Not normal, not just: protest against large-scale mining from a moral economy perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article investigates conflicts over large-scale mining through the lens of E. P. Thompson’s concept of the moral economy. The concept proves fruitful for an analysis of the local impacts of fundamental political-economic transformations, notably how people are affected by, and react to, structural changes. The recent global “commodity boom” and the related expansion of large-scale mining is a case in point. I refer to the moral economy to analyse conflicts around two gold mines in Burkina Faso. I argue that protests against mining are far from being irrational and instinct led, just as Thompson demonstrated for the food riots. Rather, the protests are driven by the notion that the way in which the “mining boom” has proceeded is profoundly unjust. Behind the conflict are different basic assumptions regarding what is considered legitimate and “normal,” namely the right to food and to live in dignity, as opposed to profit-making.