Introduction: Where life is in the pits (and elsewhere) and gendered

Abstract

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book intends to begin filling that gap, with a view to engendering the mining related development processes, and put forth an interdisciplinary approach in examining women in the mine pits and quarries of the past and the present. It reconstructs the gendered histories of the mine pits through examples derived from a range of countries. The book looks at women miners in Asia at a general and contextual level during the modern period. It suggests that in the majority of instances women have always participated in small-scale, artisanal mining and, indeed, continue to do so in many cou..