Gold Mining and the Discourses of Corporate Social Responsibility in Ghana by Nathan Andrews

Author:Nathan Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9783319923215
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

This response was given concerning the question around how the women see their lives (either poorer or better off) in comparison to those people living in non-mining communities. I asked the women this question because mineral extraction promises so much, with companies repeating these assurances through the CSR discourse , specifically through their endorsement of ‘win-win’ outcomes, ‘value creation’ , ‘corporate citizenship ’, ‘market for virtue’ and ‘sustainable mining’. The women’s feedback on the worsening of their prospects over the span of about 10 years (since Kinross, previously Red Back , started operating in the area) contests these popular notions which receive enormous attention in mainstream scholarly discussions and in CSR reports. The usage of ‘killing’ to refer to the harsh deprivation faced by some of these women was quite prevalent in many of the responses given. I do not believe the women were merely hyperbolizing their condition though it is possible some of the claims may have been slightly exaggerated. Nonetheless, a focus group participant in one of Newmont’s areas also expressed similar livelihood concerns while trying to explain what poverty means for her within this context:I can describe [poverty] as this: before Newmont came here, I had my farm from which when I harvest I could get three to four bags of cocoa . By the end of the year, I could have had about six bags of cocoa from which I could deposit some money in the bank so that in hard times I could withdraw…I had a plantation. I used the proceeds from the farm to take care of my child to college. But since the possession of my farm, I could not sponsor the other two children (a boy and girl) to further their education . And now we could hardly put food on the table. 2

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.