Artisanal and small-scale mining: critical approaches to property rights and governance

Disputes and dispossession of property rights in the mining sector are causes of injustice, violence and forced displacement around the world. Many artisanal and small-scale mining policy initiatives are embedded in problematic conceptual and institutional frameworks that implicitly stigmatise and discipline artisanal and small-scale miners. This collection takes a critical look at notions of property to destabilise some of these frameworks. Contributions are notable for their recognition of the agency of artisanal miners and ‘local communities’ within the uneven hierarchies in which they are embedded, and their acknowledgement of the difficulties of state regulation of such a complex set of issues.