‘Our own law is making us beggars’ : understanding the marginal experiences of governed, mine-side communities in Mutoko district, Zimbabwe

Kativu, Saymore Ngonidzashe
External Publications (2021)

Uppsala: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Urban and Rural Development

There is a rising interest in the Global South, to ensure that mineral resources are governed to benefit local communities where they are extracted. The shared Africa Mining Vision and economic aspirations in Zimbabwe seeking to integrate equity in governing and extracting mineral resources reflects such interests. Yet despite these aspirations and commitments to mining development that does not continue to disenfranchise communities, voices of communities remain peripheral to commitments to improve the mining industry that has historically been illustrated unequal, stimulating scholarship on the natural resource curse and recently unequal ecological exchange. I begin this research by asking how people in Mutoko district experience black granite mining and its governance. I inquire seeking to bring forth voices from below, those affected first-hand by extraction and produce an ethnocentric account of mining anthropology rooted in the Habermasian concept of the lifeworld and how its colonization by the system (government-corporation-complex responsible for mining) shapes socioeconomic and environmental affairs at the margins. My key findings show that communities shoulder the multiple burdens of black granite extraction without getting its rewards. Broken bridges, damaged roads, dirty air, hazardous living environments and loss of land are some of the key socioeconomic effects currently being experienced. The current governance regime characterised by outdated laws, dishonesty, intimidation of the governed permits the burdens described to perpetuate. I conclude that in the marginalised lifeworld resides knowledge, capacity and experiences that must be fully accounted for in reshaping governance of extraction to lift the burdens of mining from communities.

About the author

Kativu, Saymore Ngonidzashe

Geography