reflect on the contradictory processes that create opportunities but also reinforce exploitation and inequalities and generate attributions of marginalisation.

2. MINERAL SECTOR DEVELOPMENT IN TANZANIA

Tanzania has a wealth of mineral resources that are attractive for both large-scale and small-scale mining. The market-based approach to mineral sector development adopted since the late 1980s has opened up Tanzania's resources to new organisational actors and interests, and has greatly changed the role of mining in the economy.

In the colonial era, control over mining was in the hands of foreign companies (Roberts, 1986). After Independence, policies of state intervention, trading monopolies and nationalisation of foreign interests – in keeping with a broader vision of ‘African socialism’ – prevented continuing foreign investment. As a consequence, the large-scale mining sector, already in decline in the 1950s and 1960s, stagnated in the 1970s and 1980s (Kulindwa et al., 2003). With this stagnation, largely unregulated artisanal mining started to grow (Mutagwaba et al., 1997).

A number of factors stimulated this growth: skilled people laid off by company closures, rises in the international price of gold, market outlets provided by Asian, Arab and Greek merchants, and change in the mineral law in 1979 enabling small-scale miners to peg claims (Chachage, 1995). The absence of large-scale gold mining companies and the lack of state resources for mineral sector development created space for artisanal miners to establish themselves in different mining localities in Tanzania. The expansion of the informal economy linked to structural adjustment contributed to this growth (Chachage, 1995; cf. Havnevik, 1988).

In line with wider economic processes, the mineral sector began to be liberalised in the second half of the 1980s. As the mining industry was little developed, and as parastatals had few properties of value, this meant new development on the back of existing artisanal and small-scale mining activities (Gibbon, 1999:9–10). Liberalisation stimulated further artisanal mining activities; it also meant multinational companies applied for exploration and prospecting licences (Phillips et al., 2001). Today the large-scale mining sector is dominated by multinational companies with little local investment. This creates an apparent polarisation between foreign-owned companies investing in the large-scale mining sector and local investment in small-scale and artisanal mining.

Tanzania's Mineral Policy (United Republic of Tanzania [URT], 1997) and Mining Act (URT, 1998; see also URT, 2005) take a dual approach to mineral sector development, encouraging both large-scale and small-scale mining. Artisanal and small-scale miners are incorporated if they hold a legal title to a mineral claim and embrace technological development and capital investment. By 1997 Tanzania had achieved the second highest level of exploration expenditure in Africa (US$57.7million, see Gibbon, 1999:10), with mineral exploitation considered a lead sector for the Tanzanian economy (URT, 2005). The contribution to the Gross Domestic Product from mining and quarrying combined was only around 3.5 percent in 2004 (Yager, 2004:38.1); however, mining is the single most important contributor to foreign exchange, with 50 percent of export earnings coming from mineral sales (World Bank, 2006:1). Gold mined by large-scale foreign-owned companies features substantially: between 1998 and 2004, six large-scale gold mines were opened by multinational companies, with annual gold outputs increasing from 5 to 48 tons between 1999 and 2004 (Msabaha, 2006), making the country the third highest gold producer in Africa (Yager, 2004:38.1).

Against this background, mineral sector development in Tanzania is controversial. Investment by foreign-owned mining companies has contributed to national debate about processes of economic liberalisation, privatisation and the role of foreign investment (see Gibbon, 1995, 1999). It is argued that Tanzania gets little for being a mineral-rich nation (Lange, 2006). Alongside concern about the economic returns from large-scale mining, major allegations of human rights abuses have been reported by the national press and human rights organisations (Gibbon, 1999; Kijo-Bisimba et al., 2004; Lawyer's Environmental Action Team, 2003, 2004; Great Lakes Centre For Strategic Studies, 2007) – allegations about evictions from land required for large-scale mines and the death of artisanal miners in mining disputes. Artisanal mining is also contentious, being associated with social, environmental and economic problems such as child labour, tax evasion, pollution, environmental degradation, deaths from dangerous mining practices, and the spread of infectious diseases (Jennings, 1998; DHV Consultants, 1998; Dreschler, 2001).

