Dealing with ambiguity: Policy and practice among artisanal gold miners.
Abstract
The understanding of small-scale miners' organizational practices is still modest throughout the African continent. The chapter outlines the small-scale mining codes in Tanzania and contrasts them to prevalent organizational practices in two Tanzanian small-scale mining settlements. It is argued that there is a need to adjust the regulatory mechanisms to well-consolidated practices: If basic practices differ substantially from official prescriptions of the mining codes over an extended period of time, certain elements of the regulatory framework need reconsideration. The chapter examines three pertinent operational components that vary in form and managing practices between the two study sites: dealing with licence acquisition, accessing working capital and sharing output. These components are considered vital for the proper manoeuvring of local small-scale mining operators and the reasons for the variations are essential to understand for policy makers and development practitioners. By incorporating prevalent practices and context-dependent variations in some of the crucial organizational components, it is possible to design a robust and resilient regulatory framework for small-scale mining. A number of policy adjustments are consequently proposed.
Citation
Jønsson, J.B. Dealing with ambiguity: Policy and practice among artisanal gold miners. In: Mining and social transformation in Africa: Mineralizing and democratizing trends in artisanal production. Routledge, Abingdon, UK (2014) 113-129. ISBN 9780415833707
Links
Dealing with ambiguity: Policy and practice among artisanal gold miners.