Gender as an entangled force: Gendered mining entanglements, labor organization and leadership structure in artisanal and small-scale mining

Abstract

Place-making practices and gender in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) have been documented in the literature. Yet, studies have not critically explored the interactions of spatial, material and sociocultural forces in the coproduction of gendered mining practices and leadership structure in ASM spaces. Drawing on a qualitative, ethnographic study on women in ASM in Ghana, we apply the concept of mining entanglements to examine the sociometerial and space-gender interactions in ASM settings to identify the gendered mining entanglements that cocreate gendered mining work patterns, leadership structure, and economic relations. Findings showed that ASM space – in terms of extraction (e.g., underground extraction, and surface extraction) and processing locations – were socially constructed for gender roles. Such spatial forces of ASM combined with entangled material forces – human bodies, mining tools/equipment and mining practices – and sociocultural forces (i.e. sociocultural discourse of women’s menstrual bodies) in the coproduction of gendered patterns of mining works, economic relations, and leadership structure. The spatial, material and sociocultural forces were used in the framing and theorization of gender as an entangled force, where each force can distinctively explain gender and how they dictate the economic roles of women and men. Findings further showed that the mining entangled forces intersected with various factors related to women – such as age, working experience, social connections, sexual relations, educational status and ethnicity – to cocreate micropolitics of everyday realities of gendered labor dynamics and economic power relations influencing women’s eligibility or qualification for site committee membership or leadership positions in ASM sites. Based on the gendered socioeconomic and political inequality, formalization efforts and interventions that seek to promote women’s economic empowerment and address barriers to female ASM participation should tackle the gendered mining entanglements impacting women's socioeconomic and health outcomes.