Artisanal and small-scale mining in Western Kenya: Between Local Dynamics and Cross-Border Dynamics

This article highlights the specificity of Kakamega County - Western Kenya - in the context of the new gold rushes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although Kakamega County shares borders with Tanzania and Uganda, it is characterized by national and local dynamics very specific to Kenya regarding indigenousness and access to the gold resource. The rise of artisanal gold mining since 2017 has been driven by local residents living on private land. Only techniques, tools and gold seem to cross borders and inscribe this artisanal gold mining area in cross -border dynamics. This article is a continuation of the research conducted on new gold rushes and, more broadly, artisanal mining activities in Sub-Saharan Africa since the early 2000s, both in the Francophone scientific sphere (Gr broken vertical bar tz, 2004; Dessertine, 2016; Gregoire and Gagnol, 2017; Chevrillon-Guibert, Gagnol, Magrin, 2019; Bolay, 2021) and in the Anglophone sphere (Hinton, Veiga, 2003; Siegel and Vega, 2009; Hilson, 2013; Hilson and McQuilken, 2014; Verbrugge and Geenen, 2018). The novelty of this study work lies in its unique field of study compared to the usual areas impacted by gold rushes. Western Kenya is a densely populated region and not an uncontrolled desert periphery as in some parts of West Africa or the Sahelo-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, limited academic research has focused to date on Western Kenya, and specifically Kakamega County. Beyond mining activity itself, this article examines the dynamics of transborder movements of objects and techniques associated with artisanal mining. The methodology of this study is inspired by Armelle Choplin's work in West Africa on the journey of cement (Choplin, 2019) by following the path of objects destined for artisanal miners. Additionally, recent works by Matthieu Bolay and Yvan Schulz (Bolay, Schulz, 2022) help examine the gold sale circuits in Kenya within transnational dynamics, uncovering links with Switzerland and Dubai. This research primarily relies on qualitative surveys conducted between 2022 and 2023. The initial surveys consisted of directive interviews with about ten questions each, aimed at understanding the profile of artisanal miners in Kakamega County. This first series included 100 directive interviews, 39 with women and 61 with men. The second part of the qualitative survey, conducted in 2023, is based on 33 semi -directive qualitative interviews with both artisanal miners and institutional actors, such as the Ministry of Petroleum and Mines. Finally, photography was used to further analytically explore artisanal mining practices and the circulation of techniques and objects related to gold panning and mining.