Fabricating the Integrity of Gold in Refineries

Gold refineries are under pressure to revise their understanding of “integrity” beyond the physical cohesion gold products, in order integrate supply chain due diligence on human rights, labour conditions, and conflict financing as part what can be coined ethical integrity gold. This article interrogates how processes erasure, through material purification refining process, disclosure, certification against “responsible” standards, reconciled within one expanded notion integrity. By paying specific attention digitizing this endeavour, it argues that, while limited its role a transparency device, digitization fosters new uses gold, making more liquid, rapidly tradable, potentially speculative. These digital fetishes open fields value, not out itself but traces, which, paradoxically, artisanal ground producers selling remain poorly included so far.