Making Artisanal Gold Miners ‘Investable’ - A Novel Means of ‘Improving’ Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining? A neoliberal eco-governmentality analysis of ‘responsible’ artisanal and small-scale gold mining: the case of the Lake Victoria Gold Programme in Mi

Abstract: Objectives: Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) - a labour-intensive and low-tech mode of minerals extraction and processing - has received increasing attention amidst global commodity booms and its concurrent expansion. Infamously associated with negative social and environmental impacts, responsible mining initiatives have emerged to promote, measure, and enforce sustainable mining practices for ASM. The Impact Facility’s (TIF) Lake Victoria Gold Programme (LVGP) is one such initiative, taking a ‘novel’ business-led and incentives-based approach to Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) in Migori County, Kenya. This study investigates the governance strategy of the LVGP through the theoretical framework of neoliberal eco-governmentality to explore dominating, interacting, and diverging narratives between stakeholders that underpin, undermine, and justify programme interventions. The thesis, therefore, offers new, timely and critical insights into one of the latest attempts to ‘improve’ the ASM sector. Method: A qualitative case study research design has been adopted to explore the perceptions and narratives of different stakeholders in relation to the LVGP, including investors, programme implementers, and artisanal miners in Migori County, Kenya. It is based on 24 semi-structured interviews, 53 survey responses, and participant observation. Main findings: The findings suggest that TIF’s LVGP is rationalised and justified by investors and programme implementers to actively attempt to reshape the practices of miners to become and remain ‘investable’ by being ‘productive’ and ‘responsible’. It demonstrates a co-emergence of certain defined problems and technical solutions, offering a ‘techno-finance fix’ to leverage compliance to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) improvements of miners. Miners, on the other hand, point to a variety of complex structural, political, issues - beyond the mere ‘technical space’ of the LVGP - that persistently undermine their ‘ability to self-improve’.