Paper short abstract:

Taking the recent shift of extractive business towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ‘good governance’ in Arica as a given, I propose to study the desirability and actual effects (or non-effects) of ‘positive’ corporate engagement from the perspectives of local Africans.

Paper long abstract:

The manifold negative (side-)effects natural resource extraction has on local environmental, societal, economic and political dynamics in areas of weak or limited statehood are well-documented. Despite the recent shift of scholarly attention towards the study of corporate actors as 'norm entrepreneurs' or 'co-producers of governance', much less is known about the impacts of 'positive' corporate engagement, i.e. of activities which are inspired by corporate social responsibility (CSR) and 'good' governance agendas. Their effects are rarely analyzed in a systematic manner, nor is the desirability of the promoted values and policies critically evaluated from the perspectives of their declared beneficiaries: 'ordinary' people who live off, on, or in proximity of the land utilized by corporate core business operations in the African periphery (local Africans). In an effort to contribute to the closure of this research gap, I suggest to study the effects of corporate engagement from the perspectives of local Africans. Following this is a conceptualization of corporate impact as locally experienced change over time regarding a) (household) development and b) (inter-group) conflict dynamics. My conceptualization is based on the available literature on impact assessment in development studies and justice-related conflicts about natural resource exploitation. I illustrate the analytical usefulness of my approach to the study of corporate impacts by drawing from first results of (ethnographic) field research, which I have undertaken at three selected mining sites across Kenya in 2012.