Rumors of Red Mercury: Histories of Materiality and Sociality in the Resources of Kitui, Kenya

ABSTRACTThe article offers a historical ethnographic analysis of a rumor of a resource in the Kitui district of Kenya that was heard during fieldwork on water development practices and technologies. This rumor dealt with a substance known as red mercury, an elusive material that was said to appear as a resource at particular historical and geographical locations. I unravel the details and complexities of this rumor in order to demonstrate how it signifies a particular reflection on the sociality of resource mobilization in the development encounter. This article elaborates how theories of materiality can help to understand the historical embeddedness and particular material qualities of red mercury. It uses the rumor of resources to differentiate the complexities of value and materiality in resources and commodities. [Keywords: Materiality, sociality, resources, rumor, Kitui, Kenya, red mercury]F o re i g n L a n g u a g e Tr a n s l a t i o n s :Rumors of Red Mercury: Histories of Materiality and Sociality in the Resources of Kitui, Kenya[Keywords: Materiality, sociality, resources, rumor, Kitui, Kenya, red mercury]Rumores de Mercurio Vermelho: Historias de Materialidade e Socialidade nos Recursos de Kitui, Quenia[Palavras-chave: Materialidade, socialidade, recursos, rumor, Kitui, Quenia, mercurio vermelho]...(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Contrary to many commodities, natural resources seldom appear to us as finished objects that can be exchanged or on which meaning can be imputed. Projects that seek to extract resources often transform the physical nature of the resource, or it could even be that the attempt of extraction fails and the substance remains absent. Most of the theory about resources engages with the becoming of resources, the moment of discovery or their post extraction economy (see Bakker and Bridge 2006 for a critique). In this article, I argue, as Ferry and Limbert (2008) have done, that a focus on the delay, absence, or nonappearance of resources can bring new insights to what a resource is; what we talk about when we describe resources; and how desire, skepticism, and uncertainties over projects of resource mobilization can be part of the histories of these materials. I call these histories of materiality and sociality, because the desire, skepticism, and uncertainty over the presence or absence of resources not only evokes the idea of that resource for a short time, it also becomes part of the landscape and entangled with the other resources: absence has effect. To address these issues, I describe a resource of which its existence as such is questionable because the substance was usually only spoken about in rumors. These rumors described a substance of fabulous value that actively resists extraction, allegedly confusing and misguiding the men who wanted to extract it. These men were said to look for a substance called red mercury, which was allegedly found (among other places) in the Kitui district of Kenya. True or not, a focus on what the rumor tells us about the history of development and extraction in the Kitui district provides a unique view on the intricacies of resource materiality and resource mobilization as a historical project.During my fieldwork in the Kitui district, people described how red mercury oozed from cracks in the rocks around sacred groves or shrines (mathembo) in remote and inaccessible hills. Other accounts described how colonial officers had hidden mercury in the hills, underneath triangulation beacons or other peculiar devices that were used for the demarcation and improvement schemes in the district. In the rumor, people from Kitui described how certain men, such as development workers and similar passing and transient elites, went to these hills to "capture" (kukwata in the local language of Kikamba) the mercury to become fabulously rich. However, the men looking for red mercury were said to be deterred by the occult powers associated with the Akamba shrines-powers that protected the mercury from being harvested. …