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Digging for Gold or Justice? Misrecognition and Marginalization of “Illegal” Small-Scale Miners in Ghana

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Abstract

Artisanal small-scale mining remains a concern to many mineral-rich countries in the developing world. In Ghana, a significant number of those engaged in the sector are operating illegally. The ubiquity of the illegal mining sector has posed a policy challenge to the government, and high-handed measures to curb the problem have failed. This study contributes to our understanding of the problem by providing a more nuanced alternative perspective to the illegality discourse that has informed discussions and policy till now. Based on qualitative primary data collected from Noyem, a mining community in Ghana, the study shows that the so-called illegal small-scale mining is an outcome of existing social injustices suffered by the miners. It further reveals that those engaged in the sector are not homogenous but differentiated by class and motive. The study recommends among others that government addresses the identified social injustices rather than simply focusing on law enforcement to address the problem.

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Fig. 1

Source: Banchirigah (2008)

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Notes

  1. See Minerals and Mining Act 2006, section 82.

  2. Galamsey is a conjoined slang referring to gathering and selling. It is an adept description of the rudimentary nature of the mining activity involving gathering of surface soil with rudimentary tools and then selling it directly to middle men. This contrasts with the formalized and hi-tech process used by large-scale mining companies.

  3. Flash-out operations are crackdown exercises where the government sends the military or police to mining communities to round up and arrest individuals involved in the illegal mining business (provide references of those who have mentioned the term).

  4. For confidentiality, all names used in this work are fictitious.

  5. Utilizing social capital to obtain a job.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Norwegian State Education Loan Fund (Lanekassen), Quota Scheme Scholarship.

Funding

This study was conducted as part of the requirements to fulfill a Masters in Natural Resource Management degree at NTNU. The entire masters was funded by the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund (Lanekassen). The name of the Scholarship was the Quota Scheme Scholarship (2013). This paper draws from the Masters thesis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia

    Daisy Rose Ofori & Jerome Jeffison Ofori

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  1. Daisy Rose Ofori
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  2. Jerome Jeffison Ofori
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Correspondence to Daisy Rose Ofori.

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Conflict of interest

The main author is Daisy Ofori and the second author is Ofori Jerome Jeffison. Daisy Ofori was formerly a student at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Ofori Jerome Jeffison is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Adelaide and his research work is based on mining communities in Ghana. Daisy Ofori and Ofori Jerome Jeffison have a marital relationship. Jerome serves as the second author not because of his marital relationship with Daisy, but in his own right as a major contributor to this study, especially the discussion section of this article.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Department of Geography (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Ofori, D.R., Ofori, J.J. Digging for Gold or Justice? Misrecognition and Marginalization of “Illegal” Small-Scale Miners in Ghana. Soc Just Res 31, 355–373 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-018-0313-x

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