The future of artisanal miners from a large-scale perspective: From valued pathfinders to disposable illegals?

• Artisanal mining is analyzed from the perspective of large-scale miners.
• Artisanal mining provides junior companies with exploration info.
• Future outlooks for investors both highlight and dwarf artisanal mining.
• Notions of risk express ideas about futures for mining and development.

The article contributes in an innovative way to debates on futures and development. It departs from the fact that mining is always linked to a future oriented discourse. It shows how jargon used by professionals in the mining sector, and in particular notions of risk, serve to portray and predict outcomes of particular mining projects. The article is concerned with exploration companies (“juniors”) that try to attract investors for their projects in West Africa and in particular Burkina Faso. It shows how mining companies capitalize on their scale of operation and impact to demonstrate their contribution to the development of poor countries. Scale is a major criterion in the legal arrangements for gold mining in Burkina Faso, a country where small-scale mining is often tolerated and can be legal, but where large-scale mining seems to have the future. This discourse is analysed in terms of the politics of scale.