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- Convenors:
-
Nikkie Wiegink
(Utrecht University)
Tessa Diphoorn (Utrecht University)
Lars Buur (Roskilde University)
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- Stream:
- Social Anthropology
- Location:
- Appleton Tower, Lecture Theatre 3
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 12 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel focuses on corporate sovereignty and seeks to unpack how corporations exercise and negotiate power across the African continent.
Long Abstract:
In this panel we discuss connections and disruptions in relation to corporate power on the African continent. Drawing on de facto sovereignty as a conceptual approach to understand how (non-state) actors execute power and perform a range of functions that are traditionally associated with the state, we aim to explore corporate sovereignty as both a conceptually and empirically insightful notion. We want to explore how corporations engage in hard and soft forms of power-making, including the ability to exercise power over life, death, and conditions of existence. But rather than understanding the corporation as an all-powerful actor, we are interested in the way that corporate sovereignty is strongly situated in relation to the state and how it is struggled over and co-constructed with state actors and others, in formal and less formal ways. We invite papers to take up corporate sovereignty as a notion to inform debates about corporate power and to interrogate the comparative value of this concept in creating political communities at different scales and contexts across the African continent.
We welcome papers that address (but are not limited to) the following topics: how corporate entities negotiate, struggle over, establish, and maintain sovereign power; how corporate power shapes the everyday lives of people; comparisons between different private sectors or geographical contexts; the role of transnational forces and dynamics in molding corporate power; the role of African states in legislating, monitoring, and permitting corporate sovereignty dynamics; comparisons between public-private entities and multinational corporations and how they exercise power.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 12 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
This paper shows the changes of an oil corporation throughout years of involvement in oil extraction in an African context.It explains the way sovereignty is enacted by showing the merging of traditional tactics of extractive corporations in dealing with "disturbances", with local forces.
Paper long abstract:
Tullow Oil has been working for almost 7 years in Turkana, Kenya. The oil operations have been slowed down by financial, global-economic reasons but also by a continuous struggle between the corporation, the local pastoralists and the politicians over consensus, power and resource access. This paper shows how the corporation has changed throughout these years, not only through its approach to CSR and local involvement but also through the way it tries to understand local practices, knowledge and legacies. Tullow, in fact, has shown not only to follow standardized procedures in the field when dealing with "disturbances", but also a degree of flexibility, which has affected both the operative system and as well the culture of the corporation. This paper has two goals: first to unpack the black box traditionally given to explain the changing tactics and agendas of corporations in their forms of power-making, especially in the extractive sector operating in African context. Second,the paper asks to what extents are these common explanations or frames to understand the unfolding of decision-making performed by the corporations useful. Through the case study of Turkana, I argue that, even though an historical perspective explaining socio-political and economic background on which the corporation enacts its sovereignty should be explained, this is rather not enough. The changing of the corporation as appearing in its decision-making is also very much affected by the merging of the local forces with those of the corporation in creating new and exciting forms of a "syncretic oil complex".
Paper short abstract:
This comparative study of twenty mines in five different African countries explores why large mining companies are incorporating health impact assessments in their projects when it is not required by law. Our findings points to the salience of private governance regime in driving company behaviour.
Paper long abstract:
Many large-scale mining companies conduct environmental impact assessments (EIA) and worldwide countries have established legal requirement that an EIA must be done preceding large projects. Although an equally salient issues, the impact of large projects on public health has received comparatively less attention and health impact assessment (HIA) is not a legal requirement in any African country. Still we observe that some companies are considering the impact of their projects on public health, sometimes mitigating adverse effects and even investing in health promoting projects. In this paper we ask why certain companies chose to take a HIA approach in their project. We propose that divergent corporate behaviour can be explained partly by the different private governance regimes such as strategic social accountability mechanisms and investor guidelines, that companies ascribe to. Yet, because companies who ascribe to similar regimes also perform differently we also examine a number of intervening variables, including company size, home country, host government relations, and shareholders. Our study includes a longitudinal component as we incorporate impact of legacy, i.e. ownership of mines over time. To answer our research question we conduct a qualitative comparative analysis of twenty mines in four different African countries informed by primary data analysis of company documents. Our paper contributes by being the first to explain companies divergent behaviour when it comes to HIA in a comparative perspective. It furthermore contributes by explaining the weight of private governance regimes, which is an increasingly salient subject facing companies also beyond the extractive sector.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on ongoing ethnographic research in northeastern Ethiopia, this paper explores how a multinational fertilizer company affect the formation and scope of aid and state policies in the Ethiopian periphery.
Paper long abstract:
The proliferation of private actors operating in the name of development in the global South is affecting not only governments' own policies and priorities but also western donors' regulatory hold over what development is and how it ought to be done. This has ramifications for policymaking processes, which at the state level is a sovereign governmental responsibility, and in development aid is a practice attributed the concept of partnership governing the relation between donor and recipient institutions. As public and private interests coalesce, the principles and practices governing the distinct spheres of the state, NGOs and private actors appear to lose their regulatory hold.
