Beyond the artisanal mining site: migration, housing capital accumulation and indirect urbanization in East Africa

During the past 30 years, Tanzania has experienced successive precious mineral rushes led by artisanal miners. Their settlement, livelihood and housing strategies have evolved amidst high mobility in pursuit of mineral wealth. Cumulatively, the spatial movement of artisanal miners and an associated following of economically motivated migrant service providers have catalysed large-scale “direct urbanization” at artisanal mine sites-cum-small towns. These settlements have been generally characterized by relatively makeshift accommodation, which may mask accumulated savings of in situ earnings for housing investment elsewhere. In this article, in addition to documenting the mine-led direct urbanization process, we draw attention to a subsequent “indirect urbanization” phenomenon, whereby many successful artisanal miners and other entrepreneurial mining settlement residents make strategic house building investments in larger towns and cities. In anticipation of declining mineral yields and retirement from days of “roughing it” in mining sites, they endeavour to channel savings into housing in more urbanized locations, aiming to diversify into profitable business activities, living a life with better physical and social amenities. Their second-wave onward migration from mine sites encompasses more diverse destinations, particularly regional towns and cities, which accommodate their work and family life cycle needs and lifestyle preferences. Such mine-led direct and indirect urbanization processes arise from sequential migration decision-making of participants in Tanzania’s artisanal mining sector. In this article, we interrogate mining settlement residents’ locational choices on the basis of fieldwork survey findings from four artisanal gold and diamond mining settlements in Tanzania’s mineral-rich regions of Geita, Mwanza and Shinyanga, and from in-depth interviews with miners-cum-entrepreneurs residing in Mwanza, Tanzania’s second largest city, situated in the heart of Tanzania’s gold fields.