Resituating Precarity in African Minefields

The unnamed miner beneath the home of Gilbert’s neighbor is but one of many. For many participants in domestic and globalized economies, opportunities often emerge in the form of temporary jobs in precarious circumstances. Anna Tsing (Reference Tsing2017 [2015]) explores how economically vulnerable groups succeed in connecting to the global supply chain, albeit in precarious and uncertain conditions. Via the matsutake, a sought-after delicacy in Japan, we learn how mushroom pickers in the U.S., Finland, and China exemplify general conditions of precarity. As she puts it, “Industrial work no longer charts the future. Livelihoods are various, cobbled together, and often temporary” (Reference Tsing2017 [2015]:132). Tsing frames the temporal coordination of temporal earnings as “salvage accumulation.” Such working conditions exemplify the current zeitgeist; they are not “bullshit jobs” (Graeber Reference Graeber2018), but rather, they exist in tandem with the way that market demands integrate into capitalist circuits.

Precarious and lacking long-term viability, salvage accumulation merely enables individuals to piece together a livelihood. In a not dissimilar way, African urban residents in search of better lives reach out to a broader world. They adapt their actions according to profitable homegrown strategies. To some, the worldwide web opens opportunities, such as financial gain through internet dating (Cassiman Reference Cassiman2019) or permanent residency (Piot & Batema Reference Piot and Batema2019). Others establish global connections through associations within their city (Simone Reference Simone2001). So-called “worlding” practices, processes of scaler recomposition that “conjure up worlds beyond current conditions of living” (Ong Reference Ong, Roy and Ong2011:13), constitute, for AbdouMaliq Simone (Reference Simone2001:18) “a process inherent in the very formation of African cities themselves.”

The confrontation with progress and wealth, and with what life could be, is particularly brutal in mining cities. Residents actually watch many ore trucks passing through, they see the tailings piling up, they see the productive shafts. They notice the money that employees of mining companies lavishly spend. Although nearby, this bounty remains out of reach to most residents. Whereas to some, the mining industry offers job opportunities and ensuing benefits, to others, it means a deterioration of basic urban infrastructure, for instance, when through the excessive use of electric power to feed the plants, ordinary inhabitants are sporadically cut off from the power grid. There is a general consensus in African urbanism literature that the defining feature of African urbanism is the precarity and provisionality of the built environment, and mining towns particularly exude this condition of temporariness, if not uncertainty. For one thing, they are put to the test by the expansion of mining activities, especially if it concerns open pit mines that, through their gradual expansion, literally devour the city (Finn Reference Finn1998; Francaviglia Reference Francaviglia1991; Leech Reference Leech2018).

Extraction develops in cycles. Mining investments fluctuate with the demand on the global market and the related price of the mineral ore, fluctuations which can result in the (temporary) withdrawal of mining investors and the suspension of mining activities. Mining towns abide by this rhythm of booms and busts, and populate and depopulate accordingly. This, in turn, occasionally leads to “shrinking cities” (Martinez-Fernandez & Wu Reference Martinez-Fernandez and Chung-Tong2009; Martinez-Fernandez et al. Reference Martinez-Fernandez, Audirac, Fol and Cunningham-Sabot2012), or even to cities which simply cease to exist. Illustrating the temporary vicissitudes accompanying extraction, the mining towns that spontaneously appeared after artisanal miners started to dig in eastern DR Congo (Büscher Reference Büscher2018) or in the Lunda provinces in Angola (Udelsmann Rodrigues & Tavares Reference Udelsman Rodrigues and Tavares2012) will likely disappear once deposits are exhausted. Consequently, the urban planning and development of mining towns has often occurred with a short-term, limited vision. The erratic relation between mining and urban planning has been explained as “mineralized urbanization” (Bryceson & MacKinnon Reference Bryceson and MacKinnon2012), or “extractive pace” (Kesselring Reference Kesselring2018) and “embodied extraction” (Vandemoortel Reference Vandemoortel2014). The co-existence of multiple forms of capitalism and extractive practices characterize the African mining town, insofar as industrial and artisanal mining often operate side by side.

