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The Rise and Demise of Gold: Mapping Technological Change and Creativity on a Cameroonian Resource Frontier

黄金的兴衰：绘制喀麦隆资源前沿的技术变革和创造力

基本信息

批准号：
ES/W00707X/1
负责人：
Rosalie Allain
金额：
$ 12.43万
依托单位：
University of Oxford
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Fellowship
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2021 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FW00707X%2F1
关键词：
Rise Demise Gold Mapping Technological

项目摘要

This project examines the emergence and closure of a resource frontier in Cameroon, showing how it has constituted a colonial and post-colonial 'technological interface' generative of forms of sociotechnical change and creativity, brought about through the extraction and depletion of gold. I bring these insights into dialogue with the burgeoning anthropological study of resources, technology, and the growing role of China in Africa. This project builds on my PhD's ethnographic research in the East Region of Cameroon, where Gbaya communities practice artisanal small-scale mining (ASM) to extract gold since its discovery by French colonial mining companies (1930s) until the recent arrival of Chinese companies that are radically depleting local gold deposits. I explored the changing material processes of extraction through which local inhabitants carved out a livelihood in this new situation of scarcity. I show how practices and concepts of 'generativity' arise from and inform processes of sociomaterial transformation relating to the production of resources at two interconnected scales. In the first, I examine material transformations within mining, through which Gbaya produce, conceptualise and value gold. In the second, I explore the transformations of Gbaya extractive practices at a broader scale, as and through sociotechnical change. This project seeks to consolidate and develop my PhD research, with a focus on this second research strand, to explore the generation and transformation of techniques themselves. By studying the technological longue durée, this project aims to elucidate how the East Region of Cameroon and the lives of its Gbaya inhabitants have been structured by a historically doubled resource frontier, opened by the French and closed by the Chinese. Considering the beginning and end of gold alongside each other, I show how encounters between Gbaya and French colonial and Chinese mining companies give rise to generative processes within the technological realm. I conceptualise ASM in this context as a 'technological interface', a productive site of interaction where vernacular Gbaya and incoming (French/Chinese) ideas, practices and objects are interwoven, resulting in instances of technological creativity, experimentation and change that, I argue, materialise and constitute 'frontier' dynamics (Kopytoff 1987, Tsing 2003). Concretely, this considers how Gbaya miners materially, ritually and conceptually appropriate and redeploy French colonial and Chinese mining techniques into their own pre-existing sociotechnical repertoire to overcome the dispossession caused by the French and Chinese. More broadly, this project will shed light on processes of resource extraction, foreign-led land grabs and rural transformation that are intensifying throughout Africa. My articles examine two iterations of this 'interface': how Gbaya ritually appropriated mining techniques and innovatively redeployed excavators in the aftermath of the French and Chinese, respectively. My interdisciplinary workshop will enable a comparative, empirical and theoretical, exploration of this underexamined question of technological change and innovation in Africa, to inform my own conceptual approach and widen my academic networks. My new research will complement my PhD findings, providing crucial data on the Franco-Gbaya and Sino-Gbaya technological encounters around mining. Archival research enables me to further compare colonial French and contemporary Gbaya mining techniques to identify sociotechnical innovation. Interview data on current extractive dynamics in Cameroon will focus on the ongoing Chinese impact on this resource frontier. My report will communicate my PhD findings for NGOs to create social impact and engagement, highlighting the neglected technological aspect of ASM to shed light on the creative and destructive effects of mining and the full impact of the Chinese on these communities.

该项目考察了喀麦隆资源边疆的出现和关闭，展示了它如何构成殖民地和后殖民时代的“技术界面”，通过黄金的开采和枯竭产生各种形式的社会技术变革和创造力。我将这些见解与新兴的人类学研究资源、技术以及中国在非洲日益增长的作用进行了对话。这个项目建立在我的博士在喀麦隆东部地区进行的人种学研究的基础上，自法国殖民采矿公司(1930年代)发现黄金以来，那里的Gbaya社区一直在进行手工小规模采矿(ASM)，直到最近中国公司的到来，这些公司正在从根本上消耗当地的金矿。我探索了不断变化的物质开采过程，当地居民通过这些过程在这种稀缺的新形势下谋生。我展示了“生成性”的实践和概念是如何从与两个相互关联的尺度上的资源生产相关的社会物质转变过程中产生的，并为其提供信息的。首先，我考察了采矿过程中的物质变化，通过这些变化，戈巴亚生产、概念化黄金，并对黄金进行估值。在第二章中，我探讨了在更广泛的范围内，通过社会技术变革，格巴亚采掘实践的变革。这个项目旨在巩固和发展我的博士研究，重点放在这第二个研究线索上，探索技术本身的生成和转化。通过研究杜雷的技术，这个项目旨在阐明喀麦隆东部地区及其巴亚居民的生活是如何由一个历史上加倍的资源边疆构成的，这个边疆由法国人开放，中国人关闭。考虑到黄金的开始和结束，我展示了Gbaya与法国殖民时期和中国矿业公司之间的遭遇如何在技术领域内产生过程。在这一背景下，我将ASM概念化为“技术接口”，一个生产性的互动场所，在这里，白话Gbaya和传入的(法国/中国)思想、实践和对象交织在一起，产生了技术创造力、实验和变化的实例，我认为，这些实例实现并构成了“前沿”动态(Kopytoff 1987，Tsing 2003)。具体地说，这考虑了Gbaya矿工如何在物质上、仪式上和概念上合适，并将法国殖民和中国的采矿技术重新运用到他们自己先前存在的社会技术剧目中，以克服法国和中国人造成的剥夺。更广泛地说，这个项目将揭示资源开采、外国主导的土地掠夺和农村转型的进程，这些进程正在整个非洲加强。我的文章考察了这种‘界面’的两次重复：分别是Gbaya如何照例地借用采矿技术，并在法国和中国的灾难后创造性地重新部署挖掘机。我的跨学科研讨会将使我能够对非洲技术变革和创新这一未得到充分研究的问题进行比较、实证和理论上的探索，为我自己的概念方法提供参考，并扩大我的学术网络。我的新研究将补充我的博士发现，提供有关佛朗哥-巴亚和中国-巴亚在采矿方面的技术接触的关键数据。档案研究使我能够进一步比较殖民时期的法国和当代的戈巴亚采矿技术，以确定社会技术创新。关于喀麦隆当前采掘动态的采访数据将集中在中国对这一资源前沿的持续影响。我的报告将向非政府组织传达我的博士发现，以创造社会影响和参与，突出ASM被忽视的技术方面，以揭示采矿的创造性和破坏性影响，以及中国人对这些社区的全面影响。