Mobility is an important characteristic of gold mining. The residences built on mining sites may testify to temporarity: people may come and go, sites may be abandoned. Mining sites are in flux, but so is gold itself. Gold moves in trade lines from mining sites to jewelers, to consumers, and vaults of banks elsewhere. Before gold matter leaves mining sites, processing the ore also involves moving matters: equipment moves and is often imported from elsewhere. Mining sites are connected to the world at large. They may also be a stepping stone for miners to move upwards and/or outwards. In this series we portray social mobilities of miners to find out what moves them: what are the aspirations in life and where can these be realized?
Gold rushes and seasonal migration
Local migration flows have always been important for ASGM in Guinea. Gold rushes can produce high, and often short-lived, concentrations of migrant miners in limited areas. Here, a mining site composed mostly by miners migrating from neighboring countries, bringing new extracting and processing techniques with them.
Keeping the balance
A buyer weighs gold before buying it. Local buyers are part of broader networks connected to large-scale traders and smelters based in cities, or abroad. They sometimes support the work of miners through loans and pre-financing, which helps them strengthen their web of trust- and debt-based informal relations.
Run and stop
While ASGM is generally a very mobile space, marked by the fast movement of people, finance and technology, Ghana's 2017-2018 moratorium on ASM largely brought the sector to a halt. This picture shows an empty processing site: usually a bustling and noisy place, in November 2018 it was all empty and silent.
Material moving out
Left-over material from a ´cyanide washing site´ in Ghana is washed into a neighbouring garden where, among other things, bananas are grown. Although sand-sacks are placed to prevent this from happening, gold-related matter is moving out of the sector here, thereby adversely affecting other activities that are located in proximity.
1/5 Flows and relationships
The map illustrates flows and relationships connecting the different mining areas in the surroundings of Kampti (southwestern Burkina Faso). Areas are specialized in different stages of production (excavation, processing, sale): miners and materials move between them and also travel to the nearest villages and towns.
2/5 Residential area
Housing units in secco (straw) for miners in Bantara
3/5 Processing area: A woman washing the ore on a sluice box
4/5 Excavation area
A group of miners resting near a shaft after spending the night digging underground, while the second team started its shift. Site named “Hong-Kong” (likening the shape of the shafts to architecture in Hong Kong), currently area of “Line waafo” (snake-sized line, also referring to the shape of the gold vein).
5/5 Marketing gold
A manual weighing scale used to weigh gold.
1/2 Katakata!
Three-wheel cargo motorcycles are easy to maneuver and facilitate a rapid transport of the rock from extraction areas to processing sites. In Guinea they are called katakata, possibly after the noise produced by their passage. Here, an association of katakata drivers and sellers.
2/2 Apsonic
In Burkina Faso three-wheel cargo motorcycles are called Apsonic. In the dry Sahel region, they are often used to transport water to sites where gold is processed.
1/3 Welcome to the machine
A Chinese engine, cooled down through the water in the barrel on its left. Import of machines and chemical products is essential for, and fueled by, technological innovation in ASGM economies.
2/3 Chinese equipment arrived
There is a strong Chinese presence in Ghana’s gold mining: Chinese engineers, Chinese materials, Chinese shops with equipment are very visible near mines. Here, Chinese engineers build new infrastructure with materials that have just arrived from China.
3/3 Chinese shop for mining equipment
Chinese business in and around mining is booming. The two Chinese women sell equipment, and since they have not been in Ghana long they speak in signs or use Google translate to talk to visitors.
1-2/3 Wandering around
Portable metal detectors (first brought to Guinea in the late 2000s by an Australian company and later popularized by cheaper reproductions) increased the flexibility of miners, allowing them to move around in small teams in search of new deposits. They can also be used to inspect the extracted ore.
3/3 Milling in Movement
Chinese have recently introduced a new way of powdering ore: a wet pan grinding mill. Ghanaians expressed admiration at the efficiency, speed and dustfree way of working with this machine.
1/2 You be Chi!
The jacket of a Ghanaian mine hoist operator who works in a small-scale mine in Tarkwa, Ghana for an operation established as joint venture between Ghanaian and Chinese actors. Since approximately 2006, the Chinese have steadily carved out an important position in the Ghanaian mining sector.
2/2 Going down
This wagon is descending to collect waste material as part of the process of reopening an abandoned industrial underground mine in Tarkwa, Ghana. Typically, such activities are propelled by the influx of (Chinese) capital and technology in the country´s small-scale mining sector.
1/2 Zakari constructing his future (1)
Zakari travels regularly from his mining place in northern Ghana to Obuasi in the South, where his parents live. Zakari is building his house here, aspiring to a life with his wife. He is moving his gold to a future elsewhere, from a miner leading a ‘gang’ to a husband taking care of a family.
2/2 Zakari constructing his future (2)
Zakari in front of his future house. The house, he hopes, will be filled with a family. His T-shirt is spelling out what he should do: ‘Mama must Chop’ refers to the obligation of taking care of children.
