ABSTRACT
In 2006 the iron mines in Marampa Chiefdom, in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone, re-opened. This event sparked a widespread feeling of excitement and hope among the local population, and gave rise to a landscape of expectations in which memories of both relative prosperous and “dark” pasts were invoked and imaginations of a better future flourished. However, soon after the re-opening and initial development of the mines, it appeared that the expected opportunities would not materialize everywhere and for everybody. Frustration, disappointment and loss of hope became part and parcel of the dynamics in this place, which is seen as a hot-spot, a notion that is applied to highlight the numerous frictions and negotiations within this investment landscape. This paper examines this momentum of rising expectations in the hot-spot by scrutinizing its connection to the area's recent past of boom and bust, the increased global demand for raw materials, especially from China, national development agendas and life-cycles of mining operations. Subsequently, some spatial and social dynamics of accelerated change in Marampa will be discussed. Exploring these dynamics allows to see accelerated change in these investment landscapes from a diverse angle. Through highlighting these temporal, spatial and social dynamics of change in the hot-spot, the paper argues that overheating, a phenomenon often associated with accelerated change, may play out not only as a result of accelerated change, but also as a result of deceleration and the experience of being excluded from the potential opportunities of change.