Controversies over the terms on which multinational companies operate feed into national politics: following presidential elections in 2005, President Kikwete was to declare ‘we want to create a win–win situation. Tanzanians have the right to benefit from the natural resources of their country, which is endowed with vast minerals’ (Tanzania New Vision, 2006). This led to a review of legislation and existing mining contracts. More widely, whereas in the past mining (on a large scale or a small scale) was overlooked by national poverty reduction strategies (for example, URT, 2001) and national statistics (for example, National Bureau of Statistics, 2000/2001) and poverty assessments (for example, URT, 2004), recent policy now addresses some mining issues (URT, 2005).

In July 2006, the government convened a ‘harmonisation conference’ with foreign mining companies to ‘ensure that from now on Tanzanians would claim a fair stake from their mineral wealth … [with a] list of 15 touchy items for review’ (Ngotezi, 2006:2; see also Msabaha, 2006). These touchy items included a government proposal for the state to own shares in mining companies, better compensation for displaced locals, the scrapping of tax holidays, a 30 per cent corporation tax, increased local levies, local sourcing of goods and services, and the hiring of more local staff. Subsequently, companies with major interests in Tanzania have had to negotiate revised mining contracts and agreements with the government, including the payment of corporation tax.

While change is slowly taking place at the national level, far less attention has been paid to the relationship between central and local government when it comes to administering the mining sector and distributing mineral revenues. The administration of most sectors – health, education, water, natural resources, lands, and so on – is devolved to district level under a district executive development committee. However, mining remains in the hands of central government directly under the Ministry of Energy and Minerals. This has planning implications at district level, with decisions about artisanal mining being made through district and zonal mines offices, separately from district executive development committee decisions about other productive and social sectors. To complicate this, major decision-making about large-scale mining within a district rests with the central offices of the Ministry of Energy and Minerals in Dar es Salaam. With large numbers of artisanal and small-scale miners across Tanzania,2 the capacity of mines offices to handle demands is limited. Poor resourcing of mining offices and the remoteness of many mining communities, coupled with the policing style of mining officials, mean that mining offices are ill-equipped either to collect revenue or to deal with artisanal mining problems. Mining officers do respond to demands within artisanal mining areas but evidence from this research suggests personalised relationships shape their response.

Because the responsibility for mining is separated from other decentralised sectors, according to district planning officials (Mwaipopo et al., 2004), government officers working under the district executive development committee may dismiss mining communities as being outside their areas of responsibility and only become involved when a serious problem has developed; for example, a breakdown in law and order or an outbreak of an epidemic. Clearly such administrative divisions, coupled with the mining offices' lack of community development skills, have the potential to magnify local conflicts between artisanal miners and other parties, such as local residents or large-scale mining companies.

Centralised control over the mining sector has revenue implications for district government: broadly, the majority of direct taxes accrue to the national treasury, while the majority of fees accrue to local government (Lange, 2006). In effect, revenue streams from taxes on large-scale gold mining are closed to district governments (Mwaipopo et al., 2004). Multinational mining companies in Tanzania have substantial community development programmes, but these are separate from the resources allocated and delivered by the government. In the case of artisanal and small-scale mining specifically, revenue collection is also characterised by bad management or corruption on the part of officials, combined with evasion by miners, with revenue lost to the government (Mwaipopo et al., 2004). Furthermore, according to Phillips et al. (2001), there is neither legislation nor standard practice regarding the rights of local (village) government to tax small-scale and artisanal miners, although some taxes may be paid (Phillips et al., 2001:77; see also Lange, 2006). What emerges is a variable picture across the country.