The particular geographical features of mining cities have repercussions on urban social tissue. Besides disrupting the urban landscape, the presence of the mining industry creates a sense of inequality among the residents. An assumed relationship between minerals and a capacity to bring about positive change was put to rest by James Ferguson (Reference Ferguson1999), who dimmed such “expectations of modernity.” Mukohya Vwakyanakazi (Reference Vwakyanakazi1988) outlined how the omnipresence of fully self-supporting parastatals produced “stifling mechanisms” that deprived the rural areas of any chance to fully develop. Miles Larmer rejects a straightforward minerals-development relationship because areas develop “in uneven ways” (Reference Larmer2016:9). Rather than tantalizing benefits and improved living standards, mineral richness renders for many a “permanent precarity” (Larmer Reference Larmer2017). Just as during colonial times, earnings were channeled “by economic policies… to the metropole exchequers and to Western-based companies” (Larmer Reference Larmer2017:9), this extraction continues today in the form of gargantuan multinationals. Ching Kwan Lee (Reference Lee2017) reveals how the Zambian copperbelt profits go almost exclusively to Lusaka, and miners continue to live in unfavorable conditions. And as Joe Trapido (Reference Trapido2015) has outlined, financial means consistently flow out of Central Africa’s “leaky giant,” keeping the DR Congo as a whole, and the broad majority of its inhabitants specifically, from profiting to the fullest from the country’s generously mineralized soil. The mining industry is not a life-changer for all.

A hurried city: Kolwezi at the service of the mining industry

A myriad of metals and minerals can be extracted from the ore in the area around Kolwezi, but cobalt and copper are the most prominent ones. After a period of prospecting that took off during the Congo Free State and continued under Belgian Congo, industrialization ensued. Initially, one single company—Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, or UMHK (currently Gécamines)—embodied the mining industry, and its interests solely determined the location of the city of Kolwezi. In this section, we will discuss UMHK’s insistence on building the city in a hurry, setting up makeshift buildings even before the authorities developed an urbanization plan, a modus operandi that has far-reaching consequences today.

To state that mining is at the origin of cities throughout the Congolese Copperbelt is to belabor the obvious. But contrary to what is often assumed, colonial cities in Africa were hardly ever built up from scratch; they usually developed on sites of existing cities (Coquery-Vidrovitch Reference Coquery-Vidrovitch1988), or on places where human activity was concentrated well before the arrival of the colonizers. These places could be crossroads of trading routes, important marketplaces, or—as is the case in Kolwezi—mining sites. Indeed, the colonizing forces did not discover the deposits, but “prospecting in Katanga was reduced to locating ‘ancient workings’ rather than using scientific exploration methods to discover previously unknown ore bodies” (Särkkä Reference Särkkä2016:330).Footnote ² On the site in the savannah where the future city of Kolwezi would develop, there were three deposits: Ruwe (then mainly gold), Musonoi, and Kolwezi (both copper). There were some villages, too. It was above all the Sanga ethnic group that was mining and smelting copper long before the European expeditions arrived (see Mukembe Mubedi Reference Mukembe Mubedi2018; Gobbers Reference Gobbers2016; Cuvelier Reference Cuvelier2011; Van Doorninck Reference Van Doorninck1928; De Hemptinne Reference De Hemptinne1926). As such, rather than a creation of this city by colonial powers, it concerns a “fixation” of urban space (Gondola Reference Gondola1997:35) on sites that were previously buzzing with activity.Footnote ³

In any case, when mining prospectors “discovered” these three rich deposits, they faced a major problem; the site was rather isolated, and options for export were few. An experiment in 1906 proved that it took an oxcart as long as eight months to transport the mineral ore and ingots from Ruwe to the Angolan port for shipping, hardly a viable production line.Footnote ⁴ There was no sense in developing any industrial activity there, if profitmaking was beyond reach. Therefore, UMHK shifted its focus to its other two centers of activity, Elisabethville with the Etoile du Congo mine and Panda with the Kambove mine, as these two had been connected by railway to the Cape since 1910 (on the railway network, see Katzenellenbogen Reference Katzenellenbogen1973; Hance & van Dongen Reference Hance and van Dongen1956) (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Map from 1930 showing how the railway linking the Angolan coast to the deposit of Ruwe is in the making. Source: AA 3DG(1988)2.

