Global Gold Production Touching Ground Expansion, Informalization, and Technological Innovation

In recent decades, gold mining has moved into increasingly remote corners of the globe. Aside from the expansion of industrial gold mining, many countries have simultaneously witnessed an expansion of labor-intensive and predominantly informal artisanal and small-scale gold mining. Both trends are usually studied in isolation, which contributes to a dominant image of a dual gold mining economy.

Counteracting this dominant view, this volume adopts a global perspective, and demonstrates that both industrial gold mining and artisanal and small-scale gold mining are functionally integrated into a global gold production system. It couples an analysis of structural trends in global gold production (expansion, informalization, and technological innovation) to twelve country case studies that detail how global gold production becomes embedded in institutional and ecological structures.

1. Introduction: Snapshots of Global Gold Mining.- PART 1: TRENDS IN GLOBAL GOLD PRODUCTION.- 2. Theorizing the Global Gold Production System.- 3. Global Expansion.- 4. Informalization.- 5. Technological Innovation.- PART 2: GLOBAL GOLD PRODUCTION TOUCHING GROUND.- 6. Brazil: Garimpagem, Forever Informal.- 7. Peru: Curtailing Smuggling, Regionalizing Trade.- 8. Colombia: Legal Loopholes behind Illegal Gold Trade.- 9. Ghana: A History of Expansion and Contraction in Gold Mining.- 10. Ghana: Controversy, Criminalization and Chinese Miners.- 11. Burkina Faso: Global Gold Expansion and Local Terrains.- 12. Uganda: Gold as a (Trans)National Treasure.- 13. Guinea-Conakry and Burkina Faso: Innovations at the Periphery.- 14. The DRC: From Stones in the River to Diving for Dollars.- 15. Zimbabwe: A Gold Mining Boom amidst rapid Agrarian Change.- 16. Madagascar: Emergence and Persistence on the Hundred-Year Frontier.- 17. Indonesia: Adaptation and Differentiation in Informal Gold Mining.- 18. The Philippines: State-Sanctioned Informalization.- 19. Conclusion.

Boris Verbrugge is a post-doctoral researcher at the Insitute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, Belgium; and a senior researcher at the Research Institute for Work and Society (HIVA), KU Leuven, Belgium. In addition to being involved in the InforMining project on informalization processes in gold mining (funded by the Research Foundation Flanders, FWO), Boris is conducting policy-oriented research into social sustainability challenges in global value chains.

Sara Geenen is an assistant professor at the Institute of Development Policy’s (IOB) Great Lakes of Africa Center (GLAC), University of Antwerp, Belgium. She is coordinating the FWO-funded project InforMining. Her research interests lie in the global and local development dimensions of extractivist projects, addressing questions about socially responsible and inclusive forms of globalization.