The Eyes of the World - by James H Smith

About the Book

"The rise of the Information Age and of a data-driven economy may well be what distinguish the current era. We are able to enjoy the digital devices that define our times not only because of Silicon Valley innovations but also because of a burgeoning trade in dense substances like coltan, tin, tungsten, and tantalum, which can hold high electrical charges. As anthropologist James H. Smith argues, these minerals-what Congolese call the "black minerals"-are also incredibly socially dense: they bring into being vast divisions of labor, from hole owners, work managers, and diggers to porters and middlemen, alongside all sorts of ancillary businesses, from tool makers and food vendors to creditors. In The Eyes of the World, Smith disassembles the devices in our pockets, tracing their provenance through the Global North and to the Congo, which has suffered through many iterations of the so-called resource curse. While acknowledging the role that mineral extraction has played in fueling the Congolese wars of the past several decades, Smith ultimately shows how mining can be more or less peaceful, inclusive, and stabilizing-depending on how it is accomplished. While global watch groups tend to espouse Western-style bureaucratic methods that center transparency, the modes of collaboration that best support the peace and productivity of small-scale artisanal mining are, Smith shows, much more complicated. Stakeholders in these markets engage different temporalities and socialities-often encompassing networks that include ancestors and forests-as well as different understandings of peace, the state, and well-being"--

Book Synopsis

The Eyes of the World focuses on the lives and experiences of Eastern Congolese people involved in extracting and transporting the minerals needed for digital devices.

The digital devices that, many would argue, define this era exist not only because of Silicon Valley innovations but also because of a burgeoning trade in dense, artisanally mined substances like tantalum, tin, and tungsten. In the tentatively postwar Eastern DR Congo, where many lives have been reoriented around artisanal mining, these minerals are socially dense, fueling movement and innovative collaborations that encompass diverse actors, geographies, temporalities, and dimensions. Focusing on the miners and traders of some of these "digital minerals," The Eyes of the World examines how Eastern Congolese understand the work in which they are engaged, the forces pitted against them, and the complicated process through which substances in the earth and forest are converted into commodified resources. Smith shows how violent dispossession has fueled a bottom-up social theory that valorizes movement and collaboration--one that directly confronts both private mining companies and the tracking initiatives implemented by international companies aspiring to ensure that the minerals in digital devices are purified of blood.

Review Quotes

"This is, in short, a masterful and most necessary book. Smith's writing is simultaneously beautiful and cogent. The ethnographic material is often humorous, frequently incensing, sometimes heartbreaking, and always compelling. . . The Eyes of the World is a magisterial contribution to contemporary scholarship on labour, extraction and the socio-political worlds of artisanal mining. It comprises a powerful interrogation of late capitalism and competing configurations of work and value 'on the margins' (though really at the core), one that centres the perspectives of Congolese mining laborers to reveal how they use their hands to dig and to build, together, amidst exploitation and ruination."
-- "Africa"

"Smith's book is bound to become a classic in the anthropology of mining and the conflict minerals literature. . . . This book is an absolute joy to read and sets the bar very high for future researchers working on the issue of conflict minerals. This is mining anthropology at its very best."

-- "The Journal of Development Studies"

"The Eyes of the World is a groundbreaking, brilliantly written book about Congo's place in the global economy. Smith places artisanal miners of coltan at the center of his study. Contrary to most popular views of the Congolese as victims of global corporations and brutal state authorities, miners recognize their value as experienced workers who often can protect their interests. . . . Smith deftly weaves insights drawn from an array of anthropological theory with gripping, moving case studies of individual miners and mining sites. . . . Strikingly, Smith shows how Western efforts to crack down on 'blood diamonds' end up, in actuality, to be a tool to weaken the leverage of artisanal miners and allow wily state authorities to cash in on their ability to selectively enforce their will on Congolese workers. This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the Democratic Republic of Congo today."-- "Choice"

"Beautiful and evocative. . . . Smith produces one of the richest and most thought-provoking ethnographies I have read in a very long time. The Eyes of the World is likely to become an anthropological classic." -- "Reviews in Anthropology"

"Chock-full of fascinating details on the people and communities that have lived off mining in the chaos of the wars in Congo."-- "Foreign Affairs"

"Blood minerals: a global cause 'intended to do one thing, but under the surface, invisible to many, . . . doing something else.' Smith offers a whirlwind of research on the varied actors who extract coltan--often in the ruins of colonial concessions--making it available to international markets. The Eyes of the World skillfully cuts through metropolitan stereotypes, drawing readers instead into the astounding vortex of the mines."-- "Anna Tsing, coeditor of Feral Atlas: The More-than-Human Anthropocene"

"A riveting, wonderful potpourri of story, theory, and history. The Eyes of the World hugs closely to people's lives, words, and theories, vividly unpacking multiple dimensions of movement in the mining of those digital minerals that end up in global devices. One of the most brilliant, important, and utterly teachable ethnographies to appear on Congo in a long time."-- "Nancy Rose Hunt, author of A Nervous State: Violence, Reveries, and Remedies in Colonial Congo"

"Smith gives us a rare glimpse into the complex dynamics of otherwise largely invisible local worlds that do nonetheless matter on a global scale. A great observer and talented narrator, he convincingly argues how, in the vortex of these Congolese mining worlds, destructive forms of extra-statecraft undid existing socio-cultural assemblages while generating the basis for new transformative orders."-- "Filip De Boeck, author of Suturing the City: Living Together in Congo's Urban Worlds"

About the Author

James H. Smith is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of Bewitching Development, also published by the University of Chicago Press, and coauthor of Email from Ngeti.