Illicit flows: environment and gem trafficking in Madagascar

Global Formations

• Callaghy Kassimir and Latham argue it is important to examine what lies between the local and the global

• especially the structures and relations that

emerge in the intersection of social phenomena

that vary in range as well as in form.

Bayart’s strategies of extraversion

• Sub-Saharan Africa is not marginalised by globalisation

• it is inter-linked through complex networks

• often through criminalised networks

Bayart

• for Bayart, the external environment is important in the structuration of African societies

• elites use global economy as a resource

Gems in Ilakaka, Madagascar

Gem mining

• Most stones mined in haphazard way

• exported to Europe, DRC, Thailand, Sri Lanka

• environmental, social and economic impacts

World Bank

• US$32m loan to for the Government to help gain control through Mineral Resources Governance Project

• but US$4m worth of stones bought each day in Ilakaka alone on illegal market

Trafficking and complex global networks

• Raises questions about definition of illicit, legal, local,global

• eg shop names

Role of Malagasy elites

• Assist in trafficking the gems out into the international system

• inter-linkages reveal a new form of complexity