Lance van Sittert implies that Hecht assumped that because this was Africa, no archive would exist. This is in line with broader discourse about "no data in Africa" as noted elsewhere.
This polemic critique of Gabrielle Hecht's archiving practices by Lance van Sittert asks how her approach is any different from the mine management that she critiques. He questions whether there really was no correspondence with the mine beforehand to establish the existence of an archive on site or if her assumption was that because this was Africa, no archive would exist. He notes that fifteen years after Hecht’s hasty scavenging, the Mounana mine archive is no more. He critiques her for not archiving or saving any of the materials for future researchers to use.