News & Events

A new paper in Frontiers by Jeleel Abiola Balyaminu examines how artisanal cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo exploits workers, harms communities, weakens democratic institutions, and damages the environment. 

South Africa witnesses nationwide anti-immigration protests, demanding the deportation of undocumented foreign nationals. The protests tap into anxieties around unemployment and crime. Beneath these grievances lies a dangerous political habit of turning migrants into scapegoats, writes Tinashe Chimbidzikai.

'Meat and Mining' is a conference on the animals whose flesh was used to power the industrial mining revolution that took place in southern Africa following the discovery of copper, diamonds, and gold from the 1850s onwards. The conference will be held in Leiden 1-4 September 2027. Deadline papers: 1 October 2026.

In June 2025, whilst leading a field school at an abandoned post-industrial diamond-mining site in South Africa, Jan-Bart Gewald chanced upon a scarab beetle in stone. Two metres in length, it was covered by petroglyphs of human and humanoid forms.

Eric Cezne and Tanja Hendriks have won a Leiden University seed ('Kiem') grant for a project on green fertilizer industries in Namibia. The project develops an innovative, interdisciplinary pilot study on the emergence of green fertilizer industries in Namibia.