PhD research on gold mining, money laundering and environmental damage in Suriname
Keti Koti, the celebration of the abolition of transatlantic slavery, on July 1, is a good opportunity to highlight research from our faculty, in which the history of slavery plays a role. Esmée Stek is doing her PhD on gold mining, money laundering and environmental crime in Suriname. Her research combines sociology and green criminology. The history of slavery affects the daily practice of gold mining in Suriname. Stek: The term ‘illegal’, for example, is not so clear-cut in a country where colonialism has left its mark for two hundred years.
For me, the tension surrounding (il)legality in the Surinamese gold sector lies in the perspective I use. I do not find putting an illegal stamp on people that interesting because I work from a green criminological and non-human perspective. I think that binary thinking (legal or illegal) distracts from investigating how gold is laundered and what this means for nature in Suriname. Within my PhD trajectory, I mainly try to find out which mechanisms and dynamics make it possible that despite significant differences between Surinamese gold production and gold export, all the gold ends up on the international market with all the right papers and certificates, as if everything is legal.