iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

5/ As waste reprocessing spreads across Africa's critical minerals economy, these struggles over ownership and access will follow. Read it here (open access): doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2026.106020

doi.org

Redirecting

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

4/ Criminalised, then legitimised as small-scale miners under Lungu, then criminalised again under Hichilema. The legality of artisanal mining is never fixed: it's made by materiality, markets, and electoral politics.

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

3/ I argue waste made copper 'semi-lootable': easy to extract illegally with basic tools, but too bulky to profit from at scale without engaging the state. That tension shaped the fate of the jerabos ('jail-boys') who mine these sites.

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

2/ Across Southern Africa, mining waste is becoming a new extractive frontier. Rising prices, new processing tech, and the critical minerals push mean slag heaps once seen as liabilities are now contested resources. Zambia's 'Black Mountains' show what happens next.

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

1/ 📄 New paper, and the first from my @leverhulme.ac.uk project at @uniofbath.bsky.social: 'Waste not, want not: Materialities, identity, and politics in Zambia's Black Mountains'. Out now, open access, in Resources Policy. 🧵

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

However, I struggle to find information behind any of his achievements beyond Brexit/Trump-level memes, and remain sceptical around anything mentioned about the mining sector. I wonder how many of the claims are true, and how the narrative is different from reality...

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Going through my research notes, one thing that stands out to me is that there is enormous praise and support for Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré throughout Zambia, from NGOs, business leaders and bureaucrats. All love him for 'getting shit done'.

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

I'm not saying that British Airways online services are crap, but they emailed me my ticket for my flight last Saturday just now.

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Realism is a legit strand of academic thought in IR. This isn't it.

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Being a overall prick is not 'realism', torching all of your allies and fawning over your historical enemy is not 'realism', completely dismantling the entire world order that overwhelmingly benefits your country for 80 odd years is not 'realism'. Stop sanewashing Trump.

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

This is perhaps one of the last alerts one wants to see sat at an airport terminal, waiting to fly out.

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

If anybody wants further evidence that the financial sector has a poor history of predictions, I'm currently reading a 2021 paper by Goldman Sachs saying that copper prices at $9k per tonne are too low, and they will be $15k by the middle of the decade. Today the LME price of copper is...$9k.

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

I feel like Elsevier are deliberately mocking me with this email @academic-chatter.bsky.social #academicchatter

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

On a side note, I would highly recommend publishing with JSAS, a top journal that helps early career researchers immensely!

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Thanks to @jsas-journal.bsky.social for the Terrance Ranger Prize! I actually won it a few months ago, but I couldn't shout about it as much since I removed some of my other social media accounts. It's also my favorite paper I've written, so it's extra great to see that others enjoy it!

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 15/01/2024

Reminder that the deadline for our panel, 'The Extractive Politics of Africa's Energy Transition: A New Dawn or more of the same?' at the DSA 2024 conference at SOAS is on the 23rd Jan! If you have any queries, message me or Gerald via email. #afripolsky #polsky

devstud.org.uk

Call for Papers: DSA 2024

Deadline 23 January 2024

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 16/11/2023

Call for papers on 'Mining Governance and Green Energy Transitions: Developmental Implications for the Global South' is out now. Deadline is the 15th April 2024 Please share, and feel free to give me a shout if you wish to know more! www.sciencedirect.com/journal/the-... Polisky Afripolsky

sciencedirect.com

Call for papers - The Extractive Industries and Society | ScienceDirect.com by ElsevierScienceDirect

Read the latest articles of The Extractive Industries and Society at ScienceDirect.com, Elsevier’s leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 21/09/2023

Just done as a test! Did it work on your end?

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Reposted by Aidan Barlow

Sara Rich Dorman @srd.bsky.social · 21/09/2023

Hi everyone - I may have just created a curated feed for African Politics => Afripolsky Please help me check if it works by asking me to add you, liking the feed and posting cool stuff to it.

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 21/09/2023

Great idea! Can you add me to the list please!

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 21/09/2023

and could @profmusgrave.bsky.social possibly add me to the polisky list please?

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 21/09/2023

Hey Polisky, I was wondering if there is anybody on here that researches the politics/political economy of mining, oil and gas etc? Especially in the global south!

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Aidan Barlow @aidanbarlow.bsky.social · 20/09/2023

I've decided that for my first post on bluesky I'll give the people what they want: photos of my cat!

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