Ben Radley

University of Bath | UB · Department of Social and Policy Sciences

In this paper, we seek to understand how the rapid expansion of off-grid solar energy across the global South since the turn of the century is influencing local and national processes of economic development. We do so through a systematic review of 125 papers published between 2001 and 2020 that provide much evidence and understanding on the topic....

The COVID‐19 pandemic motivated calls for the field of development studies to be recast. This article analyses two prominent, future‐gazing ‘pandemic papers’ to illustrate salient features of the ascendant trend towards a new ‘global development’ paradigm. By unpacking and interpreting major lines of reasoning put forward by two agenda‐setting arti...

In South Kivu Province of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the use of new technologies in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) has proliferated over the course of the last decade. Based on a case study of ASGM mechanisation in the major mining town of Kamituga, we investigate the economic impact of this process on the productiv...

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is undergoing rapid and profound changes, moving from a predominantly manual to a more heavily mechanised form of production. The articles in this special issue collectively aim to understand these recent transformations and their impact on labour, productivity, taxatio...

To date, the expansive social science literature on artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in Africa has received little attention from scholars of agrarian political economy. This paper attempts to bridge this gap, based on an in-depth study of ASM in South Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The main argument is that the capita...

The analytical framework deployed by the extensive global value chain (GVC) literature on African mining fails to consider how and from whom value is transferred within the process of establishing foreign corporate-led mining GVCs, and with what consequences. The authors explore these questions through a case study of the gold value chain in the De...

Africa‐focused global value chain (GVC) scholars argue that the new mining industry practice of corporate outsourcing invalidates the traditional enclave thesis by providing new opportunities to support domestic firms and stimulate industrialization. However, this literature has clustered around Africa's middle‐ and high‐income countries and its an...

Across low–income African countries, a process of foreign–controlled mining (re)industrialisation has been underway since the 1980s, gathering pace during the most recent decade. This paper aims to shed light on the long–term effects of this process on the strength and vibrancy of local mining economies. It does so through the analysis of original...

Policy coordination is needed for global supply chains

Numerous initiatives are currently trying to reform eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) ill-reputed artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector through formalisation, traceability, and certification of the region's trade in tantalum, tin, and tungsten (3T). While this ethically driven impetus derives from consumer pressure following...

Bilsen Kristof , director. Elephant’s Dream. 2014. 71 minutes. Lingala, French (with English, French, or Dutch subtitles). Democratic Republic of the Congo. Dalton Distribution. €15.00. - Volume 60 Issue 1 - Ben Radley

The artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is currently undergoing rapid reform of its governance structure as a result of multiple national, regional and international policies and initiatives designed to sever the direct link between minerals and conflict in the region. We briefly revie...

This article aims to assess, on the basis of empirical evidence from South Kivu, what the future may hold for artisanal mining in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The eastern Congolese mining sector is undergoing a period of profound change. Industrial exploitation, while still nascent in the Kivu provinces, appears poised to expand...