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- Convenors:
-
Jan Sändig
(University of Bayreuth)
Jana Hönke (Universityät Bayreuth)
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- Chair:
-
Jan Sändig
(University of Bayreuth)
- Discussants:
-
Muriel Côte
(Lund University)
Jan Bachmann (University of Gothenburg)
Asebe Regassa Debelo (University of Zurich)
- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Political Economy of Extractivism
- Location:
- S62 (RW I)
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 1 October, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
Seeing the recent investment boom in Africa, the panel examines how the many new infrastructure, extractivist, and other projects become contested. From an interdisciplinary perspective, a key question is how these contestations reshape business, politics, and society in Africa (and beyond)?
Long Abstract:
There has been a wave of large-scale investment projects in Africa lately: new ports, pipelines, plantations, mines, urban transit systems, railways, and special economic zones pop up across the continent. The "new scramble for Africa” is driven by diverse corporate and state interests, amongst others from China, Brazil, India, and Western countries. However, virtually all these investments become contested in one way or another. Local communities and civil society groups on the ground regularly mount resistance over rights violations. African governments increasingly use resource nationalism discourse, revise land laws, and adopt local content policies. Meanwhile, transnational activists challenge the companies “at home”, Western legislators endorse supply chain regulation, and companies respond through corporate social responsibility initiatives.
The panel invites papers that examine these African and global entanglements with a particular focus on contestation and its consequences. We aim for better understanding a set of interrelated questions: How do contentious actions, controversies, and political struggles over infrastructure, extractivist, and other investment projects unfold? How do state actors, corporations, and regional organizations position themselves and address the tide of contention? Perhaps most importantly, how do these struggles reshape business, politics, and society in Africa (and beyond)? We welcome contributions from various (inter)disciplinary perspectives, including political science, sociology, social and cultural anthropology, economics, international relations, and more.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 1 October, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
The last four decades have seen a development boom at Kenya’s northern frontier. The construction of the Isiolo International Airport exacerbated boundary conflicts as it was built on already disputed land and along the boundary of Meru and Isiolo counties.
Paper long abstract:
The last four decades have seen a development boom at Kenya’s northern frontier and the gateway to the north, especially in Isiolo County. The rapid socio-economic changes within Isiolo municipality are due to proposed large-scale development projects such as the Isiolo International Airport and the completed Isiolo‒Moyale highway, both components of the proposed Lamu Port, South Sudan, Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET). However, such developments create contestations and competition between the development ventures and the nomadic pastoral communities in Isiolo County. The paper shows that large-scale land use changes in Isiolo County, like the construction of the international airport affecting the nomadic pastoralists, exacerbated the contestations between the Kenyan government and the communities in Wabera ward and Ngaremara ward. With the airport having been built on already disputed land and along the boundary of Meru and Isiolo counties, this has triggered land tenure insecurity and conflicts associated with the compensation process between the two major communities—Borana and Meru ethnic groups along that boundary. The conundrum is that Isiolo land is not registered but under communal or customary tenure, leading to land speculation and grabbing. The north, which connects the highlands through the pastoral corridor in Isiolo, has been neglected since Kenya’s independence through policy initiatives that focused on economic development in geographical spaces supporting horticultural production.
Paper short abstract:
As Chinese mining projects have soared in Africa lately, we compare local and transnational struggles against Chinese and Western mining companies. Based on protest event data from Guinea and the DRC, we find notable differences of contention, showing that the investor's country of origin matters.
Paper long abstract:
There has been a “boom” of Chinese mining (and other) investments in Africa lately. While scholars documented certain particularities of Chinese investment, they found that Chinese miners face similar contestations as those from other regions. These studies, however, have some data weaknesses that we aim to address. In a protest event analysis, we compare major mining investments from Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) regarding protest frequency, tactics, and contentious interactions. We find that, although the contention is resembling in many ways, there are notable differences of how Chinese and Western mining companies become contested. These differences are due to the respective mining stages, corporate practices, and political opportunity structures. Hence, we show that the investor’s country of origin is a relevant (yet so far neglected) factor to understand the contention against large-scale investment projects.
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the adaptation of corporate practices by Chinese companies and professionals in three industrial mining projects in Guinea. It argues that the controversies have spurred the seeking of authority over dispossession and the cultivation of corporate disciplinary power through CSR.
Paper long abstract:
This paper analyzes the adaptation of corporate practices by Chinese companies and professionals in the midst of contested large-scale industrial mining projects. Specifically, it examines how these professionals adapt corporate practices, particularly in the areas of land acquisition and corporate social responsibility (CSR), in response to evolving expectations, frustrations and contestation on the ground. The study approaches the adaptation of these practices by zooming in on how Chinese professionals perceive and interpret unfolding situations, and zooming out to understand how and which practices are enacted. The paper draws on three greenfield bauxite mining projects in Guinea, where Chinese professionals play an important role in their operations. It argues that despite the divergence in practice performance between different Chinese-invested projects, the controversies surrounding these investments have spurred the seeking of authority over dispossession and the cultivation of corporate disciplinary power. In doing so, the paper uncovers a range of practices through which corporate actors assert authority in the midst of conflict and negotiation to secure their foothold on the land and carry out land acquisition. At the same time, it shows how CSR is translated into a disciplinary mechanism and used to mitigate conflict, cultivate local acceptance and align business operations with the socio-political fabric of the host society. It provides insights into how Chinese companies adapt to investment controversies, thereby contributing to broader debates on transnational governance and multinational corporate practice in Africa.
Paper short abstract:
How do Chinese firms and the Chinese state in infrastructure construction adapt to African politics? To answer this question, I process-trace the involvement of Chinese firms with the Chinese state’s coordination in a specific case, the construction of Konza Technopolis in Kenya.
Paper long abstract:
How do Chinese firms and the Chinese state in infrastructure construction adapt to African politics? To answer this question, I process-trace the involvement of Chinese firms with the Chinese state’s coordination in a specific case, the construction of Konza Technopolis in Kenya, a flagship project in Kenya Vision 2030 to establish a futuristic technology city. This investigation dialogues with burgeoning studies on African agency demonstrating Chinese infrastructure construction being caught up in the politics of African states. However, it transfers the perspective from how Chinese activities being conditioned to the adaptations of the Chinese state and firms to Kenyan politics. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with five key informants from 64 interviewees during a three-month field trip to Kenya in 2022 and secondary news on the Konza construction and operations of Chinese companies. In this paper, I disaggregate how the participations and operations of Chinese firms in the Konza construction and the Chinese state’s coordination to direct or support these firms are contingent on the politics constituted by the president and bureaucratic officials of the Kenyan government.