Seminar: Artisanal Mining & Youth in Tanzania

Artisanal Mining & Youth. Livelihoods, leisure and love in Tanzanian urbanizing mine settlements. Over the last three decades, artisanal gold mining has increasingly provided a source of employment for hundreds of thousands of miners as well as service providers in Tanzania. Gold strikes in the country’s ‘ring of gold’ have catalyzed widespread labour migration and the growth of economically vibrant small towns in a countryside undergoing agrarian decline since the oil crises of the late 1970s. Many of the migrants are youthful, migrating in the hopes not only of economic improvement but modernity and rising social status. This presentation by Dr Deborah Bryceson of the University of Glasgow is primarily concerned with their aspirations, the dynamics of conjugal ties and material welfare outcomes amidst high levels of migration.