Search results for "Gold mining"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
Working in a boom-town: Female perspectives on gold-mining in Burkina Faso
2009
Abstract In Burkina Faso, informal mining camps attract girls and women from rural areas because they offer a variety of income generating activities and access to urban consumer goods. Moreover, migration to the mines also allows for a different life-style and greater personal freedom. On the other hand, by going to the mining camps, girls and women risk acquiring a bad reputation in their communities because they are suspected of having illicit sexual relationships. In fact, relationships with gold miners and the material benefits connected with them are among the lures of the gold mines. Thus, from a female perspective migration to the gold mines is fraught with ambivalence, which is exp…
GOLD MINING AND JULA INFLUENCE IN PRECOLONIAL SOUTHERN BURKINA FASO
2007
ABSTRACTThe ‘Lobi’ region in what is today southern Burkina Faso is frequently mentioned in historical accounts of gold mining in West Africa. However, little is known about the actual location of the gold mines or about the way gold mining and trade were organized in precolonial times. This article points out that some previous hypotheses about precolonial gold mining, trade and the sociopolitical organization of this region are flawed, partly because ‘Lobi’, as the name for both the region and its inhabitants, is misleading. In fact, the references to ‘Lobi’ merge two distinct gold-producing zones along the Mouhoun river, about 200 km from each other. The present-day populations of southe…
An Integrative Approach to Assess the Environmental Impacts of Gold Mining Contamination in the Amazon
2021
As the number of legal and illegal gold mining sites increases in the Andes–Amazonia region, integrative methods to evaluate the effects of mining pollution on freshwater ecosystems are of paramount importance. Here, we sampled water and sediments in 11 sites potentially affected by gold mining activities in the Napo province (Ecuador). The environmental impacts were evaluated using the following lines of evidence (LOEs): water physicochemical parameters, metal exposure concentrations, macroinvertebrate community response (AAMBI), and toxicity by conducting bioassays with Lactuca sativa and Daphnia magna. Dissolved oxygen and total suspended solids were under (130 mg/Ls) quality standards 6…
The President of the gold diggers: Sources of power in a gold mine in Burkina Faso
2003
The article provides an example of how 'formal' and 'informal' modes of power and legitimacy, as well as material and symbolic leadership resources, may intersect and interrelate. It analyses the sources of power that a Big Man in West Africa mobilised in order to appropriate mining rights and to establish leadership in a gold mining camp. As an entrepreneur in an economic field directly regulated by state laws and authorities, he has to operate within these structures while at the same time subverting them by creating a 'system of personal power' that resembles Sahlins' classic model of the Big Man in Melanesia. Although he is elected to represent the gold diggers, his leadership position …