Gold mining at the Falémé in Senegal
Both artisanal and industrial gold mining in South-eastern Senegal, mainly in the region of Kédougou, lead to a contanimation of the Falémé river with toxic chemicals. The river constitutes the population's most important and only natural sweet water source which is why people largely depend on it for their their everyday life - or more drastically said, for surviving. Long established subsistence forms, cultural identities and social mechanisms are endangered by the accumulation of toxic chemicals in the Falémé. Despite the striking ecological impact and risks for human and animal health, there are different and competing representations of the environmental degradation of the Falémé, largely depending on whether the people benefit from the degradation's cause or not. These representations are, among others, formulated in cosmological and moral assessments that simultaneously demonstrate and inform different understandings of pollution and humanenvironment relations. The aim of this research project is thus to explore how people respond to the increasing chemical contamination of the Falémé and which normative resources and discursive framings they draw on to make sense of it.
