Challenging Masculinity in CSR Disclosures: Silencing of Women’s Voices in Tanzania’s Mining Industry

This paper presents a feminist analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a male-dominated industry within a developing country context. It seeks to raise awareness of the silencing of women’s voices in CSR reports produced by mining companies in Tanzania. Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in Africa, and women are often marginalised in employment and social policy considerations. Drawing on work by Hélène Cixous, a post-structuralist/radical feminist scholar, the paper challenges the masculinity of CSR discourses that have repeatedly masked the voices and concerns of ‘other’ marginalised social groups, notably women. Using interpretative ethnographic case studies, the paper provides much-needed empirical evidence to show how gender imbalances remain prevalent in the Tanzanian mining sector. This evidence draws attention to the dynamics faced by many women working in or living around mining areas in Tanzania. The paper argues that CSR, a discourse enmeshed with the patriarchal logic of the contemporary capitalist system, is entangled with tensions, class conflicts and struggles which need to be unpacked and acknowledged. The paper considers the possibility of policy reforms in order to promote gender balance in the Tanzanian mining sector and create a platform for women’s concerns to be voiced

Global Incorporation and Local Conflict: Sierra Leonean Mining Regions

This paper draws upon a world‐system core–periphery framework to examine the nature and causes of persistent low‐level conflict in Sierra Leonean mining regions. Conflict is endemic because of asymmetrical power relations between global core‐state corporations and peripheral weak‐state Sierra Leone, which are mirrored locally within its mining regions. Structural constraints inherent in these relationships generate and sustain socioeconomic, cultural and environmental inequities. The paper reveals the complex web of micropolitics in the mining locale core‐periphery microcosm involving a weak state, exploitative corporations and oppressive traditional social hierarchies. The findings are relevant to effective policy making and conflict resolution