However, when at the beginning of the 1920s it became clear that a railway connection to the future town of Kolwezi would be forthcoming at some point, UMHK resumed prospecting at so-called Groupe Ouest, particularly at the deposits of Ruwe and Musonoi.Footnote ⁵ These mining activities ushered in the era of urbanization. The first built areas consisted of the labor camps that UMHK constructed near the mines to accommodate its workforce. As Bruno De Meulder (Reference De Meulder1996) has shown, these camps combined temporariness with rationality. To ensure the availability of a sufficient number of competent and healthy workers, accommodating them next to their place of work seemed a foolproof solution. So UMHK built these labor camps as close as possible to mines and in non-durable material. A close look at the correspondence between the company and the colonial authorities clearly shows that they proceeded in a somewhat haphazard fashion, seemingly averse to basic urban planning principles. The provisional prevailed, and permanent solutions were postponed. For one thing, there was no master plan; proximity to a center of activity was the sole criterion for settlement. At this point, both UMHK and the colonial authorities made an error of judgment in grossly underestimating the future growth of the city.Footnote ⁶ Profit was the main incentive, and the long-term consequences of a hurriedly built town were not considered.

Next, the hastily constructed labor camps, which were intended to be temporary, turned permanent. Indeed, in 1926, pushed by personnel shortages, UMHK launched a campaign to stabilize its workforce in order to, as the company’s physician Léopold Mottoulle (Reference Mottoulle1946:11) put it, “push the black worker to love his work and stick to it as long as possible.”Footnote ⁷ To make work in mining more attractive, the management endeavored to improve labor conditions, including supplying better accommodations, with dwellings in durable material which enabled the worker to settle with his wife and children (on the stabilization policy, see Rubbers Reference Rubbers2013; Dibwe dia Mwembu Reference Dibwe dia Mwembu2001; De Meulder Reference De Meulder1996; Banjikila Bakajika Reference Banjikila Bakajika1993; Perrings Reference Perrings1979; Fetter Reference Fetter1973). Note that the company created this homely atmosphere exclusively to safeguard human reproduction. Similar to what Kaveh Ehsani (Reference Ehsani2003:381) has suggested for company towns, labor camps, too, can be considered as “a second factory, built next to the main plant […], for the production of the other essential component of the production process, namely labor power.” The mining activities attracted a growing population, and the idea then arose that a town should be established nearby (Chapelier Reference Chapelier1956a:299). Right from the start, it was clear that neoliberal thinking guided the process, with all interventions in the budding urban tissue aimed at keeping the company running. Correspondence shows that UMHK urged the colonial authorities to quickly choose the location of the future city so it could further develop its activities.Footnote ⁸ Likewise, during all the following encounters with the authorities, all that UMHK did was to remind the state of the urgency of the situation, claiming that it wished to start construction without further ado.Footnote ⁹

