Beyond mining: physical commodity traders, market intermediation and the role of (de-)coupling

Economic activities that involve natural resources are often associated with precarious terms of employment, uneven relationships between local communities and state authorities and transregional inequalities. In anthropology, the role of intermediaries who connect producers and consumers in the context of commodity trade remains largely unexplored. In this article, I want to go beyond mining to share an ethnographic account of how physical commodity traders sell and buy goods and organise logistical operations and to elaborate on how their mode of trading influences questions of social and economic inequalities. In doing so, I wish to shift the focus of research on mining and capitalism from the sites of production to the sites of exchange and to show how market intermediaries play a critical role in creating and sustaining unequal relationships between commodity producers and consumers through what I call (de-)coupling.