Dr. Diana Ayeh is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and a MIASA Senior Fellow. Her research explores the social and justice dimensions of global sustainability transformations with a focus on company-state-community relations in West African and German (post)mining regions. In 2020 she completed her PhD on industrial gold mining and corporate responsibility in Burkina Faso at Leipzig University (Germany).
As a co-convener of IFG 11 on sustainability in West Africa’s (gold) mining sector, Diana Ayeh investigates the entanglements and ruptures between conventional and ‘green’ forms of extractivism(s). Her research project analyzes the repositioning of mining companies, investors, governments and local populations within quests and requirements for sustainability by asking what sustains extractive relations. Specifically it explores sustainability dimensions of large-scale investments into gold and lithium spaces in Ghana and Burkina Faso and how they shape sustainable futures in both countries.
Selected publications
Ayeh, D.; Zongo, T. (2024). What Does Mine Closure Mean? Some Insights from West Africa. Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa – Blog. Published online 18 July 2024. https://miasa.hypotheses.org/2733
Ayeh, D. (2023). Struggles over Resource Decentralisation: Legislative Reform, Corporate Resistance and Canadian Aid Partnerships in Burkina Faso. International Development Policy 15. https://doi.org/10.4000/poldev.5230
Ayeh, D. (2022). Le droit minier face à l’éthique de l’or: Contestations autour d’une concession minière au Burkina Faso. Revue internationale des études du développement 249, 35-62. https://doi.org/10.4000/ried.770
Ayeh, D. (2021). Spaces of Responsibility: Negotiating Industrial Gold Mining in Burkina Faso. Berlin: DE GRUYTER OLDENBOURG (Dialectics of the Global 10).
Ayeh, D., Bleicher A. (2021): One concept fits it all? On the relationship between geoethics and responsible mining. The Extractive Industries and Society 8 (3), 100934. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2021.100934
