Underground dreams. Uncertainty, risk and anticipation in the gold production network

Gold, precious yet painstakingly extracted, fuels the dreams of diggers, traders, managers, investors and consumers at the local and the global level. But gold extraction and trade are characterized by much uncertainty, related to the commodity's fixity in the underground, its embeddedness in national states and local institutions and its connections to markets. Focusing on the gold production network in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, this article reinforces earlier arguments about risk: first, it operates 'at the intersection of capital and rule'; second, it obscures the uneven distribution of capitalism's negative impact, as well as corporate actors' active role in producing such impact. Moreover, it argues that the production of risk (expected costs) and anticipation (expected gains) by corporate actors conceals and devalues the ways in which other actors in the gold production network deal with the extreme uncertainty that characterizes the market and the institutional environment in which they operate, as well as the resource's materiality. It concludes that an analytical focus on uncertainty, risk and anticipation enhances our understanding of relations and conflicts in the gold production network.