Entering the critical era: A review of contemporary research on artisanal and small-scale mining

Abstract

Over the past 50 years, artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) has been associated with development. Despite this importance to rural livelihoods, it presents challenges that have garnered attention from the international development sector, both within academia and international policy spaces. Definitions of development have shifted over time, and with these, so have the framings of ASM, the problems it represents, and the interventions needed to govern it. This review paper offers a conceptual framework to understand ASM as a development issue. To do this, I propose the classification of contemporary approaches to ASM into four time periods to illustrate changes of the framings of ASM within development interventions: Entrepreneurial, Survival, Formalization, and Critical Era. I argue that while the framing of ASM has evolved through four distinct eras, each shaped by an overarching development narrative, across these, ASM has been associated to two characteristics: widespread revenue sharing, and local resource governance, both of which are affected by factors identified during the Critical Era. This paper focuses on this Era where academic work (i) critically evaluates efforts to “fix” the sector, including environmental and regulatory interventions, (ii) shows ASM's heterogeneity and transformability, with a diversity of organizational and financing structures, levels of mechanization and technology use, and the expansion of cyanidation, (iii) highlights the risk of elite capture, and (iv) situates ASM as a supplier of critical minerals. Lastly, this paper proposes future areas of research to inform policies that retain the characteristics that make ASM a contributor of development.