Fried eggs and all-women gangs: the geopolitics of Chinese gold mining in Ghana, bodily vulnerability, and resistance

Abstract

Between 2008 and 2016, more than 50,000 Chinese citizens migrated to Ghana to mine gold on small-scale concessions. This is particularly surprising given that small-scale mining is an activity reserved for Ghanaian citizens. Foreign gold mining is mediated by various intersecting political economic and geopolitical shifts, including unprecedented gold demand, economic crisis, and informal conditions to Chinese loans. Based on long-term, mixed-methods fieldwork, and drawing from feminist geopolitics research, we argue Ghana’s recent gold rush portends gendered implications for bodies in rural areas. We center our discussion on bodies to demonstrate the ways extractive practices increase vulnerability among women and children, including teen pregnancy and mercury exposure. Yet, women also contest foreign mining and its myriad implications (e.g., refusing to sell land and entering sites while menstruating despite being “forbidden” to do so). A feminist geopolitics perspective allows the tracing of specific political economic processes (Chinese monetary policies, informal loan conditions) to other sites (Pokukrom, the pregnant teen), thereby enabling a clearer understanding of how supportive interventions might occur.