Bolay, Matthieu
From networks to supply chains: Moral economies and performances of morality in the gold trade in Mali Post-2012
- 2022.
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This article examines recent reorganisations in the gold trade in Mali (in Bamako) in the light of the competition between buying houses (comptoirs) and newly-established refineries for the acquisition and export of gold from artisanal mines in a context of political crisis. The contrasting strategies of the comptoirs, which rely on complex networks of support and dependency, and the refineries, which claim to be part of the movement of so-called “responsible” supply chains, shed light on the issues surrounding the reappropriation of the rhetoric of responsible trade. The article also highlights the two strategies from the standpoint of the gold rush that is currently taking place in the north of the country in areas administered by different “rebel” factions. It thus raises the question of the inevitably problematic integration of the gold arriving from this gold rush into the trading channels in Bamako, thereby pointing up certain ambiguities in Mali’s mining policy, particularly with regard to the northern regions of the country.