Collaborative Research: The Anthropology of Coltan Mining in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

Jeffrey W.曼茨（乔治梅森大学）和詹姆斯H。史密斯（加州大学戴维斯分校）将合作研究刚果民主共和国基伍省铌钽铁矿开采的经济、政治和社会后果。从1998年到2003年，这一地区是被广泛称为非洲第一次“世界大战”的中心地带，这场冲突使八个非洲国家相互对抗，迄今为止已造成400多万人丧生。在这场冲突的中心是一种独特的矿石，铌钽铁矿，或者，正如它在非洲所知，钶钽铁矿。钶钽铁矿石是一种电流导体，用于制造数字电容器。钽，从钶钽铁矿石加工，是所有数字技术的关键，包括手机，寻呼机，视频游戏机和数字音乐播放器。在过去的十年里，外国军队和当地民兵利用出售钶钽铁矿石和其他矿产（如黄金）所赚的钱来资助和扩大他们在整个地区的军事行动。曼茨和史密斯将对钶钽铁矿石进行广泛的调查和深入的民族志研究。他们将对钶钽铁矿石分布的矿业城镇进行抽样调查，以阐明刚果的钶钽铁矿石开采和交易是如何运作的，以及这种商品的开采对当地社区及其周围环境的影响。通过广泛的调查和深入的民族志访谈，研究人员将调查钶钽铁矿石、冲突和国家建设之间的关系;钶钽铁矿石开采如何影响政治权力的转变和下放;以及更普遍的，钶钽铁矿石对当地文化和社会组织的影响。此外，他们还将绘制出钶钽铁矿石从农村采矿飞地，通过刚果城市加工地点，进入世界体系的过程结构。这项研究很重要，因为钶钽铁矿石是一个日益增长的现象的例子：当地的商品链是全球数字时代的核心。这些商品的生产和销售不仅对当地经济，而且对当地政治和社会组织产生了变革性的影响。这项研究将有助于地方和全球之间复杂关系的社会科学理论，以及更好的经济发展和冲突预防和解决政策。

Dr. Jeffrey W. Mantz (George Mason University) and Dr. James H. Smith (University ofCalifornia, Davis) will collaborate in research on the economic, political, and socialconsequences of columbite-tantalite mining in the Kivu provinces of the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo. From 1998 until 2003, this region was ground zero for what iswidely referred to as Africa's first "world war," a conflict that pitted eight African nationsagainst one another, and which has thus far cost the lives of over four million people. Atthe center of this conflict was a unique ore,columbite-tantalite or, as it is known in Africa,coltan. Coltan is an electrical current conductor used in the making of digital capacitors.Tantalum, which is processed from coltan, is crucial to all digital technologies, includingcell phones, pagers, video game players, and digital music players. Over the past tenyears, foreign armies and local militias have used the money they earned from the saleof coltan and other minerals, such as gold, to finance and extend their militaryoperations throughout the region.Mantz and Smith will conduct both extensive survey and intensive ethnographicresearch on coltan. They will survey a sample of mining towns and cities where coltan istraded to elucidate how coltan mining and exchange operate in the Congo, and theeffects that the mining of this commodity have had on local communities and theirsurrounding environs. Using both extensive survey and intensive ethnographicinterviewing, the researchers will investigate the relationship between coltan, conflict,and nation building; how coltan mining has affected the transformation anddecentralization of political authority; and, more generally, the effects of coltan on localculture and social organization. In addition, they will map the structure of the processthrough which coltan is moved from rural mining enclaves, through urban Congolesesites of processing, and out into the world system.The research is important because coltan is an example of a growing phenomenon:locally grounded commodity chains that are central to the global digital age. Theproduction and sale of these commodities have transformative effects upon not onlylocal economies but also local politics and social organization. The research willcontribute to social science theory of the intricate relations between local and global, aswell as to better policies for economic development and conflict prevention andresolution.