In Culture and Conflicts in Sierra Leone Mining: Strangers, Aliens,
Spirits, the author uses Sierra Leone as a case study to contribute to
the debates on the causes and nature of mineral resource conflicts in
Africa. Many works focus on the political economy of more sensitive
large-scale mining conflicts. This book integrates cultural conflict
dimensions, primarily the clash between the centuries-old customary
landlord-stranger land governance institution and state mining policies
and laws governing extraction.
Extractive industries as outsiders or strangers with no land rights
threaten centuries-old cultural norms of indigenous landlords in mining
regions. The Sierra Leone colonial government facilitated a stranger
hierarchy through crafting legislation that redefined autochthony,
citizenship, and micro-cultural identities concerning the stranger. Such
actions further exacerbated power imbalances in race, ethnicity, gender,
age, and social class. This legacy persists in postcolonial Sierra Leone
threatening sustainable development mainly based on mineral extraction.
The book shows that these cultural conflicts challenge the effective
development of the mining sector, including establishing artisanal
mining as a viable complementary livelihood to agriculture for rural
populations.
Rather than focus on the well-documented large-scale "blood diamond" war
from 1991 to 2001 as other studies have done, the book examines the
less-investigated, persistent culture-related conflicts that are
historically integral to mineral extraction. Such conflicts impact the
efficient flow of mineral commodity chains. The book uses a world-system
notion of commodity chains characterized by unequal economic exchange
and unequal ecological exchange. And it highlights, specifically, an
unequal cultural exchange that impacts cultural heritage, including
customary livelihoods, indigenous land rights, and sacred places, and
favors a Western cultural universalism. Itexamines mining policies and
laws of the government of Sierra Leone in a historical context to assess
their efficacy by highlighting colonial relics that continue to thwart
development efforts. Her work underscores the need for effective
participation by vulnerable and marginalized communities in
decision-making processes on matters important to their economic,
environmental, and sociocultural sustainability.
The interdisciplinary work highlights how culture, history, environment,
and society intertwine in the Sierra Leone mining industry and the
effects of global, transnational, and local dynamics and interactions.
