Sabine Luning (1959-2025): A personal reflection on a life in West African structure and gold

By Jan-Bart Gewald, Professor of African History

Sabine Luning was an anthropologist, close colleague and good friend of mine in Leiden. Sadly, Sabine passed away on 6 March 2025. Sabine and I first met more than 35 years ago when we both became PhD students working at the erstwhile CNWS Research School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies at Leiden University. At that stage, the post-modernist revolution was about to take off, and Foucault and Gender were just beginning to make inroads into what had been a bastion of Leiden Structuralism and Marxism. Peter Geschiere and Wim van Binsbergen represented aspects of Marxist anthropology. As a former student assistant of Adam Kuper, Sabine was to be found more allied with the camp of the structuralists, although at a later stage she taught courses with Peter Geschiere.

Sabine completed her doctoraal (MA in Anthropology) in Leiden, but before embarking on a career as an academic, she worked for the Dutch government as a DGIS (Directoraat Generaal Internationale Samenwerking) development worker in Burkina Faso. Here Sabine conducted an anthropological study investigating kinship and marriage relations in relation to farming and the access to land of women amongst Mossi people in the Kaya region of Burkina Faso.[1] Her work was crucial in this regard, primarily because, in contrast to previous studies, it went beyond the purely agronomic analyses, that had hitherto been applied, and included social analysis which brought to the fore the crucial role of women in agriculture. It were these experiences, particularly a desire for a deeper understanding of social processes in West Africa, that inspired her to pursue her doctoral studies in Leiden under the supervision of Peter Geschiere and Jarich Oosten. For her PhD Sabine conducted research on the relationship between ritual and society amongst the Maane, a Mossi people in Burkina Faso. Sabine defended her doctoral thesis and passed with a cum laude distinction in 1997.[2] It was in this period of time at the CNWS that I really got to know Sabine as a serious and deeply committed academic. In contrast to many, Sabine was not particularly vocal or flamboyant in terms of the latest academic theoretical fad, instead she was a hard and dogged worker who eschewed literary and oratory theatrical grandstanding in favour of solid fieldwork. Sabine was an extremely good ethnographic fieldworker who had a highly developed eye for social interactions and status. In addition, Sabine had a keen sense of history, in which she actively struggled to seek out structures that remained constant over time within society.

Following her thesis defence, Sabine continued working for a number of years at the CNWS as a student coordinator and advisor, a position similar to the one which she would subsequently take up at the African Studies Centre within the context of the Research Master African Studies. Sabine was key for the starting of the ResMA African Studies together with Robert Ross and Mirjam de Bruijn. She was the first Study Advisor to the programme until she was followed up by Daniela Merolla. She taught in the programme for a long time and supervised many students for the African Studies Centre. It was after this that Sabine truly came home as an academic when she began working at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University. Here she would come to teach and supervise countless students, primarily in economic anthropology and issues of sustainability, in which her interest in the social relations, power dynamics and organisational culture of development initiatives came strongly to the fore.

In 2006, as part of the NWO (Dutch Research Council) funded I.C.E. in Africa the relationship between people and the Internal Combustion Engine in Africa (pdf) research programme, Sabine began working in earnest on gold production in West Africa. One of the first products in this context was a short introductory film that Sabine made together with film director Sjoerd Sijsma on the global connections of gold exploitation in Burkina Faso entitled Global Goldrush. In the same year she published the first of what would be many articles dealing with gold mining in West Africa.[3]

At the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology in Leiden, Sabine continued her close working relationship and deep friendship with Jan Jansen, with whom she co-published on at least five occasions. By means of a NWO grant, Sabine organised a one-week workshop on goldmining in Mali for a large team of scholars from Africa and Europe, which I was fortunate to be able to attend, in January 2009. The fieldtrip allowed me to view the remarkable pair (Sabine and Jan) in action, both deeply committed to their subject, and both brimming with enthusiasm and camaraderie that inspired all who were fortunate enough to be there.

It was on this joint trip to Mali with Jan Jansen in January 2009 that Sabine developed a close professional working relationship with Robert Pijpers, who joined the trip as an MA student. In subsequent years Robert and Sabine worked together in projects dealing with mining and published numerous articles and contributions together. In these projects Sabine systematically foregrounded working together with colleagues from all over the world and from a wide range of disciplines. It can be said that in working on gold in West Africa, Sabine found her true forte and this is reflected in countless articles, as well as in art, film, photographic and museal exhibitions. For Sabine, anthropology and her work as an anthropologist, entailed working with real living people of flesh and blood with real concerns relating to health, security and well-being. Although Sabine never lost sight of theoretically informed analysis, Sabine also never lost sight of the humanity of those whose lives and activities she investigated and attempted to record and explain. Sabine steered clear of gobbledygook masquerading as theory, and focussed on the lived everyday life of people.

