“No cow makes this sort of profit”: Capital, success, and Maasai gemstone traders in Tanzania

Since the early 1990s, Maasai men living in the Simanjiro district of northern Tanzania have worked as middlemen, buying and selling gemstones at Mererani, the only place in the world where the gemstone tanzanite is mined. While some men have struggled to make it, others have been quite lucrative in this booming mineral trade by gaining access to various forms of capital. In addition, regardless of an individual's success, as a group, tanzanite traders are seen by others in their home villages to possess new forms of capital that carry societal value because they map onto current ideas about success and what it means to “be Maasai”. Through an ethnographic exploration of Maasai gemstone traders in northern Tanzania, this article sheds light on an overlooked sector of the mining commodity chain and examines the economic, social, and cultural forms of capital tanzanite traders possess, mobilize, and are perceived to embody. Moreover, it examines the implications for these new forms of capital in terms of social relations and power structures and argues that capital accumulation and livelihood change is expressed through a unique cultural style with important implications for power relations in Maasai households and communities.