This source essay prepares an analysis of how the representation of materials in a specific space and time as ‘mineral resources’ emerged in governmental institutions in 20th century Sudan, with a focus on gold. It starts from an empirical story on geological maps in Sudan, through which I redraw historical aspects of the current body of geological and mineralogical mapping in its relation to and transformation of economic endeavours where the study of mineralization processes was shaped by and shaping the development of extractive enterprises. I will also prepare a view on the 2008/2009 gold rush that was, different from my and many others’ experience while it happened, far from being a surprising and sudden dis-covery. I will do so through extended reading of documents that map out Sudan’s geolo-gy and mineralogy, extended in the sense that I look at contextual clues and what they say about the conditions that led to the creation of the documents, using them as prompts for indicating wider implications. These documents will present mostly the official scripts that directed – or diverted – attention regarding mineral resources. I start with a national geological map of 1981, asking in how far it fulfils colonial and post-colonial endeavours to establish a geology of Sudan. I continue with official reports, mineralization studies and non-oil mineral concession maps, which translated mineralogical indications into potential economic projects, on the way to working mines. I move on to documents and presentations about the operator of Sudan’s only larger industrial mine up to the 2010s, the Ariab Mining Company, tracing the path from general assess-ment of deposits to localized exploitation. Finally, I pick up from these documents hints at other than ‘modern’ geological ways to discover gold, from mentioning of ‘the ancients’ to indications of ‘native’, ‘traditional’, ‘local’ mining, pointing to the qualitative differences between on-going discovery processes and the concomitant interlace of these paths to location-specific discovery.
Enrico Ille (Wed,) studied this question.