Shifting grounds - The politics of sand in East Africa

The world’s most used solid resource, the key ingredient of urbanization and economic growth—sand—usually escapes our attention.

Skyrocketing demand for sand has sparked conflict and has resulted in loss of life in many countries in the global South. Yet, inquiries into the social and political implications of illicit sand harvesting and trading are sparse.

This project is an inquiry into the ‘the politics of sand’ in one of the world’s most rapidly urbanizing regions: East Africa.

What makes this project unique is that it explores political contestations at the nexus of sand extraction and its wider national and international supply chains.

Its main interest is in identifying how the controversies surfacing in the mining and logistics of sand are negotiated and how they potentially rearticulate socio-political relations.The scramble for sand turned the seashores, riverbeds and pits across East Africa into politicized resource frontiers where unregulated extraction, economic prospects, environmental degradation and the destruction of livelihoods connect.

By following everyday practices of mining as well as the logistics of sand across the region, the project will not only make visible disputes around sand but will additionally identify opportunities to elicit a broadened regional dialogue on the need for active governance of sand exploitation across the region