Accumulation by Dispossession and Displacement: Some Reflections from Epanko Mines in Tanzania

This book is a result of a Master of Arts (Sociology) study that intended to explore, using the Materialist Political Economy approach, the social processes and social relations which have been at work and are the ones responsible for the impoverishment and marginalization of the artisanal and small-scale miners at Epanko village in Tanzania. Qualitative and quantitative research findings revealed that the miners' mineral rights are unsecured and they have no security in their lives following threats to be dispossessed and displaced and it explains the abysmal living conditions of the same. The social implications of the processes of accumulation by dispossession and displacement are outlined in this study. The study concludes that the artisanal and small-scale miners are subjected to dispossession and displacement because of the existing social processes and social relations. A nationalist Tanzanian state is recommended by the study to empower the local miners at the expense of the mining companies which dominates the territorial economy. The book is recommended to the academics in social and environmental sciences and to policy makers and implementers.