The underground can be a terrain of conflicts, often between large-scale and small-scale miners. On the surface it may seem calm, but in-depth connections of tunnels may lead to fierce competition over access to gold matter (ore). How to mine, who can mine, and when to mine are moral questions. Opinions and legal practices around mining always propose what is good and bad, what should and should not be done. Morality can add to conflicts, but is also the basis of collaboration. Never free of friction, in-depth working relations are the terrain for conviviality and collaboration within and between work teams, between experts in drilling (e.g., manual workers, women involved in processing ore), and between investors. Collaboration also arises between miners, landowners and local communities.
1/6 The Ghanaian and Chinese flags at the gate of Shaanxi mining operation
The Shaanxi mine is built and exploited by Chinese, based on a license held by Ghanaian local residents. The collaboration is contested, since legally this foreign mining company is only allowed to provide services to Ghanaian license holders who have to do the actual mining.
2/6 A Mine and a stoneline
Drawing of the Shaanxi Mine in relation to the orebody (stoneline) targeted by small-scale miners in the community. The drawing is made by Zakari, based on information from the internet providing the surface boundaries of the concession of the Shaanxi mine and some of the residential areas.
3/6 Headgear within a fence
The terrain of Shaanxi mine is secured with barbed fences. We can see the headgear, which marks where the miners working for the Chinese descend into the shaft. Underground, the miners work in horizontal directions, moving outside the barded fence. Underground Shaanxi miners and the small-scale miners can meet and compete.
4/6 Drawings for comparing underground mining
Adjacent to a glossy book about the Anglo Gold Ashanti industrial mine in Obuasi, is a drawing by Zakari and Kennedy detailing the underground situation of Kejetia. Comparing the images helps to tell the story of underground encounters between Chinese mining employees and small-scale miners.
5/6 Drawing dynamite underground situations
The Shaanxi mine is situated in area with a long history of small-scale mining. At first there was a clear demarcation underground between these types of operations. Since the Chinese started tunneling under the areas where small-scale mining takes place, there are underground connections and some small-scale miners move into the sites where Chinese are blasting and mining.
6/6 A fence flagging in-depth conflicts
The Shaanxi mine is trying to prevent small-scale miners from accessing ‘their’ ore. The fence serves to inhibit miners from digging pits in the confined area. The leftover grey coloured stones still testify to where pits were in the past. Does the cow index directions for less disturbed futures?
1/2 In the footsteps of companies?
An abandoned industrial open-pit mine, filled with rainwater. Artisanal mining activities can develop in the vicinities of old industrial mines, even though local authorities and companies’ security services try to prevent and repress access to these spaces.
2/2 Walls and tunnels
A vertical section of an abandoned industrial mine shows horizontal tunnels excavated by artisanal miners. The risk of collapse is higher in this kind of operation: these are usually the initiative of individuals or small groups, with little or no involvement of customary institutions.
1/3 Access (b)locked
Illustrative of the moralities at play in mining environments, access to some small-scale underground mines is blocked one day a month, to offer peace and quietness to the spirits residing in the subsurface. It is also a moment where gifts and (non-voluntary) ceremonial contributions are offered to the chiefs residing over these areas.
2/3 Down in the river
With dredges, equipped with generators and suction devices, material from the depths of rivers is pumped to the surface. Here, gold is (hopefully) recovered and muddy water released back into the river. This practice caused outcries against ASGM, eventually informing a moratorium on all ASM from April 2017 to December 2018.
3/3 Stop Galamsey
This billboard was part of a campaign that advocated stopping all galamsey (informal/illegal ASM) and was launched by a group of civil society organizations and media platforms. Largely informed by dredging activities, this anti-ASM atmosphere, like the government-imposed moratorium on all ASM, can be seen as part of a complex moral mining politics.
1-3/3 From industrial to the (not so) small-scale
In Tarkwa, Ghana, the underground systems of industrial mines have been abandoned in the 1990s following their shift towards open-pit mining. Although small teams of artisanal miners have been entering these systems since long, the influx of (Chinese) technology and capital (often entering into joint ventures with Ghanaian miners) has propelled and upscaled their full reopening. Here, we can see a team of small-scale miners reopening a shaft of which access had been blocked by method of back-filling the shafts. For such activities various tools are used, including jack-hammers, large chisels and shovels. When shafts are reopened, and access is secured, underground infrastructure is assessed and imported and mining activities are further expanded. In doing so, the pillars created by these former industrial operations are (supposed to be) left untouched as they are crucial for stability and therefore also important to new small-scale operations. Sometimes they are marked, for example with a big blue X, to make clear to everyone that they should NOT be mined.
Wooden infrastructures
Deep shafts require scaffolding to secure structural integrity and facilitate the descent of miners. Caleurs are specialized technicians recruited temporarily by each mining team to build these structures. Since these practices consume timber and exert pressure on wood reserves, taxes and informal regulations limit access to forest areas.
1-2/2 An open-cast mine in town
Close to the town centre, artisanal miners conduct large excavations that resemble open-cast mines. Digging is done mostly manually. Different teams control the mine, and a percentage of the profit goes to the representatives of the lineages that held rights on the corresponding portions of land on the surface.
1/2 Working underground with a roof over your head
Gold mining depends on collaborations within mining teams (called ‘gangs’) but also between teams. This roof shows how different teams working on a line with their individual pits have teamed up in building the infrastructure to protect themselves on sunny as well as rainy days.
2/2 Large-scale investment in small(er)-scale cooperation
The gold mining cooperative, of which several gold mining teams are members, has jointly prepared the terrain for further in-depth digging. An excavator was hired to take out the overburden. On the floor of this wider open pit, individual mining teams are now digging deeper – in the shade above ground and under.