‘Our own law is making us beggars’ : understanding the marginal experiences of governed, mine-side communities in Mutoko district, Zimbabwe

There is a rising interest in the Global South, to ensure that mineral resources are governed to benefit local communities where they are extracted. The shared Africa Mining Vision and economic aspirations in Zimbabwe seeking to integrate equity in governing and extracting mineral resources reflects such interests. Yet despite these aspirations and commitments to mining development that does not continue to disenfranchise communities, voices of communities remain peripheral to commitments to improve the mining industry that has historically been illustrated unequal, stimulating scholarship on the natural resource curse and recently unequal ecological exchange. I begin this research by asking how people in Mutoko district experience black granite mining and its governance. I inquire seeking to bring forth voices from below, those affected first-hand by extraction and produce an ethnocentric account of mining anthropology rooted in the Habermasian concept of the lifeworld and how its colonization by the system (government-corporation-complex responsible for mining) shapes socioeconomic and environmental affairs at the margins. My key findings show that communities shoulder the multiple burdens of black granite extraction without getting its rewards. Broken bridges, damaged roads, dirty air, hazardous living environments and loss of land are some of the key socioeconomic effects currently being experienced. The current governance regime characterised by outdated laws, dishonesty, intimidation of the governed permits the burdens described to perpetuate. I conclude that in the marginalised lifeworld resides knowledge, capacity and experiences that must be fully accounted for in reshaping governance of extraction to lift the burdens of mining from communities

‘Our own law is making us beggars’: Understanding experiences of governed, mine-side communities in Mutoko district, Zimbabwe

There is rising interest in connecting global value chains with sites of extraction to ensure that mineral resources, wherever extracted, are governed to benefit communities. Despite commitments by policymakers and African intergovernmental bodies to governance that does not disenfranchise communities, voices of those affected remain peripheral to mining industry operations. In this article we ask how the extraction of black granite used in grand buildings in the West is experienced by mine-affected people in Zimbabwe's Mutoko District. We seek to bring forth voices of those affected by mineral extraction including its governance processes, to produce an account of mining anthropology rooted in Habermas's lifeworld concept. We show how communities continue to shoulder multiple burdens of black granite extraction without getting its rewards: Broken bridges, damaged roads, dirty air, hazardous living environments and loss of land are some of the key experiences. And the current governance regime characterised by outdated laws, dishonesty, and intimidation of the governed allows the burdens of black granite mining to perpetuate. In conclusion, we note how the marginalised lifeworld contains knowledge, capacity and experiences that must be fully accounted for in reshaping the governance of extraction for the benefit of mine-side communities