This overview has presented a picture of rapid change in the mineral sector over the past 20 years; change that has stimulated controversial areas of development. Artisanal mining expanded during the national economic crisis when there was little large-scale mining, which enabled artisanal miners to become established in localities where productive activities were largely informal (illegal). Liberalisation changed the status of artisanal mining, as the state sought to integrate artisanal miners and as new market opportunities developed. The entry of multinational companies transformed the dynamics of mineral sector development, and also increased pressure on land and mineral resources claimed by artisanal miners and land inhabited by local communities. These processes continue to foster national controversy and local conflict, with tensions over the distribution of revenues between central and local government, and divisions between sections of local government, reinforcing weak capacity and contributing to poor governance processes.

Some questions this situation raises in regard to the vignettes that follow are as follows. How, against this background, has change been manifest in artisanal mining localities and experienced by individuals in terms of life opportunities and ways of acting? What consequences do state attempts to integrate artisanal mining into the mineral sector have for the way artisanal miners organise themselves and access mineral resources? Have they become incorporated into state institutional and legal processes? If so, what are the terms of incorporation? Does incorporation have a differential impact on different groups of artisanal miners? What implications does this have for artisanal miners' relationships with large-scale mining companies and their responses to wider processes of change?

3. A SUCCESSFUL MINING ENTREPRENEUR

Entering a gold mining village in Geita District, one passes the gold mine belonging to Mr Mlima (not his real name). The mine is a well-organised small-scale operation managed by the claim holder (Mwaipopo et al., 2004:152).3 The area around the mine shaft is kept clear and a timber structure has been built overhead. Waste rock is deposited away from the shaft. Strong timber cribs are used down the well-constructed mine shaft, helping to ensure the safety of workers and enabling the use of drilling machines and compressors for ventilation. At a distance from the mine, concrete reservoirs have been built to hold water. Like the physical structures, the organisation of labour and division of roles and responsibilities between the mine owner, manager, foremen, supervisors, guards and workers are formalised and can be mapped out (Mwaipopo et al., 2004:152).

On the evidence of this mine, Mr Mlima embodies the entrepreneurial spirit the government is so anxious to foster in the country's artisanal mining community. This raises crucial questions. In a village where hundreds of people depend on artisanal gold production, why has this individual succeeded as a small-scale mining entrepreneur where so many others have failed? How and why has he been incorporated into state institutional and legal processes in ways that support his livelihood, while others remain marginalised?

Mr Mlima has a good income from mining on two claim holdings, as well as a business venture in a nearby town and a large farm. He was born nearby in the 1940s and started mining in the 1960s ‘by just doing what other people in the village were doing’. At that time, artisanal mining was illegal; nevertheless people started mining, influenced by ex-workers of a mining company that had operated in the area in colonial times. Mining land was communally worked: ‘Everyone was free to dig anywhere he wished, the activity was not a planned one and there was no ownership’. People worked in small groups to develop individual pits, and income from the gold extracted would be divided between them.

In the mid-1980s there was, in Mr Mlima's words, ‘an eruption of gold’, attracting thousands of people to the village. This came to the attention of a company, Dar Tardine Tanzania Ltd (DTT), the local representative of a Swiss mining company, which was given a mining lease by the government. Like other companies operating at the time, DTT did not open a mine but organised approximately 40 subcontractors to supervise and buy gold at market prices from artisanal miners operating ‘illegally’. DTT's act of dividing land and allocating it to various subcontractors is the basis of today's layout of claim holdings.

Mr Mlima was employed by DTT as a subcontractor. This provided on-the-job training and eventually enabled him to move from operating on a share basis to working as the employer-cum-director of his own mining enterprise. In his words: ‘I always knew that if you are attracted to gold rushes you may never concentrate on your own industry … in low production seasons you need to look for solutions and overcome them, not to run away … successes in artisanal mining are due to both natural talent and organisational capacities … what I have done through my mining is exemplary: educating my children and contributing significantly to the building of a church and planned secondary school’.

