|
Title
|
|
|
|
The gold commodity frontier : a fresh perspective on change and diversity in the global gold mining economy
| |
|
Author
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Abstract
|
|
|
|
| In recent decades, alongside the emergence of a truly globalized mining industry, we have seen a strong expansion of predominantly informal artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM). While both trends are often studied in isolation, we argue that they can be seen as products of the same structural process: the widening and deepening of the gold commodity frontier. More precisely, we argue that gold mining, in an attempt to overcome several socio-ecological and socio-political limitations, has expanded outside its historical core into a range of new mining destinations (widening), and has come to rely on an intensification of production through socio-technical innovations (deepening). These processes of widening and deepening have not only led to an expansion of industrial mining, but are also, increasingly, contributing to a (geographically unequal) expansion of ASGM. In addition to targeting deposits that are unattractive for industrial mining, ASGM is better equipped to deal with socio-political uncertainty, and drives down the cost of production through a reliance on flexible informal labour. Using case study evidence from the Philippines and the DRC, we then illustrate how the processes of widening and deepening intersect with (sub-)national processes of political-economic transformation, producing different types of gold mining constellations. |
| |
|
Language
|
|
|
|
English
| |
|
Source (journal)
|
|
|
|
The Extractive Industries and Society. - -
| |
|
Publication
|
|
|
|
Oxford
:
Elsevier sci ltd
,
2019
| |
|
ISSN
|
|
|
|
2214-790X
| |
|
Volume/pages
|
|
|
|
6
:2
(2019)
, p. 413-423
| |
|
ISI
|
|
|
|
000466795300016
| |
|
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Full text (open access)
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
|
|
|
|
| |
|