Digging for Diamonds, Wielding New Words: A Linguistic Perspective on Zimbabwe's ‘Blood Diamonds’

Nyota, Shumirai; Sibanda, Fortune

doi:10.1080/03057070.2012.656436

Cited by 31 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…The study's analysis suggested that multinational corporate power, "fair trade" commoditization, and technocratic development ideology inter-related with authoritarian state control tactics during a period of instability in ways that exacerbated the marginalization of poor communities. This study's analytic approach to understand conflict in Marange also builds upon Le Billon's concern about the risk of "essentialising and depoliticizing violence" (Le Billon, 2012, p. 87) and the work of Nyota and Sibanda (2012), who draw attention to the displacement of villagers that occurred when large-scale mining companies were awarded contracts for this region's diamond rights. Physical acts of human rights abuses by military soldiers in Marange were the most widely reported problem cited in international human rights NGO reports after the end of 2008, but this study has sought to re-conceptualise the Marange saga by reconfiguring analytic focus on the rights of artisanal miners and marginalized communities to pursue their livelihoods.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contested diamond certification: Reconfiguring global and national interests in Zimbabwe’s Marange fields

Spiegel

2015

Geoforum

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This study examines the political uses of "conflict diamond" discourse in global debates about commodity certification and socially responsible mining in Zimbabwe. Engaging critical literature on "conflict-free" corporate branding initiatives, the study focuses on representations of conflict in Marange, in Zimbabwe's eastern highlands. In 2006, a diamond rush in Marange drew in tens of thousands of artisanal miners from across Zimbabwe as well as foreigners, and the government initiated military crackdowns in 2008. In a highly contested vote in 2009, the international government delegates who comprised the voting members in the Kimberley Process Certification System (KPCS) ruled that conflict in Marange did not meet the KPCS definitions of "conflict diamond." The study examines discourses of key stakeholders in the multinational diamond industry, human rights organizations, policymakers as well as artisanal miners in Zimbabwe between 2006 and 2014. The article argues that advocacies against diamond certification as well as advocacies favouring certification both tended to overlook the interests of artisanal miners, focusing narrowly on certain forms of conflict while associating artisanal mining with illicitness. The Marange case illustrates how conventional discourses on "conflict diamonds" not only obscure the complex nature of conflicts in contemporary capitalist accumulation processes; they also risk contributing to new forms of structural violence. This analysis highlights the need to pay careful attention to how global commodity certification discourses interrelate with political agendas at multiple scales. The study draws attention to dilemmas for geographers when portraying the interests of marginalized groups in-and affected by-the diamond mining sector.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contested diamond certification: Reconfiguring global and national interests in Zimbabwe’s Marange fields

Spiegel

2015

Geoforum

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“…Billon's concern about the risk of "essentialising and depoliticizing violence" (Le Billon, 2012, p. 87) and the work of Nyota and Sibanda (2012), who draw attention to the displacement of villagers that occurred when large-scale mining companies were awarded contracts for this region's diamond rights. Physical acts of human rights abuses by military soldiers in Marange were the most widely reported problem cited in international human rights NGO reports after the end of 2008, but this study has sought to re-conceptualise the Marange saga by reconfiguring analytic focus on the rights of artisanal miners and marginalized communities to pursue their livelihoods.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contested Diamond Certification: Reconfiguring Global and National Interests in Zimbabwe’s Marange Fields

Spiegel

2014

The Global Diamond Industry

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Abstract:This study examines the political uses of "conflict diamond" discourse in global debates about commodity certification and socially responsible mining in Zimbabwe. Engaging critical literature on "conflict-free" corporate branding initiatives, the study focuses on representations of conflict in Marange, in Zimbabwe's eastern highlands. In 2006, a diamond rush in Marange drew in tens of thousands of artisanal miners from across Zimbabwe as well as foreigners, and the government initiated military crackdowns in 2008. In a highly contested vote in 2009, the international government delegates who comprised the voting members in the Kimberley Process Certification System (KPCS) ruled that conflict in Marange did not meet the KPCS definitions of "conflict diamond." The study examines discourses of key stakeholders in the multinational diamond industry, human rights organizations, policymakers as well as artisanal miners in Zimbabwe between 2006 and 2014. The article argues that advocacies against diamond certification as well as advocacies favouring certification both tended to overlook the interests of artisanal miners, focusing narrowly on certain forms of conflict while associating artisanal mining with illicitness. The Marange case illustrates how conventional discourses on "conflict diamonds" not only obscure the complex nature of conflicts in contemporary capitalist accumulation processes; they also risk contributing to new forms of structural violence. This analysis highlights the need to pay careful attention to how global commodity certification discourses inter-relate with political agendas at multiple scales. The study draws attention to dilemmas for geographers when portraying the interests of marginalized groups in -and affected by -the diamond mining sector.

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“…A number of studies have analyzed Zimbabwe's economic decline from different economic sectors [2][3][4][5][6][7][8], while very few of them have provided spatial information, so that the picture of the economic decline is unclear to international community. In fact, the spatial information of the economic decline can help to understand the effect of FTLRP on different regions of Zimbabwe.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to excessive government spending, corruption and political oppression, the FTLRP was an important contributing factor to a decade of economic decline. A number of studies have been conducted on economic issues in Zimbabwe, including international trade [2], agriculture [3][4][5], mining [6], manufacturing [7] and the culture industry [8].…”

Section: The Decadal Economic Decline In Zimbabwementioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting Zimbabwe’s Decadal Economic Decline Using Nighttime Light Imagery

Liu

Chen

2013

Remote Sensing

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Zimbabwe's economy declined between 2000 and 2009. This study detects the economic decline in different regions of Zimbabwe using nighttime light imagery from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS). We found a good correlation (coefficient = 0.7361) between Zimbabwe's total nighttime light (TNL) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the period 1992 to 2009. Therefore, TNL was used as an indicator of regional economic conditions in Zimbabwe. Nighttime light imagery from 2000 and 2008 was compared at both national and regional scales for four types of regions. At the national scale, we found that nighttime light in more than half of the lit area decreased between 2000 and 2008. Moreover, within the four region types (inland mining towns, inland agricultural towns, border towns and cities) we determined that the mining and agricultural sectors experienced the most severe economic decline. Some of these findings were validated by economic survey data, proving that the nighttime light data is a potential data source for detecting the economic decline in Zimbabwe.

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Digging for Diamonds, Wielding New Words: A Linguistic Perspective on Zimbabwe's ‘Blood Diamonds’

Cited by 31 publications

References 0 publications

Contested diamond certification: Reconfiguring global and national interests in Zimbabwe’s Marange fields

Contested diamond certification: Reconfiguring global and national interests in Zimbabwe’s Marange fields

Contested Diamond Certification: Reconfiguring Global and National Interests in Zimbabwe’s Marange Fields

Detecting Zimbabwe’s Decadal Economic Decline Using Nighttime Light Imagery

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