Department of Language and Linguistic Science

Galamsey in Ghana

Posted on 12 December 2018

Paul Kerswill has been awarded a grant for a multidisciplinary project on gold mining in Ghana.

Along with colleagues from the University of Ghana and York’s Department of Environment and Geography and Department of History, Paul Kerswill has been awarded £34,000 from the University of York’s government-funded Global Challenges Research Fund to investigate environmental, health and social issues arising from small-scale gold mining in Ghana. This kind of mining is known as ‘galamsey’ (linguistic note: ‘galamsey’ is thought to derive from English ‘gather them and sell’) and is often illegal. It involves over one million miners and accounts for 30% of the country’s gold output. Galamsey is extremely harmful to both environment and health, and poses great safety risks.

Paul will team up with colleagues from the University of Ghana’s School of Languages to design protocols for interviews and focus groups with people involved in galamsey. The linguistic analysis will look at which languages are used, given that there are many migrants (Akan, other Ghanaian languages, English), as well as examining how ‘galamseyers’ conceptualise their activities and assess the risks involved. This will be done by studying, for example, their use of metaphors and proverbs. This will form part of ‘scenario mapping’ – a way of getting people to consider alternative futures for themselves. The project runs from January to July 2019.