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Mining mobility and settlement during an East African gold boom: Seeking fortune and accommodating fate

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  • Deborah Fahy Bryceson
  • Jesper Bosse Jønsson
  • Mike Clarke Shand

Abstract

In light of Shiller’s concept of ‘irrational exuberance’, we interrogate migrants’ optimistic material expectations at artisanal and industrial gold mining locations during a period of exceptional mobility spurred by the international gold boom of 2000–2013. Our household survey and interview findings reveal miners’ and residents’ mobility and settlement patterns in three Tanzanian gold mining settlements, representing different stages and forms of mining along a trajectory of deepening gold extraction and increasing urbanization. Resident miners’, traders’ and service providers’ personal motivations, strategies and dilemmas surface. The constancy of migrants’ motivation for economic betterment and the contingency of their strategic thinking in the face of gold supply uncertainty emerges clearly. However, mining site residents’ highly mobile lives entail toleration of temporary, inadequate housing in infrastructurally deficient, polluted and unsafe mining environments, a situation at odds with their aims for lifestyle enhancement. Given the unpredictability of gold production, residents reconcile their expectations of striking it rich with the reality of sub-optimal outcomes. Those who gain satisfaction and esteem in their careers are likely to do so through high levels of mobility, ultimately rewarded with desirable housing and settlement locations, whereas others adapt to constrained mobility and unenviable settlement locations, or abandon mining.

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  • Deborah Fahy Bryceson & Jesper Bosse Jønsson & Mike Clarke Shand, 2020. "Mining mobility and settlement during an East African gold boom: Seeking fortune and accommodating fate," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 446-463, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rmobxx:v:15:y:2020:i:3:p:446-463
    DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2020.1723879
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    Cited by:

    1. Matthieu Bolay, 2021. "Disentangling Mining and Migratory Routes in West Africa: Decisions to Move in Migranticised Settings," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 235-246.
    2. Deborah Fahy Bryceson & Katherine V. Gough & Jesper Bosse Jønsson & Crispin Kinabo & Michael Clarke Shand & Cristina Udelsmann Rodrigues & Paul W.K. Yankson, 2022. "MINERALIZED URBANIZATION IN AFRICA IN THE TWENTY‐FIRST CENTURY: Becoming Urban through Mining Extraction," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 342-369, May.

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