Mr Mlima further benefited in the late 1980s when DTT's contract was revoked after the company fell under parliamentary scrutiny for smuggling activities (see Chachage, 1995). When DTT withdrew, people operating as subcontractors remained, including Mr Mlima. The District Commissioner took on the task of supervising DTT's subcontractors through the vehicle of the Mwanza Regional Miners Association (MWAREMA). In the mid-1990s these subcontractors were officially awarded titles (PMLs) for the mining land – approximately 80 titles in total. The picture is complex but apparently some had existing (informal) claims to particular mining sites, while others appropriated land worked by other miners. After the titles had been awarded, mining officials taught Mr Mlima and other licensed miners about pit safety, environmental health and other regulations.

Today some of the more successful miners with PMLs are those who worked as subcontractors for DTT. Some also occupy leadership roles in MWAREMA: regional mining associations are reputed to be ineffectual (Dreschler, 2001). However, the village branch plays a gatekeeper role for mining officials and representatives of donor organisations and mining companies visiting the village with information or financial support. Indeed, Mr Mlima's exemplary small-scale mine is the result of a technological improvement project by an overseas donor that transformed a typical artisanal operation into a showcase mine.

The story of how Mr Mlima became the embodiment of a successful mining entrepreneur is interesting on a number of counts. Clearly he has created good opportunities for himself: employment by a mining company enabled him to learn mining skills; it also placed him in a strong position vis-à-vis access to a mineral licence and technical and financial support from the government and donors. This has continued: donor-funded initiatives target this area and his mine is a port of call for foreigners. It has become a symbol of success, standing out from a complex and contradictory local mining reality that outsiders find hard to penetrate and even harder to develop.

The next vignette provides a case for comparison with the above. It is the case of a claim holder and artisanal miners operating at the margins of the law[0] on land to which they do not have a claim. This highlights the contradictory processes of mineral sector integration: while some artisanal miners are incorporated favourably into formal legal and institutional processes, others are incorporated in ways that leave them insecure, with few rights and entitlements, and exposed to exploitative labour relations, terrible working conditions, and the likelihood of further social exclusion.

4. ENCOUNTERING A MINE RUSH

In 2004 gold was discovered on land in the same village. One man, Mr Tadeo (not his real name), holds a PML for this land. However he had not managed to develop his claim, which he reasoned was due to lack of capital. The gold deposit itself was found by others who raided his claim by digging into the land without his knowledge. When they found gold, news of the discovery quickly spread and people started flocking to the area.

Within 2 weeks there were almost 200 shallow pits dug into a hillside, alongside temporary shelters, food sellers, and vehicles transporting ore to a processing area. To an observer, such as the author, the scene appeared chaotic: pits were close together and exceptionally dangerous; accidents were occurring and conflicts were breaking out over people entering pits without permission, and ore being stolen. Despite this impression, people had not simply moved into the area willy-nilly and there was some degree of organisation in the locality.

When he heard that ‘thieves’ had found gold, Mr Tadeo quickly engaged the services of people he knew and trusted who could forcefully guard the area. They monitored who was coming in, registered people and their pit number on a list, counted how many sacks of raw ore each pit produced, ensured no ore was stolen, and elicited regular payments for the claim holder. Mr Tadeo also visited the district mines office and paid for diesel for a mines officer to visit his site to inspect it. News of the mine rush quickly reached the village government and was discussed at the office of MWAREMA. Officials reinforced Mr Tadeo's rights to the claim. With guards in place and good relations with the mines officer and the village government, payments from people mining gold in the claim were a windfall for Mr Tadeo. He celebrated with bottled beer and talked about flying to Dar es Salaam simply for the experience.

There was a form of organisation for each pit. On hearing gold had been discovered, people offered investment (money, equipment, food, labour). For example, one man, Mr Saidi (not his real name), had travelled from the neighbouring region, where he held two mineral titles (PMLs). As production on his own claim holdings was poor, he decided to use some savings in the hope of getting good returns for his money. He surveyed promising pits whose members needed financial help and decided to support one where he took on the role of ‘pit owner’, providing food and capital, together with some equipment. Each day Mr Saidi gave 30 per cent of the ore he produced to Mr Tadeo, and after costs took 40 per cent of the ore for himself, dividing the remaining 30 per cent amongst the mine workers. His costs included paying the guards on the site a bag of ore for each 24-hour work shift, and paying for the processing, crushing and amalgamation of the ore.

