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Re-assembling Informal Gold Mining for Development and Sustainability? Opportunities and Limits to Formalisation in India, Indonesia and Laos

This chapter draws upon empirical fieldwork conducted in three understudied locations in India, Indonesia and Lao PDR, as part of a multi-country research project aimed at understanding the role of new technologies in artisanal and small-scale (ASM) gold mining, and the relationships between informal miners, farmers and rural-agrarian transitions in Asia.Analysis focuses on explaining variations in material, social, economic, political and technological ‘assemblages’ of informal mining. I locate these variations in relation to local socio-political struggles for rights to livelihood by both local miners and resource-dependent communities, and the state institutional governance and capital relations that re-produce vulnerability and establish conditions of informality. It is recommended that public policies supporting formalisation need to take better account the connections between local processes, state institutions, the scale and use of technology, ecological externalities, and the functioning of informal gold markets and commodity chains. If evacuated from a political responsiveness to both miners’ and local communities’ livelihoods, social mobilisations and collective actions, formalisation is likely to remain on the margins of ASM policy development in Asia.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Document type Books and book chapters
Language of document
  • English
Topics
  • Environment and natural resources
  • Mining
Geographic area (spatial range)
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Lao People's Democratic Republic
Copyright Yes
Access and use constraints

The materials on this website are the copyright of The Australian National University or are reproduced with permission from other copyright owners. All electronic versions have been prepared by ANU Press. All rights are reserved. For more information please see: https://press.anu.edu.au/about/conditions-use

Version / Edition 1.0
License Creative Commons Attribution
Contact

Keith Barney Crawford School of Public Policy Australian National University Email: keith.barney@anu.edu.au

Author (individual) Keith Barney
ISBN number ISBN (print): 9781760461713 ISBN (online): 9781760461720
Publication place Canberra
Publisher ANU Press
Publication date 2018
Pagination 38
Keywords informal mining,livelihoods,socio-political struggles,formalization,policy
Date uploaded December 27, 2017, 17:43 (UTC)
Date modified December 16, 2019, 04:02 (UTC)