The creativity of action: Property, kin and the social in African artisanal mining

Abstract

This chapter considers how development in the Tanzanian mineral sector transforms people's relationships and stimulates new iterations of power and agency within local trajectories of development, focusing on the base of artisanal gold mining in Mgusu village in Geita region. The aim is to trace how neo-liberal change configures market rationality and property relations in ways that can fundamentally alter social relationships within the local community, occupational groups and families, raising both opportunities for wealth accumulation and the potential to entrench poverty