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A groundbreaking analysis of 21st century labour practices in the mining industry and the new scramble for industrial power on the African continent. Since the beginning of the 21st century, African countries with mineral resources have witnessed an unprecedented rise in foreign direct investments and the development of new flexible workforce management practices in the mining industry. But what does this mean for those who actually work in this industry? Based on research in the Congo and Zambia, where a mining boom has led to more than thirty new mining projects in recent years, this book explores the processes of improvisation and adaptation behind the emergence of this neoliberal labour regime. The contributors show how mining projects' labour practices have been mediated, negotiated, or resisted by mine workers, unionists, and human resource managers. They discuss variations in labour practices put in place by new mining projects depending on the type of capital involved, the type of mine being developed, and their location. Finally, the book examines the implications of power dynamics surrounding companies' labour strategies from the broader perspective of the responsibility of trade unions, gender equality, and identity politics.

ABSTRACTThe study of the impacts of new mining projects in Africa is generally set in a normative debate about their possible contribution to development, which leads to a representation of African societies as divided between beneficiaries and victims of foreign investments. Based on research in the Congolese copperbelt, this article aims to examine in more detail the inequalities generated by the recent mining boom by taking the processes of labour market segmentation as a starting point. It shows that the labour market in the mining sector has progressively been organized along three intersecting lines that divide it: the first is between employment in industrial and artisanal mining companies, the second is between jobs for mining or subcontracting companies and the third is between jobs for expatriates, Congolese skilled workers and local unskilled workers. Far from simply reflecting existing social inequalities, the labour market has been actively involved in their creation, and its control has caused growing tensions in the Congolese copperbelt region. Although largely neglected in the literature on extractive industries, processes of labour market segmentation are key to making sense of the impacts of mining investments on the shape of societies in the global South.

At the dawn of the recent mining boom, James Ferguson has forcefully argued that new investors in Africa develop a new capital-intensive mode of production within securitized enclaves, breaking with the tradition of providing housing and social infrastructure to workers characteristic of large corporations in the 20th century. This article aims to provide a more detailed analysis of changes in mining companies' spatial government practices by retracing the genealogy of workers' camps in the Congolese copperbelt from the early 20th century to the present day. Based on archival and ethnographic research, the article draws attention to transformations in the camps' architecture and the political rationalities underlying them. What this historical exploration shows is less the emergence of a new spatial government reflecting the globalization of neoliberal capitalism than a series of gradual changes over a century that result from the adaptation of mining companies to local constraints and correspond to the development, or re-organization, of various power strategies. ; Peer reviewed

AbstractBased on ethnographic research among the ex‐Gécamines workers of Panda (Likasi, DR Congo), this article studies the dynamics of the spousal relationship in a post‐industrial context that has been long characterized by paternalism. The results of this research suggest that, though men and women living in this mining community talk about their spousal relationships by invoking the ideal of Christian marriage promoted during the colonial period, in practice such relationships faced important changes following Congolese independence in 1960. The nationalization and subsequent dramatic decline of Gécamines caused changes which directly affected three central dimensions of the colonial family model, namely monogamy, the ideal of domesticity, and male authority. If men and women continue to reference this model, it is because, in times of growing poverty, it allows spouses to remind one another of their respective duties as docile housewives and responsible husbands, and to command respect as virtuous Christian families in the local community.

Within the context of its strategy for the reform of public companies in Africa, the World Bank became involved in redundancies of questionable legality. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, the Bank arranged and financed a voluntary severance programme in 2003, whereby 10,000 employees of the mining company Gécamines, some 45% of its workforce, left in return for an arbitrarily fixed lump-sum payment. Based on ethnographic research, this paper discusses the history of the protest movement which emerged from this mass redundancy programme, the arguments deployed by the movement and the resources available to it. On the basis of this case study, the paper goes on to offer some thoughts on the conditions for social criticism in a transitional regime, heir to an authoritarian tradition of long standing, and operating under the tutelage of foreign donors.