Citizens, subjects or a dual mandate? Artisanal miners, ‘supporters’ and the resource scramble in Sierra Leone

Abstract

There have been developments in the twentieth-century and twenty-first-century history of Africa that scholars and observers have commonly referred to as a ‘scramble’, with no attempt to put them in their proper historical perspective. This paper interrogates the historical concept of a ‘scramble’ to explain the political economy of Sierra Leone's mineral resources. Although the modern-day ‘scramble’ phenomenon might look ‘new’ on the surface, closer examination reveals that it still carries certain genes that were inherited from the nineteenth-century parent organism, making it not so much a ‘new’ scramble as a mutated version of the old. The paper assesses the relationship between artisanal miners, ‘supporters’ and exporters, on the one hand, and the government and other key stakeholders, on the other, in the scramble for diamonds in Sierra Leone. It also examines the economic and environmental consequences, including government and stakeholders' response.

Notes

¹A total of 210 respondents were sampled from the five settlements. Data were sought on selected socio-economic variables such as household demography, economic activities and income, social services and the interviewees' perception of the probable impact mining operations will have on their lives and communities. Data were obtained by administering face-to-face questionnaires and conducting focus-group interviews of various community members, including vulnerable project-affected persons such as women and youth groups.