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

杰弗里·W·曼茨博士(乔治梅森大学)和詹姆斯·H·史密斯博士(加州大学戴维斯分校)将合作研究在刚果民主共和国基伍省开采铀矿的经济、政治和社会后果。从1998年到2003年，该地区是被广泛称为非洲第一次“世界大战”的起点，这场冲突导致八个非洲国家相互对抗，迄今已造成400多万人丧生。这场冲突的中心是一种独特的矿石，铀矿-钽铁矿，或者在非洲被称为钽铁矿石。钽铁矿石是一种电流导体，用于制造数字电容器。从钽铁矿石中提炼出来的钽对所有数字技术都至关重要，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用他们从销售钽铁矿石和其他矿物(如黄金)中赚到的钱，为他们在该地区的军事行动提供资金并将其扩大。曼茨和史密斯将对钽铁矿石进行广泛的调查和密集的民族志研究。他们将对一些矿业城镇和城市进行抽样调查，以阐明在刚果是如何开采和交易的，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，研究人员将调查钽铁矿石、冲突和国家建设之间的关系；钽铁矿石开采如何影响政治权威的转变和分散；以及更广泛地说，钽铁矿石对当地文化和社会组织的影响。此外，他们还将绘制出钽铁矿石从农村采矿飞地，通过城市刚果加工基地，再到世界体系的运输过程的结构。这项研究很重要，因为钽铁矿石是一个日益增长的现象的例子：对全球数字时代至关重要的本地固定商品链。这些商品的生产和销售不仅对地方经济，而且对地方政治和社会组织都有变革性的影响。这项研究将有助于社会科学关于地方和全球之间错综复杂的关系的理论，以及更好地制定经济发展和预防和解决冲突的政策。

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.