Deep in Suriname’s rainforest, gold mining is more than a source of income – it shapes livelihoods, communities and even the environment around them. Héla Azib (2026, MPhil, International Development) reflects on two months of fieldwork exploring the complex relationship between mining and sustainable development, and what this means for the communities who live there.
I am sitting on a plastic chair at the side of a road in Suriname’s interior rainforest, holding a plastic cup of Parbo beer, when one of the villagers I have come to know asks whether I want to see something interesting. On the balcony, he unfolds a crumpled sheet of white paper. Inside is a small piece of gold, mined with a group of friends not far from the village. He holds it out proudly and smiles, two gold teeth shining in the sun.
Moments like this became an unexpected part of my fieldwork for the MPhil in Development Studies. Over the summer, I spent two months in Suriname researching how Maroon communities in the forested district of Brokopondo experience and navigate small-scale gold-mining alongside changing environmental policies and development projects promoting other ways of making a living.
My days looked very different depending on where I was. In Paramaribo, I interviewed government officials, researchers, journalists and environmental organisations. In the interior, research was much less predictable. I spent several weeks across four different villages, speaking with miners, farmers and other residents, and visiting a few mining sites myself.
I quickly discovered that fieldwork involves much more than simply “conducting interviews”. Some of the most valuable moments happened while playing cards, folding laundry, sharing food, or simply waiting for somebody to have time to speak to me. Other times, everyone around me would be speaking a local language I did not understand, leaving me to accept that not every moment needed to produce “data”.
I learned to let go of some of the tight scheduling I was used to, slow down and allow conversations to happen when people felt most comfortable talking to me. Navigating fieldwork as a young woman in a predominantly male environment also taught me about building trust while maintaining my own boundaries and following my instincts.
I had to learn how to balance being a researcher with simply being a person temporarily living within a community: getting to know people, adapting to a different rhythm of daily life, and embracing the unpredictability of fieldwork. People welcomed me into their homes, introduced me to relatives and friends, and trusted me with their stories, for which I am forever grateful.
Fieldwork also taught me how complicated seemingly straightforward categories become in everyday life. Terms such as “legal” and “illegal” may sound clear in a policy document, but the reality is much messier. Formal mining rights coexist with traditional authority and community understandings of legitimate claims to land and natural resources. Mining sites can have their own systems of organisation, labour, and payment structures. What appears from the outside as an unorganised “informal” sector can therefore look very different from within.
Gold, similarly, is much more than a source of income. It is intertwined with family livelihoods, aspirations, social status and, for some, ideas about masculinity and success, while existing alongside longstanding activities such as agriculture and fishing. Mining can simultaneously place considerable pressure on forests, land and water, creating difficult trade-offs within communities themselves.
This complexity is what I hope my research can capture. Rather than asking simply whether small-scale mining is “good” or “bad”, or assuming that providing an alternative occupation will persuade people to leave mining, I want to understand how those living closest to it navigate questions of livelihood, environmental protection, rights over traditional territory and their aspirations for the future.
Coming to Suriname after reading endless articles about mining, development and community dynamics could not have prepared me for encountering these debates on the ground, or for how complicated questions of who gets to define “sustainable development” and who ultimately benefits from it become in practice. If anything, fieldwork has made unpacking these questions even more difficult.
Creating economic opportunities for forest-dependent communities in ways that are both sustainable and just requires listening to the people these initiatives are intended to serve, understanding the realities that shape their choices, and recognising the wider historical, social and political structures within which those choices are made.
Ultimately, there is a difficult task ahead. As I return to Oxford to write my dissertation, I know I will continue to wrestle with questions that have plagued researchers before me for decades. I certainly do not expect to solve them, but I do hope my research can contribute something useful and perhaps leave me with a few ideas’ worth bringing back to Suriname when I, fingers crossed, return next summer!
Héla Azib
