‘Working for the stomach’: sustaining peasant mining in south-western Uganda

Abstract

In the mountainous areas of south-western Uganda, peasant miners are characterized aspeople who ‘work for the stomach’ and pursue an unsustainable activity: extracting alluvialgold with artisanal technology. After days of hard work in the mines, they allegedly squander their money on alcohol and sex. A common way of disapproving of these miners’ behaviour isto compare them to lake fishers (ababariya). By focusing on the ababariya narrative as anentry point into the lifeways of miners, and the relationship between mining and fishing andagriculture, we explore how peasant miners think about a sustainable life. Our argument isthat the ababariya can be instrumental in the reproduction and legitimization of existing social and economic inequalities. We therefore examine the contexts that frame the ababariyanarrative and the inequalities that it legitimizes. This leads us to reflect on whether this narrative on ‘excessive behaviours’ reveals something about an alternative way of thinkingabout economy and social relationships based on abundance rather than scarcity.