Sandra McKay and Dr. Rebecca Hall have co-published a new paper, "Gold as something to be proud of? Contradictions of ethical consumerism in artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Latin America," in Third World Quarterly.
This article analyzes how Latin American artisanal and small-scale gold mining is represented in a responsible sourcing certification program. It shows the contradictions in the language and images used in online campaigns of "ethical gold," as these reproduce gendered and racialized stereotypes and commodify development stories. The paper argues that these images reproduce a harmful dichotomy of "good" versus "bad" mining, whereby "good artisanal mining" is defined and policed by Western consumers and expert-outsiders, which makes invisible the existing efforts of artisanal miners to manage their own resources and contribute to local development.
Sandra McKay is a PhD candidate in the Department of Global Development Studies at Queen’s University working under the supervision of Dr. Rebecca Hall. Sandra studies the relationship between resource extraction and global development. Her doctoral research focuses on the extraction, transport, and trade of minerals extracted by artisanal and small-scale copper and gold miners in Peru, her home country.
This article is based on Sandra's term paper for Dr. Reena Kukreja's course DEVS 802: Cultural Politics of Development.
The article is available to read on the .
Full reference: McKay, S., & Hall, R. (2025). Gold as something to be proud of? Contradictions of ethical consumerism in artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Latin America. Third World Quarterly, 1–20. doi: 10.1080/01436597.2025.2544337.