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Biography My master’s thesis from the University of Copenhagen focussed on community-based natural resources management in Botswana. Thereafter, I worked five years for a Danish NGO in Tanzania on issues of community development and natural resources management. In 2005-09 I did my Ph.D. on the organizational practices, livelihood strategies, and career trajectories of small-scale gold miners in Tanzania at the Department of Geography, University of Copenhagen. I also worked as an external lecturer in the Department and the Centre of African Studies. Since completion of my PhD, I worked as a researcher coordinating the Centre for Sustainable Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining at the University of Copenhagen, before joining the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences in March 2011. Research interests My research interest encompasses rural livelihood strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in Southern and Eastern Africa, and their dynamics during the rapid socioeconomic transformations the continent is experiencing from internal and external factors. Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is the topic I have decided to give particular focus. However, the study of ASM also takes me into general discussions of the extractive industry in Africa, processes of deagrarianization, and rural-urban linkages.
ASM has been of growing importance to the livelihoods of expanding numbers of people. In Africa, an estimated nine million people are engaged in ASM with another 54 million depending on the sector as an indirect livelihood source. Obviously, these figures are debatable. Estimating the numbers involved is complicated by the high degree of informality within the sector and the absence of a commonly recognized definition of ASM. Most observers today use the term ‘ASM‘ to describe a type of mining associated with ‘labour-intensity’, ‘low capital investments’, ‘little or no mechanization’, ‘basic equipment’, and ‘high degree of occupational risks’.
Some observers perceive ASM as chaotic and highly disorganized, and some representatives from governments, large-scale mining companies, and the media portray miners with words like ‘social misfits’, ‘criminal culture’, and ‘menace’. Although such views are not shared by the majority of ASM observers, they illustrate how ASM is afflicted by myths. Most of my research to date indicates that artisanal and small-scale miners are hard working and fairly well organized, though their organizational efforts tend to take place within the informal spheres of the African economy.
Current research My current research takes place under the umbrella of the DfID/ESRF-funded ‘Urban Growth and Poverty in Mining Africa’ (UPIMA) programme, in which I am the international field coordinator & Tanzania case study coordinator. The programme addresses the need for analytical apprehension of rapid changes in livelihood, urban settlement and poverty patterns arising from the expansion of mining activity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on scholarly evidence from 12 African countries and in-depth case studies from Tanzania, Ghana and Angola, UPIMA aims to illuminate the linkages between mining, urbanization and poverty through identifying growth rates, patterns and problems of mine-induced urbanization, tracing the influence of mining in ‘urban birth and development’ at national and local levels (see http://web2.ges.gla.ac.uk/upima/index.html). Recent publications Jønsson, J. B., and Fold, N. (2011): ‘Mining from Below’: Taking Africa’s Artisanal Miners seriously. Geography Compass. Jønsson, J. B., and Knudsen, M. H. (2011): Guldgraveren: Danskeren der fandt Kong Salomons Miner (The Gold Miner who found King Salomon’s Mines). Copenhagen: Gyldendal. Appel, P. W. U., and Jønsson, J. B. (2010): Borax - an alternative to mercury for gold extraction by small-scale miners: introducing the method in Tanzania. Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin 20: 87-90. Bryceson, D. F., and Jønsson, J. B. (2010): Gold Digging Careers in Rural East Africa: Small-Scale Miners' Livelihood Choices. World Development 38(3). Bryceson, D. F., Jønsson, J. B., and Sherrington, R. (2010): Miners' magic: artisanal mining, the albino fetish and murder in Tanzania. Journal of Modern African Studies 48(3): 353-382. Kalvig, P., Fold, N., Jønsson, J. B., and Mshiu, E. E. (2010): Local use of agrominerals. Untapped resources for farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Appraisal study on the agromineral potential in the Mbeya area, Tanzania. Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) Report 2010/107. Jønsson, J. B. (2009): Golden Livelihoods: The Organizational Practices, Strategies, and Trajectories of Small-Scale Gold Miners in Tanzania. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Copenhagen. Jønsson, J. B., and Bryceson, D. F. (2009): Rushing for Gold: Mobility and Small-Scale Mining in East Africa. Development and Change 40(2): 249-279. Jønsson, J. B., and Fold, N. (2009): Handling Uncertainty: Policy and organizational practices in Tanzania's small-scale gold mining sector. Natural Resources Forum 33(3): 211-220. Jønsson, J. B., Appel, P. W. U., and Chibunda, R. (2009): A Matter of Approach: The Retort's Potential to Reduce Mercury Consumption within Small-Scale Gold Mining Settlements in Tanzania. Journal of Cleaner Production 17(1): 77-86 Teaching responsibilities Previous teaching experience
- Organization and teaching the second year geography course ‘Globalization and Spatial Change’ at the University of Copenhagen.
- Teaching the third year geography course ‘Developing Countries in the International Division of Labour’ at the University of Copenhagen.
- Organizing and teaching the fourth year geography course ‘Natural Resources Management in Africa’ at the University of Copenhagen.
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