This account of a mine rush in 2004 illustrates how someone with a legitimate PML, in this case Mr Tadeo, can sub-lease his claim to pit owners, people like Mr Saidi, on a temporary basis. This is common but not officially recognised: it means that many hundreds of people can be incorporated within a claim holding. In effect, these people occupy an ambiguous space, operating on the borderline between legitimacy and illegitimacy. The terms of such incorporation can be highly insecure, and ambiguity can reinforce existing inequalities and forms of discrimination. This is particularly the case when aggravated by the chronic poverty of certain members of the community: for example, elderly men and women or orphaned children trying to make a living around mining sites (see Mwaipopo et al., 2004; Fisher, 2007).

From the government's perspective, people working on a licensed claim are ‘employees’ of the licence holder (URT, 1997); however, this does not reflect the actual organisation, and the relationships and agreements between the holder of the mineral licence, the pit owners, and the mine workers. The power relationships between claim holders, on the one hand, and pit owners and mine workers, on the other, are characterised by huge social and occupational differences. The latter have few legal rights; the claim holder can decide to sell the claim and these people are likely to be evicted or become embroiled in protracted disputes over mining rights (Mwaipopo et al., 2004).

In exploiting his claim, Mr Tadeo operates at the margins of the law, knowing how to exert rights to a claim by getting legitimacy from the mines office and the village government, and reinforcing this with guards ready to use strongman tactics when problems arise. A man like Mr Saidi, hearing of a new discovery of gold, can travel to the area without knowing the claim holder in advance and need not meet him on arrival. By supplying money, tools and a repertoire of mining skills, he is able to situate himself within the locality, building relationships with people he meets to develop a pit. Here we can see how discontinuities are created between government policies that seek legal integration and the practices, labour relations and forms of organisation that develop historically at the local level. These discontinuities enable a man like Mr Tadeo to impose his rights on the area and allow many people to gain access to mineral resources, but the way incorporation occurs through people being ‘invisible’ to the state perpetuates exploitative labour relations because there are no legal rights or social protection.

The two vignettes above focus on mineral claims held by individuals with PMLs. Adding a further dimension to the local picture are the actions of a foreign gold mining company operating around the village. Such companies work in an increasing number of areas in the region, making them important organisational actors within the margins of state governance of mineral resources at the local level. These margins became apparent in another case in the village where people's attempts to acquire gold from a pit belonging to the mining company, and a subsequent riot, were reported in the national media. In the process their actions were attributed to marginality, with little recognition of the grievances underlying particular disputes.

5. ATTRIBUTIONS OF MARGINALITY TO ARTISANAL MINERS

The third vignette concerns the same village in 2006, 2 years after the mine rush described above. The Tanzania Daily News was to report:

Lawlessness had its sway … in Geita District, when unknown people stormed a police post, set free suspects and set on fire public documents in the ward's offices at midnight on Saturday. Elias Simba (70) reportedly died from shock in his house as gangs of people attacked and destroyed nearby public buildings … The ward's councillor, Mr Ahmed Mbaraka, whose house was reportedly broken by the gang – believed to be artisanal miners – told the Sunday News at the scene of the incident that the miners trespassed into a mining block belonging to IAMGOLD, in the heat of reports that the block had a pit ‘with plenty of gold’. He said reports of discovery of the pit with ‘huge deposits of gold’ started spreading on Thursday and on the same day artisanal miners trespassed into the block in search of ‘float treasury’. (Muyomba, 2006a:1)

Leading up to this event, the pit that the artisanal miners had discovered ‘laden with gold’ had been filled in by the company to prevent the miners taking the gold; leaving – apparently unbeknownst to the company – two artisanal miners below ground. These men were found unconscious but safe and were subsequently arrested for trespass, becoming the suspects in the account above.

