Youth in Tanzania鈥檚 Urbanizing Mining Settlements: Prospecting a Mineralized Future
Abstract
Over the last fifteen years many African countries have experienced a 鈥榤ining take-off鈥�. Mining activities have bifurcated into two sectors: large-scale, capital-intensive production generating the bulk of the exported minerals, and small-scale, labour-intensive artisanal mining, which, at present, is catalyzing far greater immediate primary, secondary and tertiary employment opportunities for unskilled African labourers. Youth residing in mining settlements, have a large vested interest in the current and future development of mining. Focusing on Tanzania as typical of the emerging 鈥榥ew mineralizing Africa鈥�, this paper, examines youth鈥檚 role in mining based on recent fieldwork in the country鈥檚 northwestern gold fields. Youth鈥檚 current involvement in mining as full-fledged, as opposed to part-time, miners is distinguished. The attitudes of secondary school students towards mining as a form of employment and its impact on economic and social life in mining communities are discussed within the context of the uneasy transitions from an agrarian to a mining-based country, from rural to urban lifestyles, and the growing scope and power of foreign-directed, capital-intensive, corporate mining relative to local labour-intensive artisanal mining.
Citation
Bryceson, D. Youth in Tanzania’s Urbanizing Mining Settlements: Prospecting a Mineralized Future. UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, Finland (2014) 23 pp. [WIDER Working Paper No. 2014/008]