When, in 1926, a first draft of the future city was tabled, René Detroy, a Belgian urbanist, wrote a scathing criticism of the rush that had engulfed the project. In his words, “the draft of the project is not elaborated enough what concerns the allotments, the roadworks, the buildings, the esthetics and the order of urgency.” The Belgian authorities in the metropolis, for their part, complained vociferously that their authority had been bypassed which they considered “dangereux.”Footnote ¹⁰ Nevertheless, UMHK won the day, and the Belgian authorities approved the rushed convention of 1930 concerning the creation of the agglomération urbaine de Musonoi, as it was then called.Footnote ¹¹ Just one year later, the Benguela Railway finally linked the three deposits to the port of Benguela on the Atlantic, and to the port of Lobito thirty-five km up farther north, and production hit the ground running. It increased even more steadily after 1937, when mechanized extraction took off (Perrings Reference Perrings1979:122) and the concentrator was installed (Henk Reference Henk1988:156). Evidence suggests that Kolwezi then entered into a kind of competition with UMHK’s other two centers of activity, Elisabethville and Panda-Likasi; to clear the backlog, UMHK ramped up production, and consequently, the area was urbanized with great speed. As UMHK attracted a growing number of European employees, administrators and retailers too moved in, together with other colonists. And as word spread that Kolwezi was the new hive of opportunity, African jobseekers came in droves, often clustering around the nearby village of Mwangeji. To channel this stream of so-called déracinés (the “uprooted” ones), the authorities planned a cité indigene, or indigenous neighborhood.Footnote ¹² But settling all these newcomers in a hurry had created a hodgepodge of neighborhoods and alleys. The idea then arose that it was time to streamline the budding city, since it clearly lacked coherence. Akin Mabogunje (Reference Mabogunje1990:139) has shown that being scattered is not an unusual feature for a colonial city, but rather the result of “a fragmented civil society [which] ensures a selective approach to urban planning.” Nevertheless, Kolwezi was fragmented to the extreme. The European administrators, the traders, the local workforce, and the immigrants were all accommodated in separate neighborhoods, with a neutral zone keeping the Africans out of the lives of the Europeans, and vice versa. In addition, the fair distance of fifteen kilometers between the three deposits, Ruwe, Kolwezi, and Musonoi, caused the city to be dispersed. UMHK had regrouped its labor camps and buildings around these three sites, and consequently, the town was scattered, too. “What strikes the visitor to this area is the eccentric location of its different centers of activity,” was the verdict of Putmans, a visiting mining engineer, who added that without any doubt this was the result of the overhasty opening up of the mines of Groupe Ouest for exploitation.Footnote ¹³

The consequences of the rapid industrialization and ensuing precipitous choice of location for the built areas—without decent plan or soil examinations—soon surfaced. As it turned out, buildings were erected on land that UMHK would have preferred to exploit. Already in 1940, nearly a year after the official birth of the urban agglomeration, the homes of two territorial agents in the Musonoi neighborhood needed to be destroyed since, as the company stated, they were situated “right on top of a mineral deposit.”Footnote ¹⁴ The town’s location became problematic as the mining industry gradually engulfed the town; it seemed to be hemmed in by open mines, plants, and a concentrator, but lacked an urban plan to straighten it all out (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Aerial view showing how the city of Kolwezi is completely surrounded by mining areas. Source: Google Maps.

In 1947, the Belgian authorities sent architect-urbanist Noël Van Malleghem to the Belgian Congo to survey the area. He was particularly harsh regarding the messy ensemble that Kolwezi still presented, “by lack of a holistic plan.” He outlined two major objections: the omnipresence of the mining industry and the unfortunate location of the city. As he put it in his report, “we would like to stress how inconvenient it would be if Kolwezi were allowed to expand at its current location.”Footnote ¹⁵ In his view, the hurried proceedings had led to band-aid solutions, and to a place where “houses are literally stuck to the industry.”Footnote ¹⁶

The time had come to turn over a new leaf. Having hurriedly built to suit the greed of the company had not been a good idea. It is at this stage that for the very first time the idea arose to simply remove the city and relocate it elsewhere. With previously unexamined land and consequently undiscovered deposits all over, a resiting of the whole city seemed the only viable solution in the long run. Gilbert, a centenarian and inhabitant of the very first labor camp near the Kolwezi mine, now called cité Gécamines, remembers that the chef de cité regularly passed by the inhabitants to warn them that they should move, as their houses would be destroyed to make room for mining activities.Footnote ¹⁷ Jeannette, who worked as a social assistant at UMHK, recalls that from the time she arrived in Kolwezi in 1957 onward, there were talks of the city’s relocation.Footnote ¹⁸ However, up until independence in 1960, the removal remained mere talk (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Aerial view of Kolwezi in 1956, showing that the city is adhered to by mining pits. Source: Frederic Berkmoes on www.inchi-yetu.be.