The paper draws on ongoing, ethnographic research in Ethiopia's northeastern Afar region. Here, in Abala, a Norwegian NGO has just started a project in support of the local vocational training college since a multinational fertilizer company is about to establish a huge potash mine and thus is in need for skilled, local labour to build and operate the mine. The government is susceptible to the potash company as it will convert agro-pastoralists into wage labourers, and enhance access to much needed foreign exchange. Consequently, the government has promised infrastructure investments to help realise the project (electrical grids, road construction involving Chinese contractors).
Using the NGO project as the analytical entry point, the paper provides an extended case study of how corporate powers affect the formation and scope of aid and state policies in the Ethiopian periphery.
Paper short abstract:
Seven years after a Western-European agribusiness purchased 40,000 hectares of land in Zambia, it is evident that the company has not lived up to its promises. This situation, however, offers insights into corporate sovereignty and interactions between corporations and the (Zambian) state.
Paper long abstract:
Seven years after a Western-European agribusiness purchased 40,000 hectares of land in Zambia's Central Province, it is evident that the company has not lived up to its promises. Not only has it put less land into production than planned, and provided less employment than expected, recent financial problems have also impacted the company's potential for success. The company's uncertain situation, however, provides relevant insights concerning corporate sovereignty and interactions between corporations and the (Zambian) state.
In disputes between the company, employees, and rural residents, primarily resulting from delays in making payments and fulfilling commitments, government officials had to intervene on a number of occasions. As the state also needs support of its citizens for legitimacy, it cannot be perceived as accepting corporate wrongdoing and ignoring its citizens' interests. Though there are significant differences, especially with powerful mining corporations being able to evade responsibility, the Western-European agribusiness recognizes its vulnerability, in particular because it has little business success to show for itself. At the same time, however, partnerships with international NGOs and donors place the corporation in a positive light. Without financial means to sufficiently provide for its citizens, the Zambian state welcomes corporations to fill this gap. This allows corporations to somewhat 'pacify' the situation, even though there are no guarantees over its corporate sovereignty. With the state equally concerned about a discontented citizenry, agribusiness cannot take state support for granted and must constantly (re)negotiate support, thus demonstrating the everyday complexities of corporate sovereignty.
Paper short abstract:
Build upon ethnography in Equatorial Guinea this paper proposes the notion of 'the State by proxy' to address particular forms of private governance in West-Central Africa.
Paper long abstract:
The paper will ethnographically interrogate issues of governance and governmentality in contexts where the State establishes its presence through private or semi-private enterprises. It will look at how infrastructures become the evidence of state presence and how they catalyse sentiments, visions, and experiences that draw upon the islanders' histories. The examined case is that of Corisco island, in the border between Equatorial Guinea and Gabon where during the period comprised between 2008 and 2012 a Guineo-Moroccan owned construction company disembarked to build an international airport and a tourist resort. The fewer than 300 inhabitants were joined by 300 Moroccan male workers. The construction company provided fully catered service to their workers but also to the inhabitants of the island acting as a proxy of the State: providing electricity, transport between the island and the mainland, and a doctor for emergencies. The ethnography focusws on how the islanders make sense of this situation in which they remained marginal. It also accounts for the practices they engineered in order to take advantage of the resources of the company. While for the governmental elite the presence of the company in the island constitutes a claim of sovereignty around disputed international waters, for the inhabitants of the island it generates a series of anxieties and expectations. Who authorises the private company to become the proxy of the Guinean State? I argue that an ethnography of the practices and narratives of ordinary Coriscans tell us about the co-creation of governmentalities in contexts of corporate sovereignty.
Paper short abstract:
In this presentation, I discuss the strategies that a controversial agribusiness company has deployed to maintain land control and exercise corporate power in Senegal despite mediocre results and pervasive local contestation.
Paper long abstract:
In Africa, governments increasingly devolve their traditional functions of ensuring development to the private sector, notably in agriculture. However, displacements created by large-scale land acquisitions can entail profoundly disruptive consequences for customary users' livelihoods. Furthermore, to transform land into an "investable" resource turns out to be a complex task (Li 2014). Not only do host governments develop elaborate narratives to justify land dispossession for private interests (Levien 2013), but investors are increasingly wary of negative publicity and accusations of land grabbing that could be detrimental to their business (Salverda 2018) and critically depend on the state for land access. In this presentation, I discuss the strategies that a controversial agribusiness company has deployed to gain and maintain land control in Senegal despite mediocre results and pervasive local contestation. Notably, the investor has adopted a strategy of what I term "corporate polymorphism," a concept that encapsulates the company's propensity to continually modify its business mission in response to volatile state priorities. To secure popular approval, the company has also made fabulous promises of social investment to local residents. Finally, the investor has organized a vast communication campaign to profess its intended contribution to state programs and celebrate each and every accomplishment in local communities. In analysing how these maneuvers have worked to help the company keep control over its gigantic land concession despite inauspicious conditions, this presentation contributes to the nascent literature on the strategies that land investors use to exercise corporate power, manage operational failures, and counter social opposition.