Border Legality: Refashioning Rights and Livelihoods in East Cameroon

In collaboration with Martial Massiké (University of Ngaoundere), José Muñoz will document recent efforts by the government and several international actors to regulate small-scale mining in Cameroon's East Region. In recent years, parallel to a process of "modernization" and "formalization" of small-scale mining, this part of the country has witnessed a return of foreign mining companies after four decades of conspicuous absence. In May 2005, the government announced an ambitious program to salvage substantial gold deposits before they became submerged by the impending construction of a large dam in the basin of the Lom River, the Lom Pangar dam project. Attracted by rising international prices of gold, foreign investors have responded to the call. Their arrival has meant that small-scale miners, who had recently seen their mining rights acknowledged for the first time in the postcolonial era, had little choice but to cede them those rights.

Mali camp

The photo, taken in May 2011 in Mali camp, Betare Oya, illustrates the coexistence of foreign companies (CAMINCO, a South African and Danish partnership, in the case at hand) and small-scale miners.