Transparency: Qualities and Technologies of Global Gemstone Trading

In the first decade of this century, diamonds and other conflict-laden gemstones spearheaded a global trend toward transparency. Despite the growing pervasiveness of transparency in business strategies, it remains an understudied social practice. Rather than assuming that the category of transparency is itself transparent, this research is an ethnographic investigation of transparency in the diamond sector. Part of a larger research project on transparency in the mineral sector led by my host Dr. Filipe Calvão (Graduate Institute of Development, Geneva) and my supervisor Dr. Lindsay Bell (Western University), my proposed research will have me working alongside mineral appraisers, evaluators and traders in Antwerp Belgium. I will use qualitative research strategies to identify how people in the gemstone industry learn to evaluate and standardize transparent stones, companies, and producing countries. I expect to co-author a peer—reviewed publication on transparency with my supervisor as a final output of the research.

Faculty Supervisor:

Lindsay Bell

Student:

Partner:

Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

Western University

Program: