IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devchg/v47y2016i1p3-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Village that Turned to Gold: A Parable of Philanthrocapitalism

Author

Listed:
  • Japhy Wilson

Abstract

type="main"> International development is increasingly financed and implemented by a nexus of billionaires and corporate foundations known as ‘philanthrocapitalism’. This article develops a critique of this paradigm, focusing on the case of the Millennium Villages Project (MVP), and its implementation in Bonsaaso, Ghana. The author interprets the MVP as a staging of the neoliberal fantasy of origins — an imagined history of the spontaneous emergence of capitalism in the frugal activities of smallholder farmers. In Bonsaaso, this fantasy has been shattered by the violence of primitive accumulation — the separation of the peasantry from the land through which capitalist social relations are actually established. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Bonsaaso, the author describes how an influx of foreign gold miners has plunged the region into a profound socio-ecological crisis. Despite producing several internal reports on this crisis, the MVP has failed to respond to it, and has instead sought to restage its fantasy in a new Village in the north of the country. Yet an analysis of its background documents and financial networks demonstrates the complicity of the MVP in the political economy of primitive accumulation underway in Bonsaaso. The case provides a cautionary tale against the promise of a good and pure capitalism.

Suggested Citation

  • Japhy Wilson, 2016. "The Village that Turned to Gold: A Parable of Philanthrocapitalism," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 47(1), pages 3-28, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:47:y:2016:i:1:p:3-28
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/dech.12163
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pedro Sanchez & Glenn Denning & Generose Nziguheba, 2009. "The African Green Revolution moves forward," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 1(1), pages 37-44, February.
    2. Sadia Banchirigah & Gavin Hilson, 2010. "De-agrarianization, re-agrarianization and local economic development: Re-orientating livelihoods in African artisanal mining communities," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 43(2), pages 157-180, June.
    3. AfDB AfDB, . "Annual Report 2012," Annual Report, African Development Bank, number 461.
    4. George Holmes, 2012. "Biodiversity for Billionaires: Capitalism, Conservation and the Role of Philanthropy in Saving/Selling Nature," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 43(1), pages 185-203, January.
    5. Stürmer, Martin, 2010. "Let the good times roll? Raising tax revenues from the extractive sector in sub-Saharan Africa during the commodity price boom," IDOS Discussion Papers 7/2010, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    6. Di Muzio, Tim, 2007. "The 'Art' of Colonisation: Capitalising Sovereign Power and the Ongoing Nature of Primitive Accumulation," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 12(4), pages 517-539.
    7. Amankwah, R.K. & Anim-Sackey, C., 2003. "Strategies for sustainable development of the small-scale gold and diamond mining industry of Ghana," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(3-4), pages 131-138.
    8. Gavin Hilson & Sadia Mohammed Banchirigah, 2009. "Are Alternative Livelihood Projects Alleviating Poverty in Mining Communities? Experiences from Ghana," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(2), pages 172-196.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Filippo Menga & Michael K. Goodman, 2022. "The High Priests of Global Development: Capitalism, Religion and the Political Economy of Sacrifice in a Celebrity‐led Water Charity," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 53(4), pages 705-735, July.
    2. Hausermann, Heidi & Ferring, David & Atosona, Bernadette & Mentz, Graciela & Amankwah, Richard & Chang, Augustus & Hartfield, Kyle & Effah, Emmanuel & Asuamah, Grace Yeboah & Mansell, Coryanne & Sastr, 2018. "Land-grabbing, land-use transformation and social differentiation: Deconstructing “small-scale” in Ghana's recent gold rush," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 103-114.
    3. Jew, Eleanor K.K. & Whitfield, Stephen & Dougill, Andrew J. & Mkwambisi, David D. & Steward, Peter, 2020. "Farming systems and Conservation Agriculture: Technology, structures and agency in Malawi," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lu, Jixia & Lora-Wainwright, Anna, 2014. "Historicizing Sustainable Livelihoods: A Pathways Approach to Lead Mining in Rural Central China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 189-200.
