Paper short abstract:

This paper presents three sets of divergent and competing understandings of temporalities in relation to the extractive industry boom (and bust) in Mozambique, thereby exploring the disconnects between "development" and resource extraction.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents three sets of divergent and competing understandings of temporalities in relation to the resource boom (and recent coal bust) in Mozambique, in order to further explore the complexities of expectations of "development" raised by mega projects of the extractive industry. As it is based on data gathered during recent exploratory fieldwork in the capital Maputo and Tete, it specifically concerns the current development of a liquefied gas park in the north of the country, and-more in depth-the struggling coal industry in Tete.

The first set of understandings involves a forward-looking, long-term view of the extractive industry's potential to bring transformational development to Mozambique, generally expressed by donors, academics and the extractive industry from "Maputo." The second set is characterised by expressions of volatility and "waiting" by Tete's urban elite, the businessmen and women who were lured by the promise of the coal-bonanza, and who explained the landscape and urban development in terms of before, during and after "the boom". The third set delves into the experience and expressions of liminality by community-members who were resettled by coal-mining companies in Tete (being in-between government and company, in-between settling and wanting to get away).

While by no means exhaustive, I hope that by presenting three sets, the paper goes beyond binary analyses of the local versus the national, and the community versus the company or state, and to add to the layered analyses of disconnect between understandings of "development" and the promised wealth of resource extraction.