Mining And Development In Sierra Leone

Mining and Development in Sierra Leone

Mining and Development in Sierra Leone examines how different actors in Sierra Leone use the effects of large-scale mining to navigate and transform the challenging conditions of life. The book offers an in-depth analysis of the processes of development and change that mark resource extraction environments globally. Across the world, resource extraction is assigned an important role in development agendas. Yet a key question is how development opportunities are given shape and accessed and how extraction’s negative impacts are dealt with in actual politics and practices. Set in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone during a global mining boom, this book shows how mining-cum-development’s multifaceted effects materialize. By taking the micro-politics of large-scale mining as its principal focus, the book analyzes a range of the most perplexing phenomena of life in Sierra Leone and scrutinizes the intricate and contentious processes of change unfolding in mining environments. Mining and Development in Sierra Leone goes beyond promise-or-problem dichotomies, offers key insights into the struggle for progress that characterizes the mining-development nexus, and provides innovative understandings of the resourceful ways in which different actors negotiate change and navigate uncertainty. This book will be of interest to students and scholars working on resource extraction, large-scale investments, globalization, and development, as well as to development practitioners, mining professionals, and policymakers.

Culture and Conflicts in Sierra Leone Mining

In Culture and Conflicts in Sierra Leone Mining: Strangers, Aliens, Spirits, the author uses Sierra Leone as a case study to contribute to the debates on the causes and nature of mineral resource conflicts in Africa. Unlike many works that focus on the political economy and political ecology of large-scale diamond mining conflicts, this book’s goal is to add to the limited literature on the persistent discord in mining areas. In so doing, the book integrates cultural conflict dimensions in analyzing the mineral commodity chain, primarily the clash between the centuries-old customary landlord-stranger land governance institution and state mining laws with colonial vestiges. It shows that these cultural conflicts challenge the effective development of the mining sector, including establishing artisanal mining as a viable complementary livelihood to farming for rural populations.

UNDERSTANDING SIERRA LEONE?S DEVELOPMENT