This study examines the ways in which unofficial cooperative practices hamper the effectiveness of official cooperative legislation as an expression of informal norms within mining cooperatives in South Kivu, in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The study is based on interviews and the observation of the practices of small-scale miners when setting up and running their mining cooperatives. The study of the normative organisation of mining cooperatives can contribute to reflection on a participative reform of public policies in order to improve governance in the mining sector in the DRC.

The purpose of this article is to evaluate from a legal and critical perspective the recognition of regional languages by the introduction, in July 2008, of article 75-1 in the French Constitution of 1958. The author evaluates the impact of the reference to regional languages; the contributions of this state recognition; its symbolic, psychological, and legal effects; and also its limits. Without calling into question the benefits of the state recognition process, the author concludes that a simultaneous self-recognition by the speakers themselves and by the non-speaker members of local communities is also necessary.