Mining Africa

written by Artwell Nhemachena and Tapiwa Victor Warikandwa

Law, Environment, Society and Politics in Historical and Multidisciplinary Perspectives

This book is a pacesetter in the study of mining and the environment in Africa from multidisciplinary and spatio-temporal perspectives. The book approaches mining from the perspectives of law, politics, archaeology, anthropology, African studies, geography, human ecology, sociology, history, economics and development. It interrogates mining and environment from the perspectives of customary law as well as from the perspectives of modern Euro-law. The book covers precolonial, colonial and postcolonial mining and environmental perspectives. It maintains a Pan-Africanist perspective that also speaks to contemporary debates on African Renaissance and to the unity of Africa. From scrutinising the lived realities of African miners who are often referred to as “illegal” miners, the book also interrogates transnational mining corporations; matters of corporate social responsibility as well as matters of tax evasion by transnational corporations whose accountability to African governments is questioned. With both theoretical chapters and chapters based on empirical studies of mining and the environment across the African continent, the book provides a much needed holistic, one stop shop for scholars, activists, researchers and policy makers who need a comprehensive treatise on African mining and the environment.

With both theoretical chapters and chapter based on empirical studies on mining and the environment across the African continent, the book provides a much needed holistic, one stop shop for scholars, activists, researchers and policy makers who need a comprehensive treatise on African mining and the environment. The book comes at the right time when matters of African mining and environment are increasingly coming to the fore in the light of discourses about the new 21st century scramble for African resources, in which big transnational corporations and nations are jostling to suck Africa dry in their race to control planetary resources. It is a book that speaks to contemporary broader issues of (de-)coloniality and transformation of African minds and African environmental resources.