Business for peace? The ambiguous role of ‘ethical’ mining companies

El emprendimiento rural en la construcción de paz: análisis de la (des)articulación en el Valle del Cauca, Colombia

“…La literatura académica que discute las prácticas orientadas a la consolidación de la paz en los escenarios de posconflicto registra al emprendimiento como una de ellas (Sanders y Weitzel, 2013; Yoosuf y Premaratne, 2017). Como se ha mencionado, entre los pilares del posconflicto se encuentra el bienestar social y económico, en el que se circunscribe el emprendimiento como apuesta de desarrollo económico, para afrontar las condiciones de vulnerabilidad, pobreza y las escasas oportunidades de empleo y crecimiento económico (Desai, 2011;Ghimire y Upreti, 2014Hönke, 2014Maconachie, 2016;Penh, 2009). Los emprendimientos no solo permiten la generación de ingresos, sino que, además, pueden ser prácticas constructoras de tejido social e involucrar a diversos actores, reconociendo sus conocimientos, capacidades institucionales e intereses particulares (Ghimire y Upreti, 2014;Katsos y Forrer, 2014;Oetzel et al, 2010).…”

Explaining fragmented and fluid mobilization in gold mining concessions in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

“…The company takes for instance limited initiatives to prevent or follow up on incidents by the Congolese police staff that it contracts, like pressing for changing abusive units. To secure its installations, Banro contracts units of the PNC (Congolese police) and private security contractors (at present G4S) (Hönke, 2014). While these contractors are charged with conducting human rights training to ensure the correct behavior of Congolese security staff, the training is reported to be of low quality.…”

Débrouillardise: certifying ‘conflict-free’ minerals in a context of regulatory pluralism in South Kivu, DR Congo

“…In addition, the mining sites are not only governed by state institutions, as statutory law would have it, but also by the mining companies (cf. Hönke 2014) and customary authorities. Banro, for instance, was part of a mixed mission with state institutions in late 2011 that sought to determine which artisanal mining sites in South Kivu were within the perimeters of its concession areas and which were not.…”

“…While industrial mining was certainly not immune to the financing of armed groups in the Congo wars (Geenen et al . 2013: 13–16; Hönke 2014), efforts to establish clean supply chains within the DRC focus on the artisanal mining sector. Industrial companies like Banro do not use intermediates to have their gold smelted and exported and therefore did not seem open in 2011 to take part in ‘conflict-free’ certification efforts (BGR 2011 int.…”