From Traces to Carpets: Unravelling Labour Practices in the Mines of Sierra Leone

In the diamond mines of Sierra Leone, the exchange of knowledge and experience between workers and other social actors involved in this extractive sector has contributed significantly to the hybridisation of mining practices. Thus, the variety and complexity of mining practices and work agreements is astonishing. How does one explain the morphogenesis of the different working practices that coexist in this specific context? In addressing this question, this chapter focus on two alternative approaches: van der Linden’s global labour history and Ginzburg’s microhistory. It aims to examine the limits of these two approaches and develop an alternative view. To this end, it shows how textile metaphors inspired by Wittgenstein’s later works are useful when considering the space-temporal entanglement of Sierra Leone’ mining labour practices.