How ethical is ethicality? Cultural interpretations along the ethical Canadian diamond supply chain

Abstract

The mining industry has been overwhelmed by concerns related to both soil and water pollution and unethical management of work organization and human rights. Tracing the cultural interpretations of the concept of ethics related to the Canadian diamonds, this contribution problematizes the meanings of the certification of Canadian ethical diamonds and their traceability along the supply chain. Specifically, the author highlights that the further away from the Canadian mining context the sharper the concept of ethicality embodied in the Canadian diamonds, thanks to advertising narratives, while the closer to the investigation context, the more the concept of ethicality becomes blurred, heterogeneous, fragmented and difficult to understand. In particular, the contribution is based on a multi-sited and multi-scale ethnographic research in Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, and in an Italian jewellery store that sells diamonds extracted in the Canadian region. The author noticed that the Italian interviewees who sell and purchase Canadian diamonds are loyal to the advertising rhetoric on Canadian ethical diamonds, whereas particular professional categories employed by the multinationals in the mining context in the Northwest Territories avoided talking about ethical diamonds. The contribution aims to understand the meaning of this reticence in the mining context analysed.