    2. Lawer, Eric Tamatey & Lukas, Martin C. & Jørgensen, Stig H., 2017. "The neglected role of local institutions in the ‘resource curse’ debate. Limestone mining in the Krobo region of Ghana," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 43-52.
    3. Maclin, Beth J. & Kelly, Jocelyn T.D. & Perks, Rachel & Vinck, Patrick & Pham, Phuong, 2017. "Moving to the mines: Motivations of men and women for migration to artisanal and small-scale mining sites in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 115-122.
    4. Fernando Morante-Carballo & Néstor Montalván-Burbano & Maribel Aguilar-Aguilar & Paúl Carrión-Mero, 2022. "A Bibliometric Analysis of the Scientific Research on Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-29, July.
    5. Gavin Hilson & Chris Garforth, 2012. "‘Agricultural Poverty’ and the Expansion of Artisanal Mining in Sub-Saharan Africa: Experiences from Southwest Mali and Southeast Ghana," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 31(3), pages 435-464, June.
    6. Mabe, Franklin N. & Owusu-Sekyere, Ebenezer & Adeosun, Oluyemi Theophilus, 2021. "Livelihood coping strategies among displaced small scale miners in Ghana," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    7. Elaine Lawson & Gloria Bentil, 2014. "Shifting sands: changes in community perceptions of mining in Ghana," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 217-238, February.
    8. Bashwira, Marie-Rose & Cuvelier, Jeroen & Hilhorst, Dorothea & van der Haar, Gemma, 2014. "Not only a man's world: Women's involvement in artisanal mining in eastern DRC," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 109-116.
    9. Craig Garthwaite & Tal Gross & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2014. "Public Health Insurance, Labor Supply, and Employment Lock," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 653-696.
    10. Tarek Roshdy Gebba & Mohamed Gamal Aboelmaged, 2016. "Corporate Governance of UAE Financial Institutions: A Comparative Study between Conventional and Islamic Banks," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 6(5), pages 1-7.
    11. Clarete, Ramon L. & Villamil, Isabela Rosario G., 2015. "Readiness of the Philippine Agriculture and Fisheries Sectors for the 2015 ASEAN Economic Community: A Rapid Appraisal," Research Paper Series DP 2015-43, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    12. Li, Xi & Yu, Biying, 2019. "Peaking CO2 emissions for China's urban passenger transport sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    13. Alleyne, Dillon & Emanuel, Elizabeth & Phillips, Willard, 2013. "An assessment of fiscal and regulatory barriers to the deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in Saint Lucia," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38502, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    14. Cristian Pana, 2013. "The National Central Bank’S Management Of Reserve Requirements," Working papers 16, Ecological University of Bucharest, Department of Economics.
    15. Junlakarn, Siripha & Kittner, Noah & Tongsopit, Sopitsuda & Saelim, Supawan, 2021. "A cross-country comparison of compensation mechanisms for distributed photovoltaics in the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    16. McMahon, Rob, 2020. "Co-developing digital inclusion policy and programming with indigenous partners: Interventions from Canada," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 9(2), pages 1-26.
    17. John V. Duca, 2013. "Regionally, Housing Rebound Depends on Jobs, Local Supply Tightness," Annual Report, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    18. Divya Ravindranath, 2017. "Visa regulations and labour market restrictions: implications for Indian immigrant women in the United States," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 60(2), pages 217-232, June.
    19. LametK.Maika & Kevin Wachira, 2020. "Effects of organizational culture on strategy implementation in water boards in Kenya," International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 9(4), pages 15-28, July.
    20. Kanbayashi, Yoji., 2015. "The situation of non-regular public employees in Japan," ILO Working Papers 994861763402676, International Labour Organization.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:47:y:2016:i:1:p:3-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0012-155X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.