Gold Matters: Visualizing Mining Worlds

Abstract

A book of photographs that centre on visualizing mining worlds, notably the worlds of artisanal and small-scale gold miners working in the Brazilian and Surinamese Amazon, and in parts of West and East Africa. Often this gold mining is portrayed in negative, stereotyped, and homogenizing ways. Since miners typically operate in the shadows of the law, their lifeways are remote from the public eye. Visualization by means of photgraphy helps bring to light the diversity of mining terrains and the close connections between miners and these terrains. Images presented in the book are the result of collaboration with gold miners for a project "Sustainability Transformations in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining: Trans-Regional and Multi-Actor Perspectives" (2018-2022).

Gold Matters