Behind the immediacy of events reported in the news were grievances held by people in the village against the government and the mining company. Stories were mixed and conflicting but a few years earlier the government had offered East Africa Mines licences for exploration and prospecting around the village. Rumours circulated at the time: it was said that if a person failed to develop a claim holding it would be surrendered to the company. Some people saw the possibility of selling their claim holding as an opportunity for profit; others were worried their claims would be taken by force. The Company had then sought to develop a mining operation off the back of existing artisanal or small-scale claim holdings.

Not long after the lawless Saturday night described above, it was reported that the Mwanza Regional Commissioner had asked the Geita District Mineral Officer to check on the legality of the mining firm (IAMGOLD). It was alleged they had bought East Africa Mines through an ‘under-the-carpet’ sale, in effect denying revenues to the government (Muyomba, 2006b). The consequences of the artisanal miners' actions were taken up in Parliament in 2007, when the legitimacy of the Company came under scrutiny.4

During the course of research, examples were encountered of medium-scale foreign gold mining companies (in other parts of the world classified as small scale) that, because of their size and lack of political visibility, can act with a degree of impunity in Tanzania. This is evidenced by the unruly negotiations that take place between local power holders, and the poor respect for human rights.

The above account shows how national media interpretations of the actions of miners operating at the margins of the law and mining companies entering the local socio-political terrain generate attributions of marginalisation. The media present images of lawlessness, and police action restoring order. Illegality is part of the problem, but what the media does not show are the local grievances and negotiations between a mining company and individuals over mineral rights, which have led up to these events. Also hidden is the collective history of local interactions with mining companies (since colonial times). When grievances erupt into violent action, the inequity of processes of integration and mineral sector change becomes evident: disparities in power, knowledge and wealth are played out in the way people try to retain their rights or gain new ones, while encountering processes of economic change from which they are profoundly marginalised.

The tone of local grievances and the way people respond is captured in a newspaper report from another part of the region in March 2007:

Kafamu [the Commissioner of Minerals, Ministry of Energy and Minerals] rushed to Lwamgasa recently following a row triggered by an IAMGOLD bulldozer that descended on the village, in a bid by the company to evict all perceived illegal miners who are on the disputed land. A mob then torched the lorry carrying the bulldozer, causing the company a loss amounting to millions of shillings. Kafamu pleaded with the miners to remain calm and wait for the government to allocate them alternative plots where they could continue with their mining activities without being bothered' … [an enraged Hussein Bakari] said: ‘We have no time to listen to such promises any more. We have been cheated on a number of occasions by the same government which is bent on exploiting the poor people of this area in favour of big mining companies’ … Geita District administrative secretary, Evagry Keiya said the government was fully briefed on the long-running problem and knew that it was ‘a time-bomb waiting to explode’. (Kigwangallah, 2007:3; see Great Lakes Centre for Strategic Studies, 2007)

The point here is not to single out a particular mining company, this example being similar to others involving different companies, but to highlight the way attributions of marginality emerge in accounts of conflicts between artisanal miners and mining companies. Some artisanal miners see the state not as a disinterested party, but rather as culpable for the way it places particular groups of artisanal miners (such as ‘pit owners’ without legal rights) at a disadvantage. Such conflicts are played out through allegations of human rights abuses, contests over land allocation, and disputes over compensation levels for displacement.

A further related issue is that these attributions of marginality are not simply an outcome of an oppositional relationship between artisanal mining, on the one hand, and large-scale mining, on the other, but reflect the contradictory nature of processes of incorporation within artisanal mining itself. Some artisanal miners (notably the more powerful claim holders) negotiate with companies and state representatives in ways that create conflicts within the wider artisanal mining population. These conflicts are particularly related to the large numbers of people whose access to mineral resources and dependence on these resources is informal, governed by few legal rights and extremely insecure. Such conflicts, and the related attributions of marginalisation, repeatedly emerge as the growth of large-scale gold mining exerts pressure on people and resources.