It was not until 1972 that the (then Zairian) authorities undertook the first and only serious attempt to move the entire city, and the urbanists of the Bureau d’Études d’Aménagement Urbain (BEAU) developed the Schéma Directeur de Kolwezi II. At that time, the removal seemed to be certain, as Gécamines was expanding—it had entered the boom period called P2—and so was the number of employees it had to accommodate, besides the extra migrants who were flocking into the newly built neighborhoods, attracted by the booming production. According to this plan, Kolwezi was to be relocated twenty kilometers eastward to the shores of Lake Nzilo, away from the industrial sphere to make it more city-like. After the removal, the existing city would be left to the company and entirely converted into an industrial area (Mansila Fu-Kiau Reference Mansila Fu-Kiau1988:278). The removal never actually transpired in any case, blocked by lack of funding (Bruneau & Mansila Fu-Kiau Reference Bruneau and Fu-Kiau1986).Footnote ¹⁹

In short, the precipitous planning of the city of Kolwezi, pushed by the capitalist logic of the major company that ruled the town, UMHK, resulted in its unfortunate location. The town is literally built upon rich deposits. And as mining rights always override land rights, the Kolwéziens had to get used to unexpected turns and to living on the edge of a removal to make room for mining activities. They have the feeling of being on borrowed time. And yet, as we will discuss next, they turned this predicament to their advantage.

Local entrepreneurship on the margins of capitalism

The lived experiences of the inhabitants of Kolwezi reveal how they deal with the unusual location of their city, planned fully at the service of the mining industry. Residents’ worlding practices—a form of salvage accumulation—allow them to integrate into capitalist circuits. Many simply started extracting ore from their own backyards. They were able to do so in the first place because many young male Kolwéziens had acquired artisanal digging skills throughout the years. Indeed, by the turn of the millennium, president Laurent-Désiré Kabila had legalized artisanal mining, albeit exclusively in concessions which either Gécamines or the governmental authorities had granted to the artisanal diggers (creuseurs). Gaining experience, these creuseurs also went on to mine illegally in the concessions of Gécamines or of private companies, further improving their skills (Cuvelier Reference Cuvelier2011). As a consequence, the number of creuseurs increased explosively. According to a 2008 World Bank report, creuseurs supply 90 percent of the total mineral production of the DRC (Cuvelier Reference Cuvelier2014). Note that more than half of the world’s cobalt mine production comes from the Congolese Copperbelt (Banza Lubaba Nkulu et al. Reference Banza Lubaba Nkulu, Casas, Haufroid, De Putter, Saenen, Kayembe-Kitenge, Musa Obadia, Kyanika Wa Mukoma, Lunda Ilunga, Nawrot, Luboya Numbi, Smolders and Nemery2018). Many youngsters in Kolwezi, thus, are practiced at digging with bare hands and basic tools. Although these are not exactly labor conditions that conjure up economic efficiency in a capitalist context, through their salvage accumulation, Kolwezi’s domestic diggers take part in the global supply chain, supplying the raw material which is high in demand and ultimately ends up in mobile phones, electric cars, and other capitalist commodities. As such, the inhabitants of Kolwezi capitalize on the unfortunate location of their city in order to take part in the neoliberal scheme that has a grip on it.

