Description
This paper is an attempt to respond to the question: what threads of past and present anthropological theory may be mobilized to uncover the role of labour, recognized and unrecognized alike, in emerging formations of political belonging? It takes as its starting point the predicament of living labour in the postcolony which, as Ranabir Samaddar (2018) has argued, is symbolised by the bind of primitive working conditions and the reproduction of advanced forms capital, which leaves almost no social surplus in the postcolony for its development. Through a look at mineworkers—who have tended to serve as the source through which social transformation has been channelled, institutionalized and rendered effective in the Copperbelt—I argue for analysis of mine labour as a “creative act of mediation” that captures the multiplicity, discordance, and strain of social times (cf Bear 2014:21). I do so in an attempt to reconcile emerging Marxist understandings of the footloose nature of postcolonial labour with anthropological attempts to understand the embodied and temporal contradictions of durable inequality as a social form that emerges from a politics of work and the circulation of capital around the globe. The paper attempts to show how artisanal mine labor is mediated by state imperatives to formalize the so-called unorganized work of artisanal mining so as to render it interoperable with global market rhetoric demanding transparency and decent work. However, it also makes clear how such attempts to make artisanal work legible are oftentimes confounded by the temporality of a global market with vacillating mineral prices. In this way, the recognition of mine labour does little to address durable inequality as experienced by a diverse mining public.| Period | 18 Nov 2023 |
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| Event title | 2023 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting: Transitions |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Toronto, CanadaShow on map |