Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

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Other clear ethical breaches, such as giving a person’s first name and circumstances, or speculating on their HIV status, are similarly alarming. Academic researchers spend hours drafting their ethics applications, usually undertaking further revisions to finally secure ethics approval. They establish protocols for engaging with vulnerable respondents and sensitive topics, and ensure that both consent and confidentiality provisions are extended to everyone who participates in their research. I’m struggling with the author’s final thoughts: “Lasting change is best achieved when the voices of those who are exploited are able to speak for themselves and are heard when they do so.” I do agree with his plea for accountability, rather than “zero-tolerance policies and hollow PR” focusing on human rights violations. One of his solutions may seem unattainable - “treat the artisanal miners as equal employees to the people who work at corporate headquarters.” My 30 years dedicated to post conflict development aid assistance in regions states fragile fraught affords me the following thinkings—the developing world has undergone tremendous changes—overall poverty has fallen, people live longer and healthier lives, and economies have been transformed—And yet some States have simply missed the boat. None of this is benign. Blinkered in his pursuit of the greater good, it is clear that Kara failed to sufficiently think through – or to see as something that matters – the implications of producing this sort of book. His core assumption is that generating attention will have positive effects, but the sensationalism of his narrative could just as easily have negative consequences.

I want now to understand how consumers can make an impact. It is too morally easy to accept that the politically and financially powerless Congolese will be able to pressure for better wages and safe work conditions.

Featured Reviews

An incisive investigative reporting of the human toll and brutality caused by our need for the latest and greatest technologies in our smart phones and cars. The author does not report from afar or from a library reading reports, this author visits the mines in the Congo at great risk and peril to him and exposes the horrific conditions and practices in "artisanal" mining and the use of children as labor. "Artisanal" for us conjures images of artisans working their craft in a beautiful bespoke way (and we tend to buy brands that promote artisanal methods. My view of this has changed forever when I learned that artisanal mining is the most dangerous, difficult form of mining using hand tools to extract cobalt and other minerals. I hope this book has the intended effect of being a call to action for the corporations who are benefiting from this and turning a blind eye to what is really happening in the pursuit of precious minerals. It should also be a wak The price of lithium batteries has superseded the cost of human labor to mine cobalt. This is one of the factors that is crucial to the investigative conditions of geospatial mining that affects the chilling effects of its global distribution. The colonial mindset of Cobalt Red makes for a disturbing read. While Kara accurately identifies many of the issues and actors at play, he greatly oversimplifies the analysis into binaries of victims and villains. The Congolese miners are portrayed as helpless and suffering, while most of the other characters possess a generally malevolent agency. The history of the Congo is one of exploitation since Europeans found a way into the interior of Africa. It’s political leaders exploited the country’s wealth. It has little infrastructure. The mining companies forced populations off their lands. They had little recourse but to work in small scale mining. Allow me this sharing of insight following my return from DRCongo where I was privileged in conversation with Members of CENI Leadership concomitant with Members of Tapis Rouge Red Carpet—DRCongo Gangster Oligarchy exercising power privilege within mien exploitation extraction—not in service to the peoples living functioning in despair.

To obtain the testimonies included in this book, I devoted as much time as possible listening to the stories of those living and working in the mining provinces. Some spoke for themselves; others spoke for the dead. I followed institutional review board (IRB) protocols for human subject research during all my interviews with artisanal miners and other informants. These protocols are designed to protect sources from negative consequences for participating in research and include securing informed consent prior to conducting an interview, not recording any personal identifying information, and ensuring that any written or typed notes always remained in my possession. These procedures are especially important in the Congo, where the dangers of speaking to outsiders cannot be overstated. Most artisanal miners and their family members did not want to speak with me for fear of violent reprisals.Rarely has a book had such a profound effect on my views of the world, but Siddharth Kara’s writing grabbed hold of my heart and twisted it throughout this eye-opening read. At first I was staggered by the heaviness of the data presented, but then I was drawn into the horrors of these artisanal miners lives and my heart broke for them.

EVs are hailed as the future of transportation, to protect the world from carbon emissions. Yet the quantity of cobalt required for EV batteries is a significant issue. Is the human cost of mining cobalt worth the benefits? And is there enough cobalt in the Congo or elsewhere? The New York Times review about the book asks, “How Is Your Phone Powered? Problematically.” Siddharth Kara’s “Cobalt Red” takes a deep dive into the horrors of mining the valuable mineral — and the many who benefit from others’ suffering. Imagine an entire population of people who cannot survive without scrounging in hazardous conditions for a dollar or two a day. There is no alternative there. The mines have taken over everything.Although conditions for the Congo’s cobalt miners remain exceedingly bleak, there is nevertheless cause to be hopeful. Awareness of their plight is growing and, with it, hope that their voices will no longer call out into an abyss but into the hearts of the people at the other end of the chain, who are able to see at last that the blood-caked corpse of that child lying in the dirt is one of their own. This nonfiction book will make you stop and think about the impact our lives have on others around the world. The book explores the impact of cobalt mining on the people of Democratic Republic of the Congo. Cobalt is used in the rechargeable devices we all use. Kara investigates its Pyrrhic victory as it exploits the ignoble labor of the miners. Kara’s ability to interview those who work the mines is to his credit but it caused emotional and perhaps physical harm to those who were willing to discuss these conditions and to Kara as well.