Contenu du sommaire : Micropolitiques du boom minier

The Frontiersmen of Gold : Private Trading Companies and Artisanal Gold Mining in Burkina Faso
In Burkina Faso, gold mining is rapidly growing and artisanal sites constitute an important share of the sector. While non-industrial production mostly escapes attempts of control through formal legislation, different forms of everyday governance ensure the regulation of daily life and work in small-scale sites. In this paper we present a case study showing the central role assumed by the local representatives of a gold trading private company : these “frontier entrepreneurs” act as mediators between different normative spheres and levels of authority, in a constantly evolving institutional environment.

Abject Pensioners and Entrapped Youth : Narratives of Decline and the Multiplicity of Times among Generations in the Congo Copperbelt. This article looks at narratives of economic decline among two generations of mineworkers in Katanga province, DR Congo : the pensioners of the industrial mining giant, Gécamines, and creuseurs, young men working as artisanal diggers. The author analyzes the “structures of feeling” informing the lives of individuals in these two generations of mineworkers as each deals with the material and social effects of industrial decline and the subsequent liberalization of the mining sector in Congo. He shows that the shared thoughts and sentiments of contemporary decline reflect how individuals in each mineworker generation experience their social emplacement and “entanglement in time” (Achille Mbembe). Based on his informants'narratives of marginalization that come in the wake of the liberalization of mining sector, the author argues that social decline in Congo confounds the strict scholarly framings of periodicity that foreground rupture – rather than continuity – between the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial eras.

Strength and Weakness of Trade Union Organisation : the Case of South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers. The social movements that have been shaking South Africa's mines since the start of 2012 have been marked by the rejection of the legitimacy of the historical representative of black mineworkers, namely the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Such massive strikes are often approached as a result of both the slow pace in – or lack of – transformation of South Africa's post-apartheid mining sector, and the increasing bureaucratisation of South African trade unions at work since 1994. Focused on the case of the NUM as an organisation more than on the ongoing crisis in the mines, this article goes back to the history of the trade union and argues that its inclination towards centralisation, legalism and bureaucracy is in fact older than it seems at first sight. It is based on such orientations that the NUM then became increasingly influenced, since the early 1990s, by the administration of the very companies it was fighting, further away from the militancy that is still desired by a majority of its members.

Privatizing Mining in Cameroon : Mining Enclaves, Global-local Decision-making and Rent Misappropriation. Since the start of the 2000s, Cameroon has initiated a reform of its economic policies in the mining sector. The aim is to turn the sector into a cornerstone of the country's economic growth. With the promulgation of a new mining code in 2001, the privatization of the mining sector has taken the form of a controlled discharge : operating mining has been outsourced to multinational companies, while the Cameroonian government has maintained its regulatory capabilities and stands at the core of the “government” of the mining sector. This article argues that the privatization of mining policies in Cameroon contributes to the strengthening of the state in a particular way. It favors a highly centralized decision-making in the hands of the executive, but also the use of brokers familiar to the political strongmen, and a persistent opacity concerning both the mining code and the negotiations between the Cameroonian government and multinational companies.

“Big Fish Eat Little Fish” : Multiple Aspects of a Dispute over a Mining Concession in South Kivu. This article analyzes the various aspects of conflict around mining concession in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Although there is a whole literature on the strained relations between transnational mining companies and local communities, too little research has been done on the complexities of power at various levels, including at the local level. Starting from an empirical approach “from below”, this article demonstrates how the changes caused by the arrival of the company Banro Corporation provoked resistance, but also a reconfiguration of local and national power and politics.

Another Facet of the Resources'Curse ? Overlaps between Different Uses of Space and Conflicts in CameroonIn Cameroon, three NGOs – the Worldwide Fund for Nature, the Network Fighting Hunger and the Centre for the Environment and for Development (CED) – have mapped the concessions on land granted by the authorities to the various industrial companies involved in the country (agribusiness, logging, mines). Their work reveals how recent concessions to the mining sector (notably for exploration) often overlap concessions previously given to other sectors, and even protected areas, and how they contradict official commitments to a sustainable management of natural resources. It raises concern over the social, potentially violent, conflicts such incoherent management of land concessions is prone to spark if nothing changes. For this special issue, Politique africaine has invited Samuel Nguiffo and Freddy Mbianda, from the CED, to present this study and its alarming conclusion. The article is followed by three maps and their legend.

Farms Occupations in Zimbabwe : Between Legality, Confrontation and Engagement, the Experiences of White Farmers. Launched in 2000, in Zimbabwe, the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme has taken the shape of coveted farms'occupations. This article analyzes the practices involved in those occupations and their reception by white farmers. It shows that the goal of these occupations is not only access to resources and strengthening the political strongmen, but also confrontation, humiliation and material destruction. What is interpreted as the third wave of the Chimurenga (uprising, the struggle for Independence) has driven the actors of the occupation into a particular time, a time of Jambanja (violent argument). The paper explores how the white farmers suffering from these occupations experience this particular, intimate, form of contention, which can be labeled a “domestic guerilla”.

Tensions and Protests in a Semi-Authoritarian Regime : Growing Popular Uprisings and the Endurance of the Regime in Burkina FasoIn 2011, after the election of Compaoré for the fourth time in a row, Burkina Faso was hit by an unprecedented wave of protests. How can one explain both the magnitude of these uprisings and the staying power of the regime ? In order to address this apparently paradoxical growth of popular protests and simultaneous weakness of the political opposition, the paper first explores some key elements and social divisions that structure the political and social space in the country. This exploration covers the role of the main actors of the crisis : the army, the ruling party, the chieftaincy, the political opposition and the civil society associations. The second part of the article outlines a political sociology of Burkina Faso. To do so, it first underlines a set of tensions related to the semi-authoritarian nature of the regime. It then highlights the two main dividing lines that explain the mixed results of the protests.