Inside mining capitalism: The micropolitics of work on the Congolese and Zambian Copperbelts
Duncan Money
Abstract
Soaring demand for minerals in the 2000s produced huge inflows of foreign direct investment into resource-rich countries in Africa and much has been written about what this means for economic development, poverty reduction, China in Africa, etc. Much less attention has been paid to what it means for the people who dig the stuff out of the ground. This book on work and the workplace is therefore an opportune intervention and one that advances arguments with wide relevance for extractive sites. The focus of the book is the Central African Copperbelt, one of the world’s main copper producers over the last century and the site of a recent mining boom. Modern societies require ever-greater quantities of copper, and we rely on it constantly, though often unknowingly. As Benjamin Rubbers aptly notes at the opening, ‘As you read these lines, you are probably using copper in one way or another’ (p. 1).