A Global History of Diamond Mining

This course will be taught online

GOALS

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Students will develop an understanding of the global history of diamond mining, particularly the management of the mines and the mineworkers. They will also be able to connect this history to the larger histories of slavery, colonialism, labour, technology and capitalism. Secondly, studying diamond mining allows for students to improve their skills in comparative history, and will expand their know-how on relating the present to the past. A number of issues that have been crucial in diamond mining are still extremely relevant today – child’s labour in dangerous circumstances, ecological damage, the mixing of private and state interests. Diamond mining offers an historical interpretation of these phenomena.

ProgramME

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Session 1 – Introduction

• Introduction of the course.
• Introductory lecture on the long history of diamond mining.

Session 2 – Diamonds from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century

• Where are diamonds found? – European travel accounts – Jewish diaspora & trade networks – Golconda, Goa, Surat, Venice, Bruges, Antwerp, Constantinople, Cairo, Lisbon, Amsterdam, London.
• Cultural meaning of diamonds – history & myth.

Session 3 – The History of Diamonds in Brazil

• Colonial administration, discovery, bandeirantes, gold mining, slavery, monopolization diamonds, Marquês de Pombal, illegal mining, diamond district (Diamantina), commerce with Europe, alluvial mining techniques.
• Industrial diamonds and Bahia´s carbonados.

Session 4 – The Discovery of Diamonds in Africa

• South African Diamond rush of the 1860s-1870s, settler colonialism, underground mining, scientific progress, (semi-)forced migrant labour & the mining compounds, the formation of De Beers, the global market for diamonds.
• Lecture on the development of diamond mining in areas outside South Africa; Namibia, Congo, Angola, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone; establishment of the colonial national companies in Angola (Diamang) and Congo (Forminière); strategic use of industrial diamonds during and after WW2.

Session 5 – The De Beers empire

• Lecture on the construction of the diamond monopoly of De Beers in the 20th century, controlling the mining and selling of rough diamonds, the prospection for new deposits, dealing with the competition (f.i. Soviet Union), the embeddedness of the company in Apartheid South Africa.
• Centers of the diamond cutting industry (Lisbon, London, Bruges, Antwerp, Venice, Tel Aviv, Surat, Mumbai), techniques and knowledge, the workforce, cultural appreciation of jewelry, the commodity chain, sanitary circumstances in the diamond factories.

Session 6 – Mining in the Post-Colonial World

• Lecture on diamond mining after the independence of African diamond-holding nations, challenges to De Beers monopoly, legal issues, Angola (Endiama), deposits in Canada, Australia, and the Soviet Union, blood diamonds and the Kimberley Certificate, ethics, lab-grown diamonds.

Session 7 – Ecological Concerns & Roundtable

• This lecture focusses on damage to the natural environment, indigenous rights of people living on diamond-rich areas (Australia, Canada, Brazil, parts of Africa), and takes a critical look at efforts at corporate sustainability.
• This is the last session for this course. I will organize a roundtable discussion, in which students will participate to discuss a number of key points of this course, particularly the management of the workforce and the organization of labour in the diamond mines, the connection between (semi-private) mining and state interests, territorial occupation, colonialism and imperialism, gender relationships, ethical concerns (blood diamonds, damage to natural environment, slavery and child’s labour), technology.

pré- requesits

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 The course will be entirely in English.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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• Cleveland, Todd, Stones of Contention: A History of Africa’s Diamonds (Athens, Oh., 2014).
• De Vries, David, Diamonds and War: State, Capital and Labor in British-ruled Palestine (New York and Oxford, 2010).
• Farmer, Paul, Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds. Ebola and the Ravages of History (New York, 2020).
• Furtado, Júnia Ferreira, Chica da Silva e o contratador dos diamantes: o outro lado do mito (São Paulo, 2003).
• Vanneste, Tijl, Blood, Sweat & Earth – The Struggle for Control over the World’s Diamonds throughout History (London, 2021).

TEACHERS

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Tijl Vanneste é um historiador que tem trabalhado sobre confiança, redes de comércio e litígios comerciais internacionais, escravatura no contexto da extração de diamantes e emprego de marinheiros no Mediterrâneo. A sua atenção tem-se centrado no período moderno global. A sua investigação atual incide sobre o trabalho das mulheres e as relações de género na indústria dos diamantes (1600-1900). Obteve o seu doutoramento no Instituto Universitário Europeu em Florença em 2009 e trabalhou e estudou na Universidade de Exeter, na Sorbonne, na Universidade de Yale, em Berkeley, na Universidade de Utrecht e na Vrije Universiteit de Amesterdão. Publicou três monografias, a última das quais trata de uma história geral do trabalho utilizado na extração global de diamantes. Foi publicada em 2021 pela Reaktion Books.