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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Gemstone Mining in Madagascar: Transnational Networks, Criminalisation and Global Integration |
Author: | Duffy, Rosaleen |
Year: | 2007 |
Periodical: | Journal of Modern African Studies |
Volume: | 45 |
Issue: | 2 |
Period: | June |
Pages: | 185-206 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Madagascar |
Subjects: | precious stones mining illicit trade globalization Law, Human Rights and Violence Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Economics and Trade international relations |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/4501278 |
Abstract: | Since the late 1990s, Madagascar has experienced a boom in gem mining, especially high quality rubies and sapphires. This boom has been largely driven and controlled by illicit mining and transnational gem trafficking. This article examines how such patterns of production and trade are produced by the interrelationships of a specific locality, Ilakaka, with globalized networks of production and exchange. It then examines the economic, social and environmental impacts of this form of integration in the global economy, especially in mining areas. In sum, it investigates the highly variable dynamics produced by globalization and their impacts on Madagascar. In so doing, it argues that distinct categories such as global/local, legal/illegal and traditional/modern have lost much of their explanatory power. Far from being distinct categories, they are indivisible and constitute a single, complex whole which produces enormous wealth, coupled with high degrees of poverty and marginalization in precisely the same locations. It is clear that Africa's participation in globalization has not been just about 'joining' the world economy; instead it has been characterized by highly selective forms of global connection which have been combined with highly visible and very real forms of disconnection. Bibliogr., notes, sum. [Journal abstract, edited] |