What happened in the Kasulo neighborhood is illustrative. In 2014, one of its inhabitants, an immigrant from the Kasai province, dug a hole in his modest rental home to serve as latrine pit. This was easy to do, as the floors of this neighborhood’s dwellings consist of nothing but flattened earth. While digging, he found that his penurious plot had unexpected bonuses to offer: it appeared rich in cobalt ore. He started selling this material at the trading houses (comptoirs) at nearby Musompo where creuseurs—either legitimized ones or those working on illegal sites—sell their ore to traders, who are often Chinese. He soon gathered a small fortune, enabling him to move out and settle comfortably elsewhere. His stroke of luck inspired his neighbors, and they started digging in their compounds too. Before long, the whole Kasulo neighborhood had turned into a buzzy mining area. With their mallets and chisels, inhabitants dug as deep as forty meters to access the ore, tunneling underneath the whole neighborhood. Not everyone had the right skills to dig, though, and many residents allowed more experienced miners to dig in their compounds. The latter had taken up the trade along the way themselves.

To sink a shaft, however, remains a risky undertaking. As a rudimentary sketch drawn by a creuseur shows, the vertical shaft (cheminée) can be as deep as forty meters, and it has no lining; creuseurs dig out hand- and foot-grips in its sides to allow going up and down (see Figure 4). Once the vein of ore is reached, the vertical digging sets off. These vertical shafts (galéries) have no prop support or sprags, since the vein is hard enough in itself. Above ground, there is a generator and a motor (machine souffleur) feeding a tube that goes down with oxygen, as from eight meters below onward, the air gets very thin. Nevertheless, this does not prevent the creuseurs from smoking pot underground, in order to “be courageous,” as one put it. “After all, it is your common sense (mayele) that will make sure accidents do not happen.”Footnote ²⁰ In any event, it is a staggering endeavor. Usually, a team consisted of five creuseurs: 40 percent of the revenues went to the inhabitant who gave access to the compound, 40 percent to the five creuseurs, and 20 percent to their foreman. From each pit, between USD100 and USD200 worth of ore was extracted a day. The more experienced creuseurs deplored the competitive atmosphere on the site, with teams working independently instead of cooperating to improve the circulation of oxygen or offering mutual help when needed, as is usual on the sites of major mining companies. In all, a mixture of experienced and novice creuseurs jointly dug the backyards.

Figure 4. Sketch of a pit in the Kasulo neighborhood, drawn by a creuseur, July 30, 2018, in Kolwezi. Source: the author.

The first couple of years, the municipal and provincial authorities tried to curb these artisanal activities, but failing to provide the creuseurs with an alternative site, they chose to turn a blind eye.Footnote ²¹ By the end of 2017, however, pushed by the findings of an Amnesty International report (2016) and fearing a negative image, they proclaimed manual digging in Kasulo illegal, falling back on the argument that the neighborhood was a residential area after all. Their main incentive, so they stated, was the poor labor conditions, endangering the lives of numerous children active on the site (Kayumba Reference Kayumba2017). Moreover, some residents had not “rented” their compounds to diggers because they lacked the proper network or because they simply feared being penalized, as digging up ore is indeed prohibited. But these inhabitants continued to live in the neighborhood nevertheless, and without benefitting from the digging, they saw their lives endangered by the many shafts and tunneling that affected the stability of their houses.

The health implications of exposure to cobalt and toxic trace elements of uranium (Banza Lubaba Nkulu et al. Reference Banza Lubaba Nkulu, Casas, Haufroid, De Putter, Saenen, Kayembe-Kitenge, Musa Obadia, Kyanika Wa Mukoma, Lunda Ilunga, Nawrot, Luboya Numbi, Smolders and Nemery2018) are poorly appreciated. Although the authorities intervened, they were cautious not to antagonize the population by depriving them of their earnings and dwellings. The industry-state pact worked out a solution that had to prove some measure of corporate social responsibility. Gécamines, which still holds the Permit of Exploitation (PE) of this neighborhood, granted the concession to the Chinese company Congo Dongfang International Mining (CDM), and six hundred families were asked to move out, against payment.Footnote ²² CDM put a high wall around the neighborhood, and the Ministry of Mines turned its statute into a Zone for Artisanal Mining. CDM today engages some of the former inhabitants as well as about seven thousand creuseurs to continue to dig into, as one framed it, “his pit,” but the miners need to sell all the extracted ore to the company exclusively.Footnote ²³ Being incorporated by the mining company thus means that their benefits decreased, as they receive less for the ore than they did at the trading houses in Musompo.

