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Shipping canals have supported maritime traffic and port development for many centuries. Radical transformations of these shipping landscapes through land reclamation, diking, and canalization were celebrated as Herculean works of progress and modernity. Today, shipping canals are the sites of increasing tension between economic growth and associated infrastructural interventions focused on the quality, sustainability, and resilience of natural systems and spatial settlement patterns. Shifting approaches to land/water relations must now be understood in longer political histories in which pre-existing alliances influence changes in infrastructure planning. On the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the New Waterway (Nieuwe Waterweg), the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus universities PortCityFutures Center hosted an international symposium in October 2022 to explore the past, present, and future of this channel that links Rotterdam to the North Sea. Symposium participants addressed issues of shipping, dredging, and planning within in the Dutch delta, and linked them to contemporary debates on the environmental, spatial, and societal conditions of shipping canals internationally. The thematic issue builds on symposium conversations, and highlights the importance of spatial, economic, and political linkages in port and urban development. These spatial approaches contribute to more dynamic, responsive strategies for shipping canals through water management and planning.

Studies of articulations between large- and small-scale mining have overlooked the subterranean dimension of extraction and ignored how mining companies and artisanal miners cohabit in places with long histories of small-scale mining and are affected by their different capacities to access specific mineral deposits. Drawing on a study of two gold concessions in Ghana, this article focuses on three factors that influence modalities of governing access to gold in such sites: the stage of a mining operation, the local socio-political context, and the characteristics of the subterranean structure. We call the combination and interplay of these factors ‘in-depth geopolitics’. The article shows how this interplay affects the strategies used by both large- and small-scale miners to work out arrangements of cohabitation and ways of governing access, control and maintenance to gold in spatial settings where both types of gold mining occur side by side. By tracing ethnographically the variations of ‘in-depth geopolitics’, this article critically engages with ideas of subterranean sovereignty, mining enclaves, state–company–community relations, and the socio-spatial characteristics of mining concessions. Les études sur les articulations entre les activités minières à grande et à petite échelle ont occulté la dimension souterraine de l'extraction et ignoré la manière dont les sociétés minières et les artisans mineurs cohabitent dans des lieux qui ont une longue histoire d'exploitation minière à petite échelle et sont affectés par différentes capacités à accéder aux gisements. S'appuyant sur une étude de deux concessions aurifères au Ghana, cet article traite de trois facteurs qui influencent les modalités de gouvernance d'accès à l'or sur ces sites : le stade d'exploitation minière, le contexte sociopolitique local et les caractéristiques de structure souterraine. Les auteurs appellent « géopolitique en profondeur » la combinaison et l'interaction de ces facteurs. L'article montre comment cette interaction affecte les stratégies utilisées par les mineurs à grande et à petite échelle pour trouver des modes de cohabitation et de gouvernance d'accès, de contrôle et de maintenance de l'or dans les espaces où se côtoient ces deux types d'exploitation aurifère. En faisant un tracé ethnographique des variations de « géopolitique en profondeur », cet article traite de manière critique des idées de souveraineté souterraine, d'enclaves minières, des relations État/entreprise/communauté et des caractéristiques socio-spatiales des concessions minières.

Africa has seen a surge in foreign mining operations. This article analyzes the impact of mining explorations on company-community and intercommunity relationships in Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso's new neoliberal mining code compels exploration companies to negotiate with communities and acknowledge local practices at their exploration sites. The article examines interactions between locals and the staff of a foreign gold-exploration company-from initial contacts, marked by promises and expectations, to the point when disappointments started affecting alliances and increasing tensions in neighborly relationships. Against the backdrop of the 2008 credit crisis and its effects on Canadian junior companies, this analysis shows how the politics of belonging and shifting interpretations of autochthony articulate with the dynamics of mining exploration. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Since the liberalisation of the gold mining sector in the 1990s, the state of Burkina Faso has the task of allotting exploration and exploitation permits to private companies. International junior companies are exploring vast concessions in Burkina, and publish promising prospects on the internet. Scrutinising the presence of (inter)national companies both on the web and on the ground, the article shows how a set of concessions constitutes a 'field', defined as a system of social positions structured in terms of power relations. Concessions bring together a wide range of professionals in mining: potential investors, international companies, Burkinabe entrepreneurs and artisanal miners. The article describes how legal distinctions affect the power structure of working arrangements on one particular group of exploration permits in the central part of Burkina, currently held by the Canadian company High River Gold: the Bissa permit Group. It examines what happens on the ground when companies are allotted formal titles, whereas artisanal miners can at best aspire to obtain marginal places for their informal practices.

Africa has seen a surge in foreign mining operations. This article analyzes the impact of mining explorations on company-– community and intercommunity relationships in Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso's new neoliberal mining code compels exploration companies to negotiate with communities and acknowledge local practices at their exploration sites. The article examines interactions between locals and the staff of a foreign gold-exploration company-—from initial contacts, marked by promises and expectations, to the point when disappointments started affecting alliances and increasing tensions in neighborly relationships. Against the backdrop of the 2008 credit crisis and its effects on Canadian junior companies, this analysis shows how the politics of belonging and shifting interpretations of autochthony articulate with the dynamics of mining exploration.

The issue of nature as local heritage refers to temporalities: the transmission of a valued common good over time, as well as the assessment of causes leading to degradation of the natural environment. How are such ideas shaped in local discourse and practices in the Moose chiefdom of Maane? The article focuses on the creation, development and main features of the ritual territories of earth priests over time. A pessimistic discourse on the present environmental situation connects the degradation of the land to processes of social erosion: loss of knowledge and morals. Is this degradation considered to be a recent phenomenon, or is it inherent in the passage of time at whatever moment in the history of Maane? La question de la nature en tant qu'héritage local renvoie à des temporalités : la transmission dans le temps d'un bien commun valorisé, ainsi que l'évaluation des causes de la dégradation de l'environnement naturel. Quelle forme ces idées prennent-elles dans les pratiques et le discours local dans la chefferie mooga des Maane ? L'article s'intéresse à la création, au développement et aux principales caractéristiques des territoires rituels des prêtres de la terre dans le temps. Un discours pessimiste sur l'état actuel de l'environnement relie la dégradation des terres à des processus d'érosion sociale : perte de savoir et de moralité. Cette dégradation est-elle considérée comme un phénomène récent ou est-elle inhérente au passage du temps, quel que soit le moment considéré dans l'histoire des Maane?

The history of the Haut-Niger is of particular interest for French colonial history because of its remarkable precolonial history: it was the source of the famous gold that formed the riches of medieval Mali kings. This article addresses the question of how the French exploited this \"gold region\" after establishing their commandement and developing the policy of mise en valeur. It is based on ethnographic and archival research focused on how gold-mining practices were organized and valued by both local communities and colonial administrators. It makes ample use of hitherto unexplored archival documents on gold mining in the Haut-Niger from the Archives Nationales du Mali.