timothy makori | Maastricht University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Uploads

Conference Presentations by timothy makori

It was 2pm. The intense sun that afternoon made the fifteen-minute wait at the city centre of Lik... more It was 2pm. The intense sun that afternoon made the fifteen-minute wait at the city centre of Likasi in Haut-Katanga province of Congo all the more tedious for Papa Kabongo, my research assistant, and me. We were waiting for some informants for an interview and they had not appeared. Half an hour passed and we spotted two brand-new Bajaj motorbikes whiz past us and turn around rather abruptly. The riders were both without helmets but they wore some fancy sunglasses. The blue bike came right up to me. The rider slowly lifted his glasses and with a cheeky grin said, 'Timoté, ni je?' ('Timoté, how is it?'). It was Francis, my informant. I was perplexed, unsure of whether I should comment on his looks, that suspicious grin, or the flippant greeting. Francis knew and could see that I looked visibly surprised because, only the day before, Papa Kabongo and I had stumbled into him in an artisanal mine near the city of Likasi where I was conducting my fieldwork. Then, he wore shorts soiled with mud and a tired T-shirt browned by dust and spoke to us about the Sunday meeting while standing knee-deep in brown murky water while overseeing his copper ore being washed. At one moment, he would be speaking calmly to us and at the next he would be flailing his arms and hollering at some teenage boys at the nearby stream to hurry up with the rinsing of his malachite rocks. Francis was a creuseur. That Sunday afternoon when I met him one might have mistaken him for a sapeur. 1 He had donned a Yankees baseball cap, aviator sunglasses, blue jeans, a Chelsea Football Club jersey, moccasins, and, just for effect, two replica Seiko watches – one on each wrist. Time obviously mattered to this guy, I mused. So, why was he late? The momentary shock of seeing Francis sapé wore off. Jules, Francis's friend and business partner, approached me. He laughed as he came off his bike in his black three-piece suit and greeted us in the respectful Katangese manner of bringing our heads to touch each other from side to side. I realized that their laughter and smiles were a response to what they must have perceived to be my exaggerated sense of surprise. I am sure they were wondering why it was so strange to me that they were à la mode, akin to the male dancers of the Congolese pop-music sensation Werrason. 2 Of course, they did not say that but they knew they had surprised me, and, from their smiles, I gathered that this pleased them. With their arrival

In this paper I examine the ontological conflict over land between the Congolese State and custom... more In this paper I examine the ontological conflict over land between the Congolese State and customary authorities in the resource rich artisanal mines in Katanga province, Democratic Republic of Congo. Mining in Congo is a centuries-old tradition whose rites, practices, and myths tie local communities to landscapes through the ancestral spirits that control these spaces. Officially, artisanal mining sites are State property established to create jobs for unemployed youth but, they are a barometer used by the State to covertly prospect for lucrative mineral sites that may attract foreign investment. The legitimacy of the State over the land though enshrined in the law not only conflicts with the interests of a majority of the population but it is often challenged by customary “chiefs” who can and do invoke the spirits in defense of their ancestral land. In the face of challenges mounted by the State and foreign investors local “chiefs” engage in spiritual tactics of sabotage, blockages, and disappearances of both people and property thereby hindering the work of foreign investors, State agents, and creuseurs – young men working as diggers. In outlining the influence of spirits, or, le deuxième monde, in mining sites in Congo I intend to complicate narratives of resource conflict in Africa which far to often fail to consider local cosmological spirits as actors that have the power to affect how resource extraction is organized, ordered, and controlled.

This paper is an attempt to understand why young men working as artisanal diggers or creseurs eng... more This paper is an attempt to understand why young men working as artisanal diggers or creseurs engage in displays of waste and excessive consumption in spite of the precarious nature of their material existence. My research based on ethnographic fieldwork among artisanal miners tries to go beyond recent scholarly approaches that view precarity in the lives of workers as merely a symptom or effect of a neoliberal social order. I show how economic uncertainty in the lives of youth working is sublimated in violent acts of indulgence and excess that depict the workings of the moral economic order underpinning artisanal mining in Katanga. Through an inquiry on the moral order of life in the mines I try trace how value is attributed to human life and social relations through exuberant displays of consumption in bars as well as in moments of crisis when the walls of the mines swallow miners. I view moments of ecstatic consumption and destructive loss as tournaments of value that serve to delimit the norms and ethics of social life in the lives marginalized youth.

Prior to the November 2011 elections in Congo, rumors of secession were circulating in the city o... more Prior to the November 2011 elections in Congo, rumors of secession were circulating in the city of Lubumbashi in Katanga. The often-heard analysis was that if the incumbent President, Joseph Kabila who is also Katangese, lost the elections, Katanga would secede. People in Katanga recall the tumultuous history of previously failed secession attempts and the November elections rehearsed secession through rumors thereby unearthing the painful past but also the fragile balance of power that now exists between Kinshasa and Lubumbashi. The November 2011 elections were only the second time that the Congolese have voted and for many residents in Katanga the elections were a means of reflecting on 50 years of independence as well as the contribution of Congolese State to its citizens. Rumors of secession were also entangled with questions of autochthony in mineral rich Katanga province as some residents viewed the elections as a way of wrestling back the wealth of Katanga from the hands of the State in Kinshasa. While these rumors highlighted the regional tensions between Kinshasa as a source of State power and Katanga as the economic base of the country, they also served to mask and silence the history of vitriolic ethnic tensions between Kasai and Katangese peoples in Katanga province. I argue that though rumors of secession in Katanga speak to the present political moment they are a means of regurgitating contested and contrasting claims of autochthony and belonging: who belongs to Katanga? And, who needs to be (a)part from/of the Congo Nation?