Sabine’s dedication to solid academic research came to be rewarded in both her teaching at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology and research funding applications. Sabine’s engaged teaching was conferred formal recognition from the faculty when she was awarded prizes for teaching. A glance at the variety of externally funded projects that Sabine worked in displays her commitment to shared research and working with others.

It is particularly sad that the string of successful funding applications that Sabine initiated or collaborated in shall now no longer have her personal presence. In 2017 Sabine was absolutely central to the successful NORFACE programme grant that was awarded for Gold Matters, which ran from 2018 through to 2021. This was a truly innovative programme that resulted in a string of publications and events of which the most striking was most certainly the Gold Matters exhibition of Nii Obodai photographs at NUKU Studio in Tamale, Ghana. The exhibition coincided with the Fourth Triannual Conference of the Ghana Studies Association, and was hosted jointly by the Ghana Studies Association, the Nordic Africa Institute and Leiden University. The photographic volume exploring gold mining in West Africa, Uganda and the Amazon entitled, Gold Matters: Visualizing Mining Worlds, was beautifully crafted, a true testament to Sabine’s work and what she wished to bring across to the world as a whole.[4]

Sabine was absolutely central to the Port City Futures that developed as an initiative of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities collaboration. The programme, which initially ran from 2019 – 2023, but was subsequently extended to run longer, sought to investigate “evolving socio-spatial conditions, use and design of port city regions, in particular exploring areas where port and city activities occur simultaneously and sometimes conflict”. Within this, and in collaboration with colleagues in Ghana, in particular Samuel Ntewusu Aniegye of the University of Ghana, Legon, Sabine worked on the harbour of Sekondi-Takoradi. Specifically, Sabine and her colleagues sought to investigate how gold extraction and offshore oil-drilling in Ghana “have created intersections between national and global interests, and questions of distribution of opportunities and wealth”.

Sabine’s involvement in the Port City Futures programme led directly to her pivotal role in the Sea-ing Africa: Tracing Legacies and Engaging Future Promises of 'Big' Infrastructure Projects in Port City Regions in Ghana and Morocco programme. With a focus on Ghana and Morocco, the project Sea-ing Africa, set to run from 2024 – 2027, seeks to “investigate the prominent place of infrastructure in the thinking about development in Africa. Infrastructure projects such as ports, highways and railways are intertwined with geopolitics, economic systems, political interests and cultural values that affect citizens”. Central to this project were the MA students of both the CADS and the ASCL, and once again this reflected the intense drive that Sabine had to collaborate with other colleagues and how she facilitated inter-institutional collaboration. Within the ASCL, Marleen Dekker, Mayke Kaag, and Akinyinka Akinyoade were active participants in this magnificent project in which NIMAR (Netherlands Institute in Morocco) and the University of Ghana were additional collaborating institutions.

My abiding memory of Sabine will be being with her in Ghana in January 2024 while she accompanied students (of the Port City Futures and Sea-ing Africa programmes) together with Prof. Ntewusu Aniegye, director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon. On an early morning on the University Campus in Legon, Prof. Ntewusu and I sat waiting for Sabine to arrive. A multitude of enormous air-conditioned 4x4 luxury vehicles streamed past us and onto campus. Occasionally taxis would skitter past, and from amongst this mayhem and cacophony of motor-vehicles a minute and rather battered taxi appeared; a small Suzuki Alto, which, although resplendent in a hasty paint-job and countless enthusiastic decals, had clearly seen better days. As the minuscule taxi, dwarfed by imposing Toyota Land Cruisers, Nissan Patrols and Mitsubishi Pajeros, came to a creaking halt, both Ntewusu and I were surprised to see Sabine literally squeezed up against the cracked windscreen in the front of the little car. What then occurred was like a scene out of a magical book written by J.K. Rowling, the taxi doors opened and out streamed three enormous gangly young students, masses of luggage, and an extremely happy and jaunty Sabine Luning. As always dressed in no-nonsense shirt sleeves and bubbling with energy, Sabine was ready for whatever the day might offer. The two days that I was fortunate enough to spend with her then in Accra, Legon and Tema, are days that I will always remember. Sabine’s love of being in the midst of tumult that can be an African city. Smiling and chatting, commenting on all she saw, sharing meals, drinking beers, walking through the streets, and clearly revelling in where she was.

Late last year, whilst visiting her for dinner in Leiden, Sabine noted that she had been feeling tired and was undergoing tests to determine what was wrong. Shortly thereafter she let it be known that she had terminal cancer. Sabine was surrounded and cared for by people who loved her, and then she passed away, thankfully not in pain. Sabine was a good friend, an excellent colleague, and an inspiring academic, but above all she was a good and decent person. I, along with countless others, shall miss her terribly.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Read the In Memoriam by Jan Jansen, Assistant professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (also in Dutch).

The funeral will take place on Friday 14 March at 15.15. Location: Jan Steen Auditorium (de Jan Steen aula) of Crematorium Rhijnhof DELA, Laan te Rhijnhof 10, Leiden. All are welcome.