Sabine Luning

Leiden University, Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology

Sabine Luning works at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology where she focuses her research and teaching on economic anthropology and issues of sustainability. In the past, she has worked in development projects and ever since she has retained an interest in the social relations, power dynamics and organizational culture of development initiatives. For the past 10 years, she has been working on social aspects of large-scale and small-scale gold mining foremost in Burkina Faso, but also in Ghana, Suriname, French Guyana, and Canada. She is interested in the effects of global connections on local situations, e.g. the dynamics around industrial mines of Transnational Companies operating in West Africa.
She is currently focusing on Landscapes of Extraction, with a particular interest in how mining affects water quality and distribution in West Africa. She is collaborating with modellers (e.g. hydrologists and mining engineers), visual anthropologists, artists, and photographers to combine different methods of visualizing landscape dynamics. Together with people who live and work in different local areas, we co-produce images on the ground, underground and from the air in order to engage in sustainability conversations.  From  December 2o18 onwards these methods and collaborations will be developed further in the NORFACE project: Sustainability Transformations in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining: A Multi-Actor and Trans-Regional Perspective - ST-ASGM. Together with Paul Hudson, she coordinates the Water & Society Lab, a cooperation between the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (CADS/FSW) and Leiden University College (LUC/FGGA). 

Last publications
Luning, S.W.J. (2020). Burkina Faso: Global Gold Expansion and Local Terrains. In Global Gold Production Touching Ground. Palgrave Macmillan. 207-223.

Luning S.W.J. & De Theije M. (2019), Rubbish at the Border. A Minefield of Conservationist Politics at the Lawa River, Suriname/French Guiana. In: Eriksen T.H., Pijpers R.J. (Eds.) Mining Encounters. Pluto Press. 59-77.