This project investigates how the politics of time shapes the interaction between ASM (artisanal and small-scale mining) and LSM (large-scale mining) actors in places where the two forms of mining co-occur. The research focus is on the south-eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which harbours some of the largest reserves of copper and cobalt in the world. In an attempt to move away from the dominant trend of analysing the antagonism between ASM and LSM from a purely spatial perspective, whereby the rivalry between the two is reduced to a competition over limited mining space, the project wants to highlight the importance of paying more scholarly attention to issues of time and temporality. More specifically, it wants to examine the articulations between multiple mining temporalities as well as the crucial role of time in the dynamics of domination and resistance at the ASM-LSM interface.
- Funding: FWO-Flanders
- Time: 01-09-2020/30-09-2023
- People Involved: Jeroen Cuvelier