https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4066-7099
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ABSTRACT
The mining sector in Mozambique, as in many parts of Africa, is viewed as a masculine industry; however, when it comes to artisanal and small-scale mining women play a very important role that in most cases is neglected or unknown. We examine both gendered practices and authority relations in different types of gold mining (alluvial and reef), their changes, and how this interacts with the current government initiative of having artisanal miners organize themselves in registered associations. Specifically, in the gold mines in Manica district, there is a major effort from the Mozambican government to organize the miners in associations. The process is bringing new dynamics to the activity for both women and men in terms of decision-making, access and opportunities, thus creating an impact for the livelihoods of both groups.
RÉSUMÉ
De même que dans beaucoup d’autres pays d’Afrique, le secteur minier au Mozambique est perçu comme une industrie masculine; cependant, en matière d’exploitation minière artisanale à petite échelle, les femmes jouent un rôle important qui, dans la plupart des cas, est négligé ou inconnu. Nous examinons à la fois les pratiques genrées et les relations d’autorité dans différents types d’exploitation de l’or (alluvionnaire et récifale), leurs modifications, et comment elles interagissent avec l’initiative gouvernementale actuelle qui pousse les mineurs artisanaux à s’organiser dans des associations déclarées. Plus précisément, dans les mines d’or du district de Manica, le gouvernement mozambicain fait un effort considérable pour que les mineurs s’organisent en associations. Ce processus apporte une nouvelle dynamique à l’activité, pour les femmes comme pour les hommes, en matière de prise de décision, d’accès et d’opportunités, créant ainsi un impact sur les moyens de subsistance des deux groupes.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding the research. Special thanks to Mr Sydney Samson for his invaluable research assistance. This paper builds on two papers we presented to the African Studies Association annual meeting on 3 December 2016 in Washington, USA. We thank Rachel Perks, Joanne Lebert and especially Doris Buss for their very helpful comments on these papers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. We visited Munharunga, Munhena, Fenda, Mutsinza, Ntsinda and Cacarue.
2. These associations have a family history tracing back to the promotion of cooperatives in the colonial period and in the initial years after independence in 1975 when the FRELIMO (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) government officially promoted Marxist–Leninist policies (see Vicente Citation2014).
3. However, Shandro, Veiga, and Chouinard (Citation2009, 527) said FFM paid only 60% of world market price, while private gold dealers bought at 56% of world price but that they supply mercury and would travel to the mine sites, unlike FFM officials.
5. See http://www.macauhub.com.mo/pt/2013/03/28/governo-de-mocambique-cria-instituto-geologico-e-mineiro. Two years later, IGM itself was folded into the Instituto Nacional de Minas (INAMI; see http://www.folhademaputo.co.mz/pt/noticias/nacional/governo-mocambicano-extingue-igm/).
6. We understand that for the last few years the World Bank and the Mozambican government have had discussions about revising the ASM policy in Mozambique (personal communication from Doris Buss). The government has secured further funding from the World Bank for its natural resources policy, including for the government to improve its support to the ASM sector. In 2018, provincial and district mining officials were still talking about the importance of associations for regulating artisanal mining.
7. Garimpeiro is the Portuguese word for an informal gold miner, while the local name in ChiManica or ChiShona is makorokoza or at times magweja (which sometimes is specifically used only to refer to artisanal diamond miners).
8. This includes the national police (Polícia da República de Moçambique) and, in particular, the new Natural Resources and Environment Protection Force (Polícia de Protecção dos Recursos Naturais e Meio Ambiente), an armed environmental “police force” to ensure the conservation of natural resources.
9. The police action which cleared away the miners allowed the Chinese company that held the license to mine there again. But by May 2016, the company was no longer mining in that specific area and appeared not to be concerned when miners descended on the place again (it left some of its heavy equipment nearby and paid for security to keep an eye on it). Given the quantity of gold artisanal miners were finding there, it became a “rush site” in June 2016 as hundreds of men began digging shafts and panning all over the pits abandoned by the Chinese company.
10. Some donors have been rethinking this initiative, according to Doris Buss who interviewed donor officials in Maputo in 2016 (Buss, personal communication).
11. Rutherford was told in July 2018 that the leaders of the association are in the process of forming a company and creating a partnership with other investors, in part to obtain a more secure and lengthier license than they had previously.
12. We were shown the mercury retorts hanging on the wall of a structure at the washing ponds which donors had provided to the association less than 10 years ago. These retorts were currently not being used, several informants explained, because the amount of gold being processed during this period was too small to make it worthwhile. Instead, the several dozen or so men and women (and a few children) who were processing the ore in the washing ponds were handling mercury without any protection (like at one other site we visited which also had mercury being used).
13. The assumption that legalizing could increase external investments is often the goal of proponents of formalization. For example, Siegel and Veiga suggest that development agencies could give interest-free loans to “legal” claimholders that “would empower the purchase of intermediate technology, as well as provide access to experts in mineral processing, mining engineering, chemicals management, and education for local artisanal miners. The claimholder could advance from being someone who can employ artisanal miners, to somebody who has a small-scale mine” (Citation2009, 55).
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Blair Rutherford
Blair Rutherford is a professor of anthropology at Carleton University and a research associate at the African Centre for Migration & Society at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has conducted ethnographic research in four African countries for more than 25 years. Among other publications, he is the author of two monographs concerning farm workers in Zimbabwe.
Laila Chemane-Chilemba
Laila Chemane-Chilemba holds a master’s degree in development practices from the University of Queensland in Australia and is finalizing a master’s in rural sociology and development at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique. She has 15 years of working experience of which seven are in the extractive industry in multinational companies such as Rio Tinto, Sasol and recently Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, and now working for Total in areas such as resettlement, community engagement, social studies and community development in different parts of Mozambique. She also has experience working with civil society organizations and as a consultant in Mozambique, and in the work done with the Australian Awards Program – DFAT (former AusAID) in countries such as Malawi, South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia. She is passionate about civil work and is a founding member of two civil society organizations that focus on promoting girls’ education as well as health and civil rights. She is also a founding member of the Australian Students’ Alumni Association in Mozambique (AMEA) and the Australia Awards Program Ambassador for Mozambique.