SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human

The Purification of Gold—and the Racialization of Miners


Listen Later

The gold industry, alongside nation-states, has marginalized the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector for decades, but now things seem to be changing. The industry has realized that engaging with the ASM sector could be more beneficial for their reputation than excluding it. While once ASM was viewed as a risk, now it is seen as an opportunity.

Anthropologist Giselle Figueroa de la Ossa spent more than 20 months studying the gold value chain and the actors involved in it. In this episode, she explores this recent shift around ASM and its unintended consequences.

Giselle Figueroa de la Ossa is a Colombian anthropologist and a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the London School of Economics. Her research explores the labor, ethics, and affects that make gold a valuable substance demanded by the tonnes. She draws from her multifaceted ethnographic research among bureaucrats, technocrats, and entrepreneurs who work on a gold mineral traceability project in Colombia and financiers who work on responsible gold sourcing in London, Switzerland, and Paris. . She is the founding director of the Laboratorio de Antropología Abierta (Open Anthropology Lab), an organization in Colombia that, since 2018, produces audiovisual content for nonacademic audiences to increase the impact of academic research.

Check out these related resources:

  • La codicia detrás del comercio internacional del oro” (“The Greed Behind the International Gold Trade”)
  • OECD Due Diligence Guidance
  • London Bullion Market Association
  • World Gold Council
  • Alliance for Responsible Mining
  • Open Anthropology Lab
  • *

    SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by Written In Air. The executive producers are Dennis Funk and Chip Colwell. This season’s host is Eshe Lewis, who is also the director of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program. Production and mix support are provided by Rebecca Nolan. Christine Weeber is the copy editor. 

    SAPIENS is an editorially independent magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the University of Chicago Press. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library

    This episode is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program, which provides in-depth training for anthropologists in the craft of science communication and public scholarship, funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store

    SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything HumanBy SAPIENS

    • 4.8
    • 4.8
    • 4.8
    • 4.8
    • 4.8

    4.8

    199 ratings


    More shows like SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human

    View all
    Science Friday by Science Friday and WNYC Studios

    Science Friday

    6,097 Listeners

    On the Media by WNYC Studios

    On the Media

    9,121 Listeners

    Radiolab by WNYC Studios

    Radiolab

    43,909 Listeners

    This American Life by This American Life

    This American Life

    90,830 Listeners

    99% Invisible by Roman Mars

    99% Invisible

    26,137 Listeners

    History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps by Peter Adamson

    History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

    1,587 Listeners

    To The Best Of Our Knowledge by Wisconsin Public Radio

    To The Best Of Our Knowledge

    929 Listeners

    New Books in Critical Theory by Marshall Poe

    New Books in Critical Theory

    143 Listeners

    Philosophize This! by Stephen West

    Philosophize This!

    15,063 Listeners

    Gastropod by Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

    Gastropod

    3,604 Listeners

    Invisibilia by NPR

    Invisibilia

    21,655 Listeners

    Origin Stories by The Leakey Foundation

    Origin Stories

    472 Listeners

    Code Switch by NPR

    Code Switch

    14,537 Listeners

    Ologies with Alie Ward by Alie Ward

    Ologies with Alie Ward

    23,668 Listeners

    Throughline by NPR

    Throughline

    15,977 Listeners