Rights statement: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Andrew Bowman, Tomas Frederiksen, Deborah Fahy Bryceson, John Childs, Emma Gilberthorpe, Susan Newman (2021), Mining in Africa after the supercycle: New directions and geographies. Area. doi: 10.1111/area.12723 which has been published in final form at https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/area.12723 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
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Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Mining in Africa after the supercycle
T2 - New directions and geographies
AU - Bowman, Andrew
AU - Frederiksen, Tomas
AU - Bryceson, Deborah
AU - Childs, John
AU - Gilberthorpe, Emma
AU - Newman, Susan
N1 - This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Andrew Bowman, Tomas Frederiksen, Deborah Fahy Bryceson, John Childs, Emma Gilberthorpe, Susan Newman (2021), Mining in Africa after the supercycle: New directions and geographies. Area. doi: 10.1111/area.12723 which has been published in final form at https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/area.12723 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
PY - 2021/12/31
Y1 - 2021/12/31
N2 - Mining in Africa is at a pivotal moment. For most of the period 2000 to 2012, the extractive industries were in a ‘supercycle’ of sustained high commodity prices. Driven by resource‐intensive growth in emerging market economies, prices were anticipated to continue for decades to come. However, this ‘supercycle’ ended in 2012 and there followed a severe slump in mineral prices from 2014 onwards. On the one hand, a new era of commodity market dynamics has begun, with changing patterns of economic activity, minerals governance, and environmental regulation. On the other hand, the end of the supercycle has continued or intensified pre‐existing trends towards mechanisation, automation, and enclavity while distributive pressures on companies by local communities and host nations increases. We argue that the end of the supercycle has reconfigured the geographies of extraction in ways that are not yet reflected in existing research nor taken into consideration in policy implementation, particularly around corporate strategy, state‐business relations and models for mineral‐based development strategies. In this paper we map the terrain of research on the supercycle in Africa and identify emerging post‐supercycle trends ‐ some of which have overtaken research. The paper is structured around examining four themes: (1) new geographies of investment and extraction, (2) new geographies of struggle, (3) national minerals‐based development and (4) labour and livelihoods, for which we identify key trends during the supercycle and post‐supercycle and areas for future research and policy development.
AB - Mining in Africa is at a pivotal moment. For most of the period 2000 to 2012, the extractive industries were in a ‘supercycle’ of sustained high commodity prices. Driven by resource‐intensive growth in emerging market economies, prices were anticipated to continue for decades to come. However, this ‘supercycle’ ended in 2012 and there followed a severe slump in mineral prices from 2014 onwards. On the one hand, a new era of commodity market dynamics has begun, with changing patterns of economic activity, minerals governance, and environmental regulation. On the other hand, the end of the supercycle has continued or intensified pre‐existing trends towards mechanisation, automation, and enclavity while distributive pressures on companies by local communities and host nations increases. We argue that the end of the supercycle has reconfigured the geographies of extraction in ways that are not yet reflected in existing research nor taken into consideration in policy implementation, particularly around corporate strategy, state‐business relations and models for mineral‐based development strategies. In this paper we map the terrain of research on the supercycle in Africa and identify emerging post‐supercycle trends ‐ some of which have overtaken research. The paper is structured around examining four themes: (1) new geographies of investment and extraction, (2) new geographies of struggle, (3) national minerals‐based development and (4) labour and livelihoods, for which we identify key trends during the supercycle and post‐supercycle and areas for future research and policy development.
KW - Africa
KW - Critical Review
KW - Development
KW - Mining
KW - Supercycle
U2 - 10.1111/area.12723
DO - 10.1111/area.12723
M3 - Journal article
VL - 53
SP - 647
EP - 658
JO - Area
JF - Area
SN - 0004-0894
IS - 4
ER -