Inter-scalar Responses to International Supply Chain Regulation

大多数数字产品，如手机、微处理器和视频游戏机，其功能都依赖于高电荷含量的矿石，包括铌钽铁矿（钶钽铁矿）、钽铁矿、黄金和黑钨矿。这些“数字矿产”的生产和销售为发展中国家的人们带来了重要的经济机会，而这些国家是大部分矿产的产地。但数字矿产也被称为“血液矿产”，因为从数字矿产的销售和贸易中获得的非法利润助长了世界上一些最致命的军事冲突的兴起和持续。 国际社会已通过新的法律对这一问题作出反应，如美国《多德-弗兰克法》第1502条，其中要求公司设法监测矿物来源。这些法律得到了认证计划的支持，这些计划试图确保国际公司购买的矿物是通过法律的供应链获得的，并且没有冲突。然而，人们对这些法规对矿产贸易实际运作的影响知之甚少，也不知道它们如何与当地人民的生活、政治和经济的复杂性联系在一起，如果受到负面影响，他们可能会试图颠覆和逃避法规。该项目旨在通过在最重要的数字矿产生产中心--刚果民主共和国东部进行人种学实地研究来填补这一空白。在一年的时间里，加州大学戴维斯分校的人类学家詹姆斯·H.史密斯将与手工采矿者、贸易商、国家官员和其他人在主要的刚果采矿城镇进行人种学研究，以了解这些监管和认证过程的有效性和对当地的影响。研究人员处于进行这项研究的最佳位置。他精通斯瓦希里语，以前曾对目前正在实施认证制度的城镇中围绕钶钽铁矿石和砷铜矿开采而形成的社会形态进行过重要研究。研究人员将采用社会科学研究方法收集数据，包括参与者观察，焦点小组，商品链分析和访谈。这项研究将为全球化进程如何在多个尺度上同时整合和分离人和国家的社会科学理论做出重大贡献。这项研究的结果也将有助于提高矿物监管计划的可行性。

Most digital products, such as cell phones, microprocessors and video game players, rely for their functioning on high charge-holding ores, which include columbite-tantalite (coltan), cassiterite, gold, and wolframite. The production and sale of these "digital minerals" has produced important economic opportunities for people in the developing world, which is where most of the ore is found. But digital minierals are also called "blood minerals" because illegal profits from their sale and trade have fueled the rise and perpetuation of some of the world's most deadly militarized conflicts. The international community has responded to this problem with new laws, such as Section 1502 of the United States' Dodd Frank Act, which require that corporations try to monitor mineral sourcing. The laws are supported by certification schemes that try to assure that the minerals purchased by international corporations are acquired through legal supply chains and are conflict free. However, little is known about the impact of these regulations on the actual workings of the mineral trade or how they connect with the complexities of the lives, politics, and economies of local people who, if negatively affected, may try to subvert and evade regulation. This project seeks to fill this gap with ethnographic field research in the most important center of digital mineral production, the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Over the course of a year, University of California at Davis anthropologist, Dr. James H. Smith, will conduct ethnographic research with artisanal miners, traders, state officials, and others in key Congo mining towns in order to understand the effectiveness and local impacts of these regulatory and certification processes. The researcher is in an excellent position to carry out this research. He is fluent in Swahili and has previously conducted significant research on the social formations that have developed around coltan and cassiterite mining in the towns where the certification system is now being implemented. The researcher will collect data with a mix of social science research methods including participant observation, focus groups, commodity chain analysis, and interviews. The research will contribute significantly to social science theories of how globalization processes simultaneously integrate and disconnect people and nations at multiple scales. Findings from this research also will be important for helping to improve the viability of mineral regulation programs.