6. CONCLUSION

The above three vignettes from Tanzania, set against a background of dramatic change in the landscape of mineral resource exploitation and governance in Tanzania over the past 20 years, have been presented to illustrate the partial connections between the way artisanal gold miners organise themselves locally and the way the state seeks to incorporate them into institutional and legal processes.

In examining the way these processes of change are experienced by these miners, this article looked at a context at the margins of the state where the practices and politics of artisanal mining serve to reconfigure the regulatory and disciplinary practices by which the state governs mineral resources. A notable feature of the fluid nature of these processes is the contradictory character of mineral resource governance at the local level. On the one hand we see how the government has succeeded in integrating certain categories of artisanal miner into its legal processes through formal claim holdings, enabling people to build up successful mining enterprises and become part of the institutional sector, and to receive foreign assistance and technical development. On the other, as a counter-tendency to this process of integration, we see actions that lie at the margins of the law because of the way artisanal miners organise themselves, the power relations involved, and forms of exploitation that are part of these processes of incorporation.

Because the state focuses on the formal PML claim holding – largely ignoring the complex informal organisation of rights to pits, developed over decades, and the associated labour processes and power relations – state integration can further exclude and marginalise sections of the artisanal mining population, or can incorporate them in ways that reinforce existing inequalities and exploitation.

Another contradictory way the central government handles mineral resource governance is in making deals with private gold mining companies, issuing licences for exploration, prospecting and production in a manner that is disconnected from district-level government. These deals may be legitimate but can pay scant regard to artisanal miners who depend on claim holdings for employment. To acquire large areas of mineral-rich land, mining companies must displace individual miners. For PML holders, this displacement is likely to involve market transactions or compensation. This is not the case, however, for pit owners or their employees and people working in processing activities, who have few rights in mining law.

People living in mineral-rich areas of Tanzania often see the state as culpable in siding with the mining companies against the interests of artisanal miners and local residents. Such perceptions, and the few legitimate channels for airing grievances, may prompt them to act in an apparently uncontrollable manner. These courses of action are interpreted by the press in ways that are likely to entrench attributions of marginality conferred on artisanal miners. Such conflicts can be exacerbated by weak state capacity and poor local governance, with tensions manifest in the relationships between central and local government, and between officials representing different sections of the state at the local level.

With large-scale mining becoming increasingly established in Tanzania and the government in a stronger position to negotiate terms and conditions, it is likely that the shifts occurring in the landscape of mineral resource exploitation will continue to manifest as discontinuities between the policy practice and legal regimes in the mineral sector, the courses of action pursued by artisanal miners, and the activities of mining companies. These discontinuities are both the cause and the effect of contradictions in the processes of mineral resource governance. One can interpret these contradictions as local expressions of neoliberalism. Whether in the long run improved processes of integration and welfare will develop, or whether people will continue to be incorporated into the mineral sector in ambiguous and exploitative ways, or indeed whether new and unpredictable forms of mining struggle will emerge, is open to debate.

Primary data are drawn from a study funded by the DfID (Mwaipopo et al., 2004; see also Fisher 2007). The author would like to thank her fellow researchers, particularly Rosemarie Mwaipopo, for permission to re-analyse the qualitative data; also Alberto Arce and two anonymous reviewers for comments. Opinions expressed and any errors are the responsibility of the author.

Notes

¹‘Artisanal’ refers to the extraction of mineral resources by small operations with low technology levels, whether or not they are licensed.

²Estimates of the mining population are difficult to determine, although a 1996 figure of 550 000 people is widely quoted (Tan Discovery, 1996).

³A claim holder is a person with a primary prospecting licence, or a primary mining licence (PML) (URT, 1998:Section 5, Division D). A primary prospecting license (PPL) is granted for 1 year, enabling the holder to search for minerals or gemstones. A PML is granted for 5 years, giving the holder the right to mine in a given area (URT, 1998, Section 5, Division D).

⁴Session 7, Principal Question 48, from the Honourable Esther Kabadi Nyawazwa, Special Seat to the Honourable William Mganga Ngeleja, Energy and Minerals, National Parliament, 13 April 2007.