Paper short abstract:

This paper, based on an ethnographic study of gold mining in the territory of Mambasa in the North East of the DRC, will identify the lessons of extraversion that are being constructed between Chinese operators and Congolese actors at different scales and temporalities.

Paper long abstract:

This contribution will mobilise an ethnographic reading of gold extraction by Chinese companies for almost a decade in the Mambasa territory in the North-East of the DR Congo. The objective of this ethnographic reading of gold extraction is to allow for lessons to be learned in relation to the types of extraversion that are being constructed with Congolese actors at various scales, with a view to the aesthetic (legitimating narratives), political, economic, ecological and technological domains. The understanding of extraversion will focus on the strategic modes of instrumentalisation of public, private, associative and community actors by Chinese entrepreneurs in search of minerals (gold in particular) in the Mambasa territory in the North-East of the DRC. In view of the ecological and economic disasters posed by the Chinese presence in the Mambasa mines, the analysis of extraversion will make it possible to understand the strategies of subjugation and dependence by reshaping the past, present and future of regional and global mining governance. The analysis of contestation, diversion, denunciation, grievance and popular resistance will enable the study to better understand the real issues at stake, beyond the narratives of extraversion. The careful study of extractivist projects led by Chinese actors will be criticized in its double discourse as they are sometimes perceived as new colonialist invaders, sometimes as allies of an economic revival of Africa in its insertion into international trade.