Talk:Artisanal mining

Wildcat?
Is artisanal miner a newer/more PC term for a wildcat miner? If not, how are they different? Wildcat mining seems like a term worth mentioning in this article.Plantdrew (talk) 19:13, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Wildcat mining only refers to illegal mining. Artisanal mining is a much broader term and spans from communities involved permanently or seasonally in mineral extraction as their livelihood, "rush-type" (e.g. gold rushes) to "shock-push" (people pushed into this activity by economic or natural shocks) situations. Artisanal miners may be part of the informal sector (as many countries lack a legal framework for this activity) or may be organized in formal and fully legal entities (e.g. artisanal mining cooperatives). Artisanal mining is mining done in an artisanal way, which means mainly by manual work; it therefore compares to industrialized mining like a taylor to a textile factory. Felwo (talk) 20:12, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

nonsensical..
"Artisanal miners often undertake the activity of mining seasonally – for example crops are planted in the rainy season, and mining is pursued in the dry season."

Since when can you plant minerals to mine them later?

Either this is incorrect or a very poor example. Or both. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.197.76 (talk) 18:31, 18 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Just linked crop to clarify for you (and p'raps others). Vsmith (talk) 00:11, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * i assume it means there's less money/less work to do with crops in the dry season, so farmers switch to mining in order to mitigate the dip in income Wormsofbarlo (talk) 17:50, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Artisanal is not small scale miner
Artisanal mining and small scale mining are not same thing. By having Wikipedia show this as equivalent is misleading. "artisanal miner or small-scale miner" -- this is incorrect. I have seen other people using this terminology in equivalent manner, but I disagree. My experience tell me following:


 * Small scale miner is often artisanal miner
 * Artisanal mining may easily grow into medium scale mining, so artisanal is not equivalent to "small scale"
 * Artisanal miners may produce, when well organized, equivalent gold output just as some foreign non-artisanal companies
 * Artisan is a skilled worker who practices some trade or handicraft, or who practices some liberal art, hand work.
 * People who come from foreign countries to Africa are by their origin, and methods, not considered "artisanal", but they often work in not more than small scale mining activity.
 * There is difference in artisanal mining and small scale mining. The "artisanal mining" refers to methods used. The "small scale" refers to organization, size, output, and method is of less importance. One can have best technological method, but is still "small scale" if there are just few people employed, and gold output is not as large.

I am asking editors to make a distinction and new pages "Artisanal mining" in distinction to "Small scale mining".

Reference
Reference to definitions in Burkina Faso

Further, the articles is generalized. "They are not officially employed" -- while this may be true by some percentage, there is no reference to accurate information and there never will be. I have seen artisanal miners in Tanzania, all having legal papers for work they do.

I did not see any "seasonal mining" in Tanzania.

I see the violence on 2nd heading of content list on the article. There are too many inconsistencies and generalizations that I get bad feelings when reading it. Rcdrun (talk) 12:01, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Basis for maintaining "Artisanal" and "Small Scale" terms in one article
Most literature sources use the terms "artisanal" and "small scale" in combination to describe this type of mining (abbreviated to "ASM"), and I am not aware of any widely accepted definition of a large distinction between the meanings of the two terms. If there are sources that attempt to define a distinction I believe it would be best to cover those efforts in this article rather than try to create separate articles on terms that are used so interchangeably. DiligentDavidG (talk) 14:27, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

One has to understand what is small scale and what is artisanal
To understand what is small scale one need to clarify those words. Scale is size referred to something. Not the method. Artisanal refers to methods used. Not to size. One reference is small business in United States: Small business in comparison to Medium Business.

Small scale refers to size, and article cannot make this equivalent. It is simply not equivalent to artisanal mining. Small scale refer to size of company, to income of the company, to number of machines used, gold production output and importance and size of mining area. In the small scale mining one may certainly use shovels and excavators. But if traditional methods are used such as wooden pole instead of shovel, such as small Testio (Swahili) to find gold, instead of modern Gold pan than it becomes "Artisanal".

In many literature sources there are mistakes.

And there are many that correctly refer to Artisanal and Small Scale Mining. Not with OR. One source: Artisanal and Small Scale Policies

Another source that correctly refers to artisanal AND small scale: AND

I find neither of them are correct, but are more correct than Wikipedia article.

When one refers to that what is explained on this article, one shall refer to "Artisanal small scale mining" without "OR" or "AND" between. Artisanal is certainly not always "small" like one thinks. There can be as well 500 people on the mining site working at same time and each of them paying the royalties. That is not "small", but it is artisanal if they produce with traditional methods.

While small scale mining refers to sizes of various factors, and if no traditional methods are used, it is not artisanal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rcdrun (talk • contribs) 15:27, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Artisanal urban minuing
The term Urban mining is becoming adopted as a new name for recycling. Then it follows on that Artisanal Urban Mining can be a new name for waste picking or small scale recycling.

Is there any difference between collecting material for recycling and the process of recycling. If collecting is just the first stage of recycling then waste picking is definitely recycling — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sherbert- (talk • contribs) 12:35, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Prospecting
I wish the article explained why the famous American prospectors of the 1800s weren't artisanal miners.
 * I don't know that they weren't, but this article seems to focus almost exclusively on current activities in the Third World. Clearly this sort of mining has been practiced for millennia all over the world, but there seems to be little history. Mentioning some mining organizations seems to contradict the idea that this activity is not organized. "Artisanal and small-scale mining, or ASM, is a largely informal economic sector..." -- https://www.pactworld.org/our-expertise/mining

Now I know what to call the way my brother lived for several years, though. He had a little cabin on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California, and he would go out, sometimes for a couple of weeks, and hunt for gold. When he had enough, he would return to the cabin where his girlfriend waited, sell the gold at a local assayer, and then prepare his next expedition. Since he is more than six-and-a-half feet tall with a large frame, bearded and hairy, he was probably responsible for some Bigfoot sightings. Next time I talk to him, I'll tell him he was an "artisanal miner." Wastrel Way (talk) Eric

cynical title, change would be warranted
it's a shady business, and i fear using a term like "artisinal" paints an unnecessarily flowery image of the topic. "artisinal mining" is also not one i've seen commonly associated with such things. considering the biased/strained language that attempts to paint over any inequalities of the field, i'd say a change in terminology would help with impartiality. Wormsofbarlo (talk) 17:53, 27 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Apparently "artisanal mining" is actually the legitimate term for illegal mining in the economics space. All articles I have found in academic journals have used this terminology. TJSGear (talk) 19:48, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Environmental Injustice and Justice in African History
— Assignment last updated by TJSGear (talk) 16:56, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Reorganization
Hi Wikipedians! I'm TJSGear and I'm a college student editing this article for my course (see above). I've made some significant changes to this article, including:

- Generally reorganizing the article to group sections by topic.

- Standardizing the definition of ASM (original article used the acronym for both miners and the mining process. For the most part, from my research, it seems to be a blanket term that lumps together both artisanal/illegal and small-scale legal mining.

- Adding many countries to the "country-specific" section that were omitted

- Adding citations to many sections that originally didn't have them.

- Adding an "economic output" section

- Removing redundant wording

- Removing inaccurate sources (including one from 1909!)

- Adding subsections on "child labor," "organized crime and militancy," and "HIV/AIDS and prostitution to the "issues" section.

- Adding context and citations to the South Africa section

- Adding Main article template links

If you'd like a full list of my changes, check the history or reply to this post.

TJSGear (talk) 19:55, 28 April 2024 (UTC)