Should mining companies partner with artisanal miners? Why only time will tell

Abstract

As a result of their simultaneous expansion in recent decades, mining companies and artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) communities increasingly interact in rural areas of the African continent. The resulting interactions could be described as amicable and tolerating but in other cases, have culminated in violence. To reduce tensions between respective parties, a number of academics, donors, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and industry bodies have promoted ‘models of cohabitation’ as a sustainable solution. This article critically reflects on this idea of promoting partnerships between large-scale mining companies and ASM communities. Using the lifecycle of an industrial mine as a temporal frame, a reconstruction of the mining interface dynamics between consecutive exploration and gold mining companies and resident ASM communities in the village of Hiré in Côte d’Ivoire is used as a case study. Untangling these mining interface dynamics has allowed to unearth how the conflicting interests, multiple realities and ambiguities that characterise the spaces in which residents of ASM communities and the management of mining companies compete over access to land, provide an extremely fragile and unsustainable foundation for cohabitation. Whilst proposed models of cohabitation can provide a short-term pragmatic response to mitigate escalated tensions between the parties, at the same time they should not be viewed in any way as a strategy capable of addressing the structural inequalities that are at the heart of these tense interactions.