In Uganda, we have worked (co-laboured) with miners and others in a transdisciplinary way to gain nuanced, well-informed perspectives on issues of transformation and sustainability in gold mining. Undertaking transdisciplinary research has meant sharing our different perspectives and expertise, learning and training together. Researchers have not sought to use their non-local expertise during fieldwork to ‘help’ anyone, in development terms, believing that knowledge and researchers’ skills as knowledge-makers are most important. Instead, Environmental Women in Action in Development (EWAD), the NGO within our project, supports local miners with sustainability action. Our co-labouring holds power dynamics, both due to differences between our backgrounds, and due to our ‘encounters’ with the political economy of mining. Research in mining communities exposes obvious inequalities of wealth, of course, but beyond this, local extractive politics mean we have conducted research under the eyes of government minders, and we are aware of the danger of miners being harassed by officials within their daily working lives.
1/3 Children’s Rights
Gold Matter’s team member, Margaret Tuhumwire (Director of Environmental Women in Action for Development) addresses a workshop, advocating against child labour.
2/3 Visiting Syanyonya Artisan Miners’ Alliance
At SAMA demonstration mine in a meeting with members. Co-operative members describe their work and challenges.
3/3 All eyes on mercury free
Richard Kidega of EWAD demonstrates use of a Gold Konka, to a group visiting SAMA. When borax is used the gold can be extracted from concentrate without the use of mercury.
1/4 Reading the rock: ore and waste
Miners of Busia United Small-scale Mining Company (BUSCO) extracted a part of the gold vein from their mine. While yesterday the yield was both vein and ‘waste-rock’, today it is mostly waste-rock. Women from BUSCO teach Esther van de Camp to find small ore pieces in between the rocks they consider waste.
2/4 The gold vein, this is it!
In this rock, white gold vein (hydrothermal quartzite) is situated amidst grey hard-rock (metamorphic quartzite). The gold is invisible and miners know how to read the rocks. The shiny tiny specks are called ‘fool's gold’ - it is actually pyrite.
3/4 Making the invisible visible
Miners that work on the Location License of Tiira Small Scale Mining Association (TISSMA) teach Esther the details of a technology: the timbered shaft. The type of mine consists of shafts (vertical) and tunnels (horizontal) built with timber from eucalyptus trees. It is built underground and the miners demonstrate it for visualization.
4/4 Hanging around. Getting to work
After a minor landslide, caused by rain, Esther participates in the work of re-clearing the mine from the slipped down soil. Miners form a line and each of them uses their spade to bring the soil up to the miner above him - typically this work is done by men.
1/3 How to use a GPS
At Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Ronald Twongyirwe and Upton Nuwagira teach Lorenzo D’Angelo, Esther and Eleanor Fisher (behind camera) how to use a GPS and to incorporate it into fieldwork.
3/3 Ground truthing
Ronald records features on location to calibrate with remote sensing images, helping aid interpretation of the data.
1/3 Clara leads a focus group
Women discuss the contribution of gold mining to their household incomes with Clara Atuhaire. Household economies center on agricultural production but families also gain income from mining, which has taken place near the village for many years.
2/3 Taking charge
Participatory mapping to demonstrate features of the landscape around a village. When asked who would volunteer to draw, there was silence and then this elderly woman (name protected) took charge. Her charisma was striking in a context with stark gender inequalities.
3/3 Don’t forget the meals!
Lorenzo, Ronald and local facilitator, Innocent Babweteera, wait for lunch in a break during field work. A time to relax and share thoughts.
1/3 Being part of the (mining) human chain
The anthropologist finds himself spontaneously involved in the human chain created to extract the earth collected at the bottom of a hole.
3/3 Mulling over sustainability dilemmas
Lorenzo interviews a young miner who comments on the difficulties of the work, but also on the kind of impact that gold mining produces on the environment. For miners’ faced with the need to find a form of income for themselves and their families, environmental issues partly take a back seat.
Have you ever seen gold? Mining in south-western Uganda past and present by Lorenzo D’Angelo
A niece interviews her uncle (pictured), which provides an opportunity for him to recall moments of his life with flashbacks, and to reflect on the present and future of his community. An experiment in making an ethno-fiction, unfortunately cut short by the covid-19 pandemic.
