By Anam Raheel
LA&PS Professors received more than $2 million in 2020 Insight Grants from SSHRC. Keep reading the #LAPSInsightOut series to learn more about the amazing research happening in our Faculty.
After being in Zimbabwe during a major discovery of diamonds, and subsequently investigating the emergence of resource-fueled violence amid the chaotic interventions of government, Professor Richard Saunders has spent the past decade researching Africa’s rapidly evolving mining industry. His latest work is being funded with a 2020 Insight Grant valued at $243,466 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for his project titled “Canadian Mining and Resource Nationalism in Africa: Contestation and Developmental Implications”.
The project investigates the impact of new Canadian mining regulatory measures in Africa, tracing the dynamics of miner - host country engagements and examining the changing relationships between Canadian companies and other local mining stakeholders. It is the first study to look in-depth at the development consequences of recent Canadian policy innovations for the small and large-scale mining sector in East and Southern Africa.
In the 2000s Canada became a leading international player in African mining. Canadian mining investment on the continent rose from $2.87 billion in 2001 to $23.6 billion in 2010, outpacing other large players including China More broadly, Canadian finance markets became a critical source of funding for new African mining ventures. Saunders’ research aims to analyze how those African countries hosting Canadian miners are utilizing Canada’s new regulatory innovations to improve miners’ transparency and strengthen local development outcomes.
His Insight Grant will fund research on Canadian miners in three mineral-rich African countries: Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Case study investigations will focus on the capacity of host governments, businesses, and communities to use Canadian regulatory reforms to strengthen developmental outcomes of the extractives sector in their countries. More widely, the project aims to engage government officials, businesses, and mining-related civil society organizations in both Canada and the three African countries in ongoing policy reform processes.
At York, Saunders’ richly informative research will give students an opportunity to look at African political perspectives through a new lens, using extractive sector case studies to illustrate the complexity, opportunities and obstacles facing both African governments and their societies in confronting critical forms of globalization.