The story ends with an encouraging turn. By means of compensation, the authorities allotted a new neighborhood to the former residents of Kasulo. Interestingly, the decision makers once again made the very same mistake as during colonial times, acting in a hurry, with the mining industry again in the vanguard. The committee that decided where the inhabitants would be relocated did not include any expert on urbanism or geology. Rather, the Ministry of Mining held a prominent place, alongside employees of the cadastre. A member of the committee was flabbergasted by the way the new area was chosen, without any preliminary exploration of the soil, and without any regard for urbanist criteria. Instead, the employees of the cadastre pointed out a site that was vacant and the other committee members agreed that “this site looks nice.” So when the inhabitants of Kasulo settled in their newly created neighborhood, Joli Parc in Samukinda, they were itching to start digging anew. They soon encountered yet another windfall: their new compounds too appeared to be rich in cobalt ore. It is too soon to tell whether the domestic diggers at Samukinda will also be overtaken by one of the multinationals that (temporarily) settle in their town, as was the case with the Kasulo diggers. But considering that Kolwezi is virtually constructed upon deposits, and a removal of the whole town is not on the current agenda, it is unlikely that these proceedings will end soon. It is important to note though, that the removal of entire neighborhoods affects above all the lower social classes. Indeed, the complete city is located upon deposits, but removing the fancier neighborhoods involves much higher indemnification costs.

In any event, the industry’s appetite for valuable ores will only increase, now that electric cars are fast becoming a popular reality. Until alternatives are found, the lithium-ion batteries used by electric cars need cobalt. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and a few other tycoons recently agreed to jointly hunt for undiscovered cobalt deposits, scouring the earth’s crust and below in North America; other consortia are carrying out similar operations in Australia and Canada (Bloomberg 2019). In the meantime, the DRC provides more than two thirds of the global supply. Kolwezi offers a substantive amount already and could offer more, but this means that in the long run, more deposits need to be cleared of dwellings and other obstacles. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that the population as a whole will profit from the increased demand for cobalt, despite the recent revision of the Mining Code which regulates the mining industry. Originally established in 2002 under the aegis of the World Bank, the code was revised in 2018, including an increase in the royalties and taxes that foreign mining companies need to pay, as well as the obligation to spend 0.3 percent of turn-over on social and environmental corporate responsibility measures. But whether this extra income will be well spent and improve the lives of the Congolese citizens, of course, depends largely on those who rule the country. Meanwhile, the capital drain to the foreign investors, which we discussed above, continues. The lack of a decent basic infrastructure—such as reliable provision of electricity—is keeping major profits for the communities out of reach too, since the refining phase, which realizes more profits than exporting unprocessed ore as happens today, is forcibly carried out abroad (Trefon Reference Trefon2016), in countries such as China, Finland, Canada, and Belgium (Banza Lubaba Nkulu et al. Reference Banza Lubaba Nkulu, Casas, Haufroid, De Putter, Saenen, Kayembe-Kitenge, Musa Obadia, Kyanika Wa Mukoma, Lunda Ilunga, Nawrot, Luboya Numbi, Smolders and Nemery2018).

Futures of the wealth beneath

By digging underneath their own houses, Kolwéziens simultaneously generate an income and undermine the very foundations of their homes. There is an absorbing observation to make at this site: the first inhabitant to discover minerals in his back yard did so while digging to create a septic tank. Indeed, many neighborhoods in Kolwezi lack a (decent) sewage system, although the inhabitants expect the authorities of their city, renowned for its mining industry and rich deposits, to provide one. But as we have seen, the relation between minerals and development is a precarious one; rich soils do not unavoidably lead to better lives. Even if it is true that the mining industry brought along job opportunities, unemployment is still rife. On top of this, there is a glass ceiling which prevents Congolese citizens from profiting to the full potential offered by such resources. The highest possible position for any Congolese in a foreign mining company is to be head of the human resources department, and this is only the case because the Congolese law requires it; all the other higher positions are exclusively filled by expatriates (Rubbers Reference Rubbers2019).

