Mining and African Urbanisation: Population, Settlement and Welfare Trajectories

by Deborah F Bryceson (Editor), Daniel F MacKinnon (Editor)

Overview

Juxtaposing literatures on urbanisation and mining at a time when small-scale artisanal as well as large-scale mining operations are transforming many African economies, this book focuses on the interplay of Sub-Saharan Africa mining and urbanisation in the context of global shifts in capital and labour flows. Classically, urbanisation has been identified with industrial expansion, but mining is a distinct subset of industrial activity, involving artisanal and large-scale mining.

Case studies of a wide variety of countries with long historical experience of large-scale mining (South Africa, Ghana, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Botswana), as opposed to more recent experiences of artisanal mining (Mozambique, Tanzania, and Sierra Leone), reveal that the mining surge in some countries and the slow-down in others where mining was formerly dominant encompasses a wide range of urban outcomes. In view of the cyclical boom-and-bust nature of mining activity and the sector’s dependence upon finite resources and exposure to world market fluctuations, this book probes settlement patterns and welfare dimensions of urban change associated with African mining amidst an unprecedented spiral in global mineral prices.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138383289
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/23/2018
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Deborah Fahy Bryceson is a Reader in Urban Studies at the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, UK.

Daniel MacKinnon is a Senior Research Fellow in Urban Studies at the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, UK.

Table of Contents

1. Eureka and beyond: mining’s impact on African urbanisation 2. Mining, housing and welfare in South Africa and Zambia: an historical perspective 3. The power of mining: the fall of gold and rise of Johannesburg 4. Mining, welfare and urbanisation: the wavering urban character of Zambia’s Copperbelt 5. Of prosperity, ghost towns and havens: mining and urbanisation in Zimbabwe 6. Botswana’s mining path to urbanisation and poverty alleviation 7. Unearthing treasure and trouble: mining as an impetus to urbanisation in Tanzania 8. Exploring the connections: mining and urbanisation in Ghana 9. A tale of two cities: urban transformation in gold-centred Butembo and diamond-rich Mbuji-Mayi, Democratic Republic of the Congo 10. Angola’s planned and unplanned urban growth: diamond mining towns in the Lunda Provinces 11. Diamond mining, urbanisation and social transformation in Sierra Leone