Garimpeiro Worlds: Digging, Dying and 'Hunting' for Diamonds in Angola

De Boeck, Filip

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Title:	Garimpeiro Worlds: Digging, Dying and 'Hunting' for Diamonds in Angola
Author:	De Boeck, Filip
Year:	2001
Periodical:	Review of African Political Economy
Volume:	28
Issue:	90
Period:	December
Pages:	549-562
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Angola
Subjects:	illicit trade diamonds Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Labor and Employment Economics and Trade Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External links:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056240108704565 http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=45FA9E5700778D8B4119
Abstract:	Over the last two decades, the Congolese and Angolan hinterland has become most central in the capitalist dynamics and dollarization of local economies. As such, the diamond traffic, and the phenomenon of dollarization which has followed in its wake, are also emblematic of a return to a 'Leopoldian comptoir' economy. The province of Lunda Norte, on the Angolan side of the Angola-Congo border, has witnessed the development of an unprecedented traffic of diamonds into the Democratic Republic of Congo. Against the canvas of the violent diamond frontier in Lunda Norte a whole cultural and socioeconomic universe has developed in which local and global, pre and postcolonial meanings, practices and imaginaries have met and merged. This paper examines the diamond smuggling activities between Lunda Norte - primarily the main mining area along the Cuango valley - and the bordering Congolese Kasai and Kwango region, paying attention to the activities of 'garimpeiros' (unlicensed diamond diggers), and diamond traders, the role of UNITA and MPLA in the control of mining activities, Congolese 'garimpeiros', women's and girls' transport and commercial activities, the effects of the diamond economy on local currencies, and revenues from diamond production. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and Portuguese.

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