Gold lifeways are characterised by precarity, expectations, waiting, and sometimes by (often temporary) security. Miners build lives for themselves from gold, when fortunate. Land issues can be critical, as can the economic factors needed to make a living and invest in mining. This is gendered; women are rarely landowners, which constrains their access to mineral rich land and to credit. For women, mining is also combined with other livelihood demands and with their caring roles. Organisational dynamics feed into transformations within gold lifeways. In Busia, NGOs such as EWAD support miners to establish and consolidate Artisanal and Small-scale Miners’ Organisations (ASMOs). ASMOs act as vehicles for sustainability changes, consolidating small-scale mining operations, eliminating child labour, improving the position of women, introducing cleaner technologies, and accessing different markets.
1/2 Overseeing all the activities
This is a special tree - an itiiri tree. Three male leaders and landowners of Busia United Small-scale Mining Company (BUSCO) sit here to oversee and organise their mine. It is part of mining: being there when something requires attention. The village Tiira is named after this tree; itiira means ‘hand thorns’ in Ateso.
2/2 “We do not own the land”
Women usually do not own land, men do. Angariama Mining Association (AMA) consists mostly of women. In the photo, AMA members assess the progress of the mine. It is slow. Their struggle is not about attitude, but about land ownership. Land generally facilitates a loan with the bank.
1/3 Miners’ organise - BUSCO
Busia United Small-scale Mining Company started small in 1998, becoming the first registered association in Busia in 2010.
2/3 Miners’ organise – SAMA
In 2016, Syanyonja Artisanal Miners’ Association became the first association in Africa awarded certification by FLO-CERT to trade ‘Fairtrade gold’.
3/3 Miners’ organise - TLAMA
Tiira Landlords and Artisanal Miners Association is a miner – landowner collaboration.
1/2 “We have no case with anyone!”
Miners of Tiira Small Scale Mining Association (TISSMA) can resume mining activities after a 2-year stand-still due to a dispute with a foreign investor. They celebrate and are proud to have won the court case: “today we are free.”
2/2 Children should work on dreams
Young people from Buteba and Sikuda Gold Mining Communities who are part of a project led by EWAD to establish child labour free zones. School dropouts have been enabled to return and youth have built an economically successful soap making enterprise.
1/3 Mine reclamation
The lives of mines are not unilineal. They can remain open after the mining activities - to be repurposed later through new technologies. Or it can be closed. This photo displays a mine reclamation. When miners of Busia United Small-scale Mining Company (BUSCO) discontinued their activities here, they planted trees on the mining location.
2/3 In my backyard
Here, people mine right next to their house. This is not unusual - although usually such mines are smaller. In this village, mining is part of the residential area.
3/3 “We dig up the school fees”
This mine is not active, but still it remains open. The family living here depends on food from their garden. Sometimes, though, in case it is necessary, they dig up school fees.
1/4 Digging for crops and gold
These women are on their way to their garden to dig. In the morning, before breakfast, they go to harvest their crops. In the afternoon, after cooking their children’s lunch, they return to dig for gold.
2/4 Family land
A woman oversees her family land.
3/4 Wetland, women and mining
Women go to the wetland to mine alluvial gold. Men do too, but the wetland is a place where women can be miners themselves and organise their daily mining life, outside the gender division of labour and structures that apply to the established mines.
4/4 A precise technology
This miner is mining in the wetland and washes mud with a basin in search for alluvial gold. This technology requires careful attention and movement in order to find the gold.