Doing fieldwork is an immersive way for academics to exchange knowledge, establish new collaborations and sometimes maintain long-term relationships in the field, and capture the perspectives of local actors. Gold miners and others who live and work in the mining communities, illustrate their everyday working life in their own words, drawings and tools. Old photos become an opportunity to talk about the history and motivation of people coming to the Amazon. Formal interviews and occasional conversations occur both inside and outside the mines, including cooperative workplaces, state offices, and local government headquarters. A coffee break in the mine, garimpo in Brazilian Portuguese, is an opportunity for approaching a cook in her kitchen, gaining insight on what it means to be a woman working in a male-dominated context. Building trustworthy relationships is at the core of understanding how garimpeiros envision their futures.
Long-time field work relations
Miner Maria do Socorro and anthropologist Marjo de Theije have known each other since 2006, when Socorro was working in a shop and bar in the Lawa gold fields. Socorro shows the surroundings of the new mine she and her husband are starting up together with other Brazilian garimpeiros.
Conversations at the kitchen table
After dark, the conversations continue at the kitchen table, exchanging pictures of common friends and Maria’s grandchild. They tell of many moves between gold fields in Suriname and Brazil, which she has made in the past two years, since prosperity has deserted her team of miners.
Working together
Co-labouring may be literally working together in the mine. In this picture, engineer Ramon Finkie, who works with the Gold Matters researchers in Suriname, handles the jet.
Understanding miners’ perspectives on mercury
A garimpeiro describing the use of mercury during the process of gold extraction. The dispersion of mercury into the natural environment (through air and water) represents a risk to human and ecosystem’s health. Reducing the use of mercury is one of the major revolutions needed for ASGM.
Coffee break with a mine cook
Carlos Henrique and Jorge Calvimontes have a coffee break with the cook in a mine in Castelo dos Sonhos. This is a way of approaching women’s perspective of the mining world, which is mostly male-dominated.
Mine safety is vital
Giorgio de Tomi discussing mine safety and occupational health hazards with the inspection team of the mining cooperative in Lourenço.
Tell me about the future
This photo was taken by the president of the COOGAL (Cooperative of Garimpeiros from Lourenço). Carlos Henrique and Giorgio de Tomi are talking with an associate miner about technology and the future of the gold mining in the district.
Overlooking a patchwork landscape
A garimpo owner points at the map of the region Esperança 4. From his house on the top of a hill, he showed us the patchwork landscape he lives in: large and small-scale gold extraction, agriculture, and cattle-ranching create constant tensions over land use issues.
A life in mining
While describing the gold extraction process, this garimpeiro shared his personal experiences. He migrated from the south of Brazil to Suriname and the Guianas, and then back to Brazil, to the Amazonian state of Pará. Despite the good money, all the difficulties of the job made him hope for another path for his children.
Underground mine development plan
Field research in Lourenço. Miners and researchers sharing knowledge about shaft design at an underground mine.
Recovered mercury
A garimpeiro showing a little bottle containing the mercury recovered after the use of a retort. The retort keeps toxic vapours inside, and recycles the chemical for future uses. In Brazil, it is cheap and safe, but its implementation still faces several obstacles as many miners don’t believe that mercury is harmful.
Gold diviner
The president of one garimpeiros’ cooperative from Peixoto de Azevedo demonstrates how a dowsing rod works. It is used to discover gold. According to him, the movement of the sticks indicates which rock contains gold.
Life stories
An elderly lady showing an old photo of her family to the Gold Matters’ researchers. She shared her personal life stories about how, like many other families in the early 1980s, she migrated from the poorest region of north-eastern Brazil to work in gold mines.
Go ahead!
Sabine Luning ready to visit a mine. Transport in the goldfields along the Lawa River is mostly with quads, well suited for difficult jungle paths. Driver Lato has been working here for fifteen years, first as a handyman, then a security man for a concessionaire, then a driver, and now as a miner.
Walking and talking
Walking as a research method. Here Jorge Calvimontes and the manager of an underground mine in the Vale do Rio Peixoto go a long way.