The Copperbelt of Congo was once the bastion of industrial development and the centre of an activ... more The Copperbelt of Congo was once the bastion of industrial development and the centre of an active labor movement in Central Africa. Today with the near collapse of State-run mining company GECAMINES (formerly Union Miniére du Haut Katanga), not only is there no significant labor movement but it has become increasingly difficult to even define “labor” given the various forms it has taken in post-industrial Congo. Through a focus on miners, who I argue have been the historical embodiment of modernity in Congo, I want to highlight some the paradoxes of Congolese history and the conceptual difficulties of speaking about labor in present day Katanga where the majority of miners (over 250,000) are no longer trained industrial workers but children and youth eking out a precarious living as creseurs or “artisanal diggers”. The phenomenon of cresage, as I view it is paradoxical. On the one hand it indexes the future as a flexible form of work produced in the enclaves of late capitalism in Africa but at the same time, its rudimentary organization of work and simple techniques of copper exploitation speaks of the pre-colonial past, of the times of “les mangeurs de cuivre” or the “copper eaters” of Katanga. Therefore, how can scholars understand labor in a context where the present generation of miners in Katanga (creseurs) has less in common with their 'fathers' (the industrial Fordist generation) than their 'grandfathers' (les mangeurs de cuivre)? My essay suggests that a historical look at miners in Katanga may offer scholars a means of re-conceptualizing labor in contexts where it has lost its reference to unionization and to Marxist forms of collective organization.

Papers by timothy makori

IPIS Research/Ulula , 2019

This report by the International Peace Information Service (IPIS) and Ulula analyzes the local co... more This report by the International Peace Information Service (IPIS) and Ulula analyzes the local contexts where due diligence programmes (DDPs)in artisanal mining operate and it presents baseline findings of the impact of these programmes on social, environmental and human rights indicators in eastern Congo in line with OECD guidelines on responsible supply chains—Annex II. Data was collected from a combination of field visits of mining sites and remote mobile phone panel surveys targeting people living in and around mining communities in eastern Congo.

Although illegal taxation by state services, interference by FARDC and child labour were observed less frequently in field surveys of DDP mines compared to non-DDP mines, our findings demonstrate that these abuses still occur in mines and mining zones which are covered by responsible sourcing programmes. Mobile surveys revealed that significant proportions of respondents in both DDP and non-DDP mining zones reported hearing of or personally experiencing illegal taxation, acts of violence, forced labour and child labour. Moreover, comparable proportions of respondents reported hearing about or experiencing accidents in mines (including fatal accidents), suggesting that precarious working conditions in artisanal small-scale mines remain a pressing issue. Although our study does not allow us to draw conclusions about causality, nor to compare accident incidence in DDP zones versus non-DDP zones, it clearly suggests that safety and human rights dynamics in artisanal mines need to improve in both due
diligence and non-due diligence zones.

This article looks at narratives of economic decline among two generations of mineworkers in Kata... more This article looks at narratives of economic decline among two generations of mineworkers in Katanga province, DR Congo: the pensioners of the industrial mining giant, Gécamines, and creuseurs, young men working as artisanal diggers. The author analyzes the “structures of feeling” informing the lives of individuals in these two generations of mineworkers as each deals with the material and social effects of industrial decline and the subsequent liberalization of the mining sector in Congo. He shows that the shared thoughts and sentiments of contemporary decline reflect how individuals in each mineworker generation experience their social emplacement and “entanglement in time”. Based on his informants’ narratives of marginalization that come in the wake of the liberalization of mining sector, the author argues that social decline in Congo confounds the strict scholarly framings of periodicity that foreground rupture – rather than continuity – between the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial eras.

Politique Africaine Numero 131, Nov 25, 2013

FRENCH Abstract Cet article se penche sur les récits du déclin économique que portent deux génér... more FRENCH Abstract
Cet article se penche sur les récits du déclin économique que portent deux générations de mineurs au Katanga, en République démocratique du Congo : les retraités du géant industriel minier Gécamines et les jeunes creuseurs artisanaux. Sont analysées les « structures de sentiment » (Raymond Williams) qui caractérisent chacune de ces générations, toutes deux confrontées aux effets matériels et sociaux du déclin industriel et de la libéralisation du secteur minier qui s’en est suivie. Par ces sentiments partagés du déclin contemporain, on voit comment chaque génération vit son positionnement social et son enchevêtrement « dans le temps naissant » (Achille Mbembe). Basé sur les récits des mineurs interrogés quant à leur marginalisation dans ce contexte de libéralisation du secteur, ce travail vient brouiller les périodisations académiques qui privilégient les ruptures au détriment des continuités, entre ères précoloniale, coloniale et postcoloniale.

ENGLISH Abstract

This article looks at narratives of economic decline among two generations of mineworkers in Katanga province, DR Congo : the pensioners of the industrial mining giant, Gécamines, and creuseurs, young men working as artisanal diggers. The author analyzes the “structures of feeling” informing the lives of individuals in these two generations of mineworkers as each deals with the material and social effects of industrial decline and the subsequent liberalization of the mining sector in Congo. He shows that the shared thoughts and sentiments of contemporary decline reflect how individuals in each mineworker generation experience their social emplacement and “entanglement in time” (Achille Mbembe). Based on his informants’narratives of marginalization that come in the wake of the liberalization of mining sector, the author argues that social decline in Congo confounds the strict scholarly framings of periodicity that foreground rupture – rather than continuity – between the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial eras.

We Have a Voice: An Anthology of African and Caribbean Student Writing in British Columbia, 2006