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Colonial and corporate exploration geology in the region was built upon the ritual knowledge, gold discoveries, and skilled labor of African miners even as states racialized African mining as archaic, criminal, and pagan. Spanning the medieval and imperial past to the postcolonial present, d’Avignon weaves together long-term ethnographic and oral historical work in southeastern Senegal with archival and archeological evidence from Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Mali. A Ritual Geology introduces transnational geological formations as a new regional framework for African studies, environmental history, and anthropology.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9781478018476","publication_date":"20220826","publisher":"Duke University Press","slug":"a-ritual-geology","subtitle":"Gold and Subterranean Knowledge in Savanna West Africa","title":"A Ritual Geology"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"HIS001050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"West African History","score":0.7362,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"SOC002010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"How Cultures Work","score":0.7131,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"SOC008010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"African Studies","score":0.7123,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"HIS001050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"West African History","score":0.7362,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"SOC002010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"How Cultures Work","score":0.7131,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"SOC008010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"African Studies","score":0.7123,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"SOC002010","confidence_band":"high","label":"How Cultures Work","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"West African History","score":0.7362,"slug":"west-african-history"},{"label":"How Cultures Work","score":0.7131,"slug":"how-cultures-work"},{"label":"African Studies","score":0.7123,"slug":"african-studies"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in African mining history and subterranean knowledge","Readers of African studies, environmental history, or anthropology"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Rosalind C. 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