Gold Digging Careers in Rural East Africa: Small-Scale Miners’ Livelihood Choices

SummaryRural livelihood studies over the past two decades have stressed directional movement away from smallholder agriculture and the diffuse, ad hoc, uncertain, and low-earning character of most rural non-agricultural income diversification. Based on a recent survey of small-scale mining in Tanzania, this article documents the higher risks, greater potential earnings, more elaborate division of labor, and career trajectory of miners. Tracing cohort entry groups indicates that those willing to withstand the hardships of moving from one gold strike to another and time commitment to a career considered dangerous and alienated from agrarian traditions of the Tanzanian countryside may be materially rewarded for their efforts.