In this imbalance, Kolwéziens are pushed to look for ways to claim their slice of the pie. This slice, however, might be thinner than it should be. Often, the diggers do not know the exact global market value of the ore they excavate. James Smith (Reference Smith2015) has shown that, to the artisanal miners in eastern Congo, capitalism is an abstract frame, but it is tied to a very concrete reality: the price they get at the comptoirs for the ore they delve. This price is disconnected from its “real” global market value, of which the miners are often unaware. Instead, they rely upon their personal networks of middlemen and traders, and through this network they try to control the price of the tin, tantalum, or tungsten they dig themselves. As such, this “real” price is socially constructed and not related to the more abstract free market ideology that rules the world.

Kolwezi residents are fully aware that the whole city is built upon rich mineral deposits; this is hardly a recent phenomenon. Without irony, Kolwéziens speak of “le gisement de l’hopital” in reference to the promising deposit on which the city’s hospital is built. As one local geologist observed, “the hospital, the offices of Gécamines, the prison at Dilala and the entire neighborhood Kamina are constructed above deposits, this is just common knowledge.”Footnote ²⁴ The western part of the town is surrounded by a wasteland of disused mines and tailings, and scavenging Gécamines’ tailings was a common and legitimate pastime. Kolwéziens sold the green malachite stones they found in the waste to an Indian artisan to make some extra money. The latter turned this material into ashtrays and jewelry to be marketed to the expatriates. Kolwéziens are not the only civilians to surreptitiously capitalize on the rich Congolese underground; residents of other cities of the former Katanga province do so as well. Since April 2018, inhabitants of the Kalipopo neighborhood in Likasi have also gone underground in their compounds to liberate precious mineral ore. Only four days after the first “discovery,” entrepreneurs had sunk shafts in more than 150 compounds.Footnote ²⁵ Excavating one’s own backyard has become a widespread notion in local imaginary, too, and it inspired Congolese writer Sinzo Aanza (Reference Aanza2015) to dedicate a novel to Lubumbashi’s domestic diggers. However marginal it may seem, such domestic practices cannot be overlooked.

The interfacing of the mining industry and urban planning is an uneasy process. As early as 1956, the urban geographer Alice Chapelier (Reference Chapelier1956b:50) observed that the harmonious development of Kolwezi was “compromised” by the occupation of a site which had been slavishly chosen for the sole function of the mining industry. In Kolwezi, in a very gradual way, the built space has encroached upon the mineral deposits because the city was built on the wrong spot. Today, mining activities are gnawing away at the city. Because of Kolwezi’s unfortunate urban engineering, the city is gradually being eaten, not only by the mining industry, but also by the inhabitants, as the impromptu artisanal mining activities in the Kasulo neighborhood have shown (see Figure 5). As such, multiple scales and circuits of extraction co-exist in the city of Kolwezi.

Figure 5. Ruins of the houses in cité Gécamines that were abandoned to make room for the mining activities as the open pit in the background expanded. Source: the author.

But there were more than simply urbanistic flaws that led to an ill-positioned city. Simply put, the soil is rich, but the people are poor. The benefits of the gifted soil slip away. There is an overpowering capitalist logic creeping above their heads, and it prevents communities as a whole from fully profiting from their land of plenty. Nevertheless, the Kolwéziens are resilient, and they find ways to sneak into the margins of the capitalist world order. By digging up precious ore from their own backyards, Kolwéziens claim a share of Congo’s miraculously gifted soil. The domestic diggers simply